THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION:
MANAGING THE HARMONY OF THE UMMAH THROUGH A
MULTICULTURAL APPROACH
Introduction
Religion has always been the spirit for the growth and development of human
civilization. Many of the great civilizations in human history have developed
because of the great role of religion. The problem is whether in the era of
globalization like today, the role of religion still exerts a strong influence on the
formation of the matrix of civilization, or on the contrary, religion is in the
"garbage box" of civilization. Very often we hear various reviews and analyses
about the relationship between religion and society in this era of globalization.
Generally, the concern that arises is about how much society is declining in
upholding religious values in their lives. One of the accused causes for the
marginalization of the role of religion in shaping society's morals is the influence
of foreign cultural values spread by communication and information technology.
People are then very familiar with the term globalization, as the root of it all.
Globalization is one day touted as the pinnacle of human history that will lead to
progress, but another day it will be accused of being the cause of all the corruption,
poverty, and moral degradation of society. Globalization is like a creepy creature
that will crush everything in front of it.
It is undeniable that in modern society that highly exalts the intellect, religion
is often a part of human life that always wants to be eliminated and even has to be
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"killed" because of its unempirical and irrational character. In the rapid
development of science, religion is considered something unscientific so that
religion becomes an eternal enemy of knowledge, and must be thrown away
because it will hinder the pace of modernity.
This modern era of religious murder was first proclaimed by Friderich
Wilhelm Nietzche with his statement that "God is dead".1 Nietzche's view then
gained support from other scientists such as Sigmund Freud, who considered
religion to be a mere human illusion and also received a welcome from Karl Marx
who stated that religion is an opium for society.2 Later, Farncis Fukuyama's thesis
in his book The End of History And The Last Man also appeared, which stated that
the end of the peak of the historical journey of human life would lead to liberal
democracy and the socio-economic system of the capitalist model.3 This thesis
clearly does not in the slightest view religion as an entity that also determines the
future of human history.
However, history also records that since Nietzche proclaimed the murder of
religion decades ago, until now, religion is still alive. Why do killings against
religion always fail and never succeed? What makes the religious endurance so
strong, despite going through a historical journey that is often unfriendly to it?
Questions like these are always interesting and encourage people to discuss the
social role of religion in the history of humanity in all ages. This paper does not
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pretend to present an in-depth description of the relationship between religion and
globalization, but only leads to a reading of the reality of religion in the midst of
modernization and globalization.
In the socio-religious context, globalization gave birth to a polycentric society
that is multi-cultural and multi-religious, a term that refers to the availability of public
space
which is open to the existence of various social identities such as culture, religion,
race, and gender in the process of equal and cooperative interaction. In this
context, globalization seems to pave the way for the creation of justice, democracy,
peace, integrity, brotherhood, and friendship in differences.
As alleged by Malcom Walter, the globalization that came along with
capitalism has brought new forces that have erased religious, political, military,
and other sources of power. Because in fact this globalization movement has
brought a new ideology that aims for all to be open and free to accept western
cultural ideologies and values, such as human rights, democracy, feminism,
liberalism, secularism and pluralism. However, in other parts of the world, there is
resistance to the current and ideology of globalization, marked by the growth of the
spirit and intolerance, namely the emergence of various primordial communities
that actually thicken the subjective consciousness of universalism and radical
exclusivism. Therefore, it is not uncommon for people to experience open conflicts
in the name of primordial identities such as this religion. Apart from the
engineering behind it all, terrible incidents have occurred in Indonesia, both the
Ambon case and the disaster that befell the Ahmadiyya group that caused victims
and claimed lives, by an attack by a group of mass organizations in the name of
religious identity. Likewise, the rise of radicalism activities in recent years as a
form of more extreme opposition. Potential conflicts also often occur in the mode
of rejection of arts that are considered to be of western culture, such as the
rejection of foreign artists or music groups lately, which are considered to have a
negative cultural influence.
Methodologically, this study is a literature study, namely a study of literature
related to socio-religious aspects and its connection with globalization. An
important part that has been highlighted is how globalization has changed the
world and one of them is the change in religious currents, where religion has
responded to the impact caused by the urgency of globalization currents.
The analysis used in this literature review is using a multicultural approach,
which is an analysis that includes experiences that shape general perceptions of age,
gender, religion, socioeconomic status, cultural identity, language, race, and those with
special needs.4 In multicultural studies and other cultural studies, the concepts of ethic
and emic will always follow them. In anthropological studies, Pike (1967) uses the
terms ethic and emic to explain two perspectives in studying multicultural behavior.
Ethic is the viewpoint in studying culture from outside the cultural system, and is the
initial approach to studying a foreign cultural system. Meanwhile, emic as a viewpoint
is a study of behavior from within the cultural system. Ethic is an aspect of life that
appears consistently in all cultures, whereas emic is an aspect of life that appears and
is true in only one particular culture.5
Method
The research method used in this paper is a descriptive research method which
is a research method that aims to describe events and occurrences objectively. This
method is aimed at solving a problem in a field. This research method is different
from other methods that tend to focus more on discussing why an event or
phenomenon occurs. The characteristics of this descriptive research reveal specifically
various social phenomena that exist in people's lives.6 The data sources used are virgin
data from relevant books and journals that can help in deepening the theoretical
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foundation.
Results and Discussion
a. Religion as a Way of Communication
Religion and globalization are 2 words that have different meanings. Different
but complementary. If we talk about religion, we must also talk about globalization,
it's just that globalization is what kind of globalization, is globalization that destroys
the existence of religion? Or rather, globalization that maintains the position of
religion in its original form. There are so many understandings in the era of
globalization that have damaged the existence of religion. The phenomenon of the
satanic verses that emerged in 1989 still leaves deep wounds for Muslims, the key to
the problem of "Satanic verses" for some Muslims is the great global pressure that
leads to the relativization of religion and the identity of cultural groups as a cost to be
paid due to the annexation of the global system.
Another substantial problem that can be traced as following Niklas Luhman's
ideas is what distinguishes socially, especially from psychological problems, is
communication. The social system consists of various communications which means
situations in which one person transmits meaningful information to another party
leading to the understanding of meaning. This kind of thinking has two important
implications. First, the elements of the social system are not people, but the
communication that is generated by that person. Second, related to religious issues,
when discussed sociologically, it means that there are various types of
communication.
In understanding religious entities in the primary, there must be an
understanding that religion is something that goes beyond normal, everyday things,
and something that is easily taken for granted. With this understanding, religion is no
matter how radically or fundamentally it must condition the existence of mankind.
For this reason, Peter Beyer prefers to use the concept or terminology of
immanence/transcendence as a dichotomous label for religion. Immanent means the
whole world, the reality that is perceptible as a whole, the whole meaning that can be
communicated among humanity. While the transcendence means the opposite pole of
the immanent thing. Giving the immanent in the context of overall meaning. In this
understanding, the transcendent acts as the condition that allows the existence of the
immanent. Meanwhile, communication on the basis of meaning is always immanent,
even though the subject of communication is transcendent. Religion thus operates
with sacred symbols that radically transcend the immanent and transcendent. Religion
simultaneously runs between the immanent and the transcendent.
Religion places the transcendent to give the world meaning to the immanent.
The transcendent then becomes a potential solution to all the important problems of
life in the immanent world. In order to present meanings including the meaning of
suffering and evil and further offer the power to overcome the world's problems,
religion occupies the possibility of communicating between human life and the
transcendent. Religion treats the transcendent as a social partner.
The tradent thing is logically structured beyond the human social world and
what is perceived. However, the transcendent cannot be accessed through special
forms of communication. The conclusion is that religion is a type of communication
that lies in the polarity between the immanent/transcendent. The function of religion
is to provide meaning to the root of all human communication which has infinite
meaning. Through religion, a way to overcome or at least regulate the infinity and
various consequences of human life itself is also offered.
In this understanding, the transcendent acts as the condition that allows the
existence of the immanent. Meanwhile, communication on the basis of meaning is
always immanent, even though the subject of communication is transcendent.
Religion thus operates with sacred symbols that radically transcend the immanent and
transcendent. Religion simultaneously runs between the immanent and the
transcendent.7
Religion places the transcendent to give the world meaning to the immanent.
The transcendent then becomes a potential solution to all the important problems of
life in the immanent world. In order to present meanings including the meaning of
suffering and evil and further offer the power to overcome the world's problems,
religion occupies the possibility of communicating between human life and the
transcendent. Religion treats the transcendent as a social partner.
The tradent thing is logically structured beyond the human social world and
what is perceived. However, the transcendent cannot be accessed through special
forms of communication. The conclusion is that religion is a type of communication
that lies in the polarity between the immanent/transcendent. The function of religion
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is to provide meaning to the root of all human communication which has infinite
meaning. Through religion, a way to overcome or at least regulate the infinity and
various consequences of human life itself is also offered.
b. Globalization and Socio-Religious Change
The symptom of globalization is actually not a new development in society as it
is felt today, it has been symptomatic and running tens or even hundreds of years
ago.8 Since the journey of traders to travel from their country to all other countries,
the process of globalization has actually begun. When Arab traders traveled to
various countries in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, as well as when Europeans
expanded their continental exploration which eventually led to colonialism, the
process of globalization actually took place. The difference is that the globalization
that is happening today has an extraordinary intensity and speed and scope. The
globalization process that is taking place today has found its form and touched on a
broader dimension, not only for economic interests but also to touch social problems.
The process of globalization has also caused the world to feel smaller, because it is
supported by information and communication technology that is very sophisticated.
An event that has just occurred somewhere, then immediately spreads and is detected
to other parts of the continent very quickly. It is not wrong then, if Mc.Luhan calls
this world a "global village".9
Globalization at the beginning was indeed loaded with economic interests such
as colonialism. Therefore, the two are twins that cannot be separated from each
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other. In the era of physical colonialism (the era of the expansion of European
nations into Asia and Africa), its interests cannot be separated from the interests of
globalization. Although there are three groups of theories that provide answers to the
European peoples' impulse to carry out imperialism, namely the theory of God,
Glory and Gold,10 the importance of expanding economic control (Gold's theory), is
the most important goal of the expansion of colonialism. Therefore, if the main
interest of colonialism is the economic motivation and its expansion, then there is an
indirect interest in globalization in it.
Globalization is basically a process of creating an economic system based on
the liberalization of world trade supported by the development of the global financial
system and the development of transnational production based on provisions and
homogenization of value.11 The development of economic globalization then
continued, namely after colonialism physically ended at the same time as the end of
World War II. A new colonialism was also emerged and known as the era of
developmentalism is no longer in the form of physical colonialism, but through the
colonization of theories, approaches, and models of social change. Immanuel
Wallerstain, put forward a theory called "World System Theory". According to his
view, the social system is divided into three parts, namely the mini system, the world
empires, and the world economy. According to him, the world used to be dominated
by small systems or mini-systems in the form of kingdoms or other forms of
government that were not interconnected.
Then there were mergers both through military conquest and voluntarily. A
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great empire then appeared, although not to the extent of ruling the entire world, but
because of its extraordinary size compared to the previous kingdoms, this kingdom
was called the world empire, world empires. Furthermore, the development of
transportation technology and developments in other fields then gave rise to a unified
world economic system. In other words, the world economic system is the only
world system that exists. And the current world economic system is a global
economic system.
Immanuel Wallerstain, then divided the countries geographically into three
groups: Core (central country), periphery (periphery country), and semi-periphery
(semi-periphery country).12 The core difference of these three groups of countries is
the economic and political strength of each group. The core state clearly dominates
the system, because this is where capital is concentrated. The group of core
countries takes the most advantage, because this group can manipulate the world
system to some extent. Furthermore, semi-peripheral countries take advantage of the
periphery countries that are the most exploited parties. If the line of thinking as
proposed by Wallerstain is used to read the development of religion in the midst of
globalization, then the religious discourse in this world is very likely to be
influenced by the Western-oriented way of thinking. Because the countries that
currently control the world's economy and politics, or let's say according to
Wallerstain's language that plays the role of the core country, are Western European
countries with command in the hands of the United States. Religions in countries in
Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which are majority peripheral countries, will
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undergo a process of eradication. In the West, the majority of believers are
Christians and the relationship between religion and social problems is sharply
separated (secular). Naturally, due to the influence of globalization, peripheral
countries will experience the same pattern as the religious pattern in the west,
namely the spread of secularism.
However, the facts that occurred in Asian and African countries turned out to
be not linear with what Wallerstain believed. Religions in these countries do not
undergo a complete process of integration, what occurs is a process of backflow and
overlapping cultural exchanges. In the West today there are many new religions that
have found their way in the form of movements originating from Africa and Asia
through Eastern Europe.13 Christianization with the vehicle of colonialism and the
spread of secularism even experienced quite sharp opposition from various circles of
society in peripheral countries. Not infrequently this has become a source of tension
and mutual suspicion between Western society and people in poor and marginalized
countries. This is the evidence that religion is the most complex part in facing the
pressure of globalization and modernism. One could say that the existing social
system has undergone a process of reduction and change of shape due to the global
influence of countries that hold the reins of political economy. Or let's say there is a
process of uniformity of the forms of social systems in this world, such as culture,
economic systems, and political systems with systems practiced in the West, but it
must also be recognized that religion and belief systems are parts that do not easily
undergo such processes.
13.
c. Violence in the Name of Religion
Apologistically, it is very easy to say that the content of religion is basically non-
violent, and it is the believers of religion either individually or collectively, who
distort its meaning. If anyone says that religion is the source of violence, then it is
clearly epistemologically wrong, because no religion in the world has a teaching on
violence or justifies violence in the name of God. In the position of violence in the
name of God, the position of religion is actually neutral and objective, but it is
precisely in the hands of its adherents that religious truth can become subjective, full
of interest and become a riding horse for the sake of human lust. Therefore, when this
article talks about violence in the name of religion, it is not the religion itself that is in
the position of the defendant, but the human aspect that is actually responsible for the
violence, only then, the violence is in the name of religious truth and "pawns" the
majesty of God. Peter Beyer, in Religion and Globalization states that religion is a
mode of communication where the immanent communicates the transcendent, and
vice versa, the transcendent is communicated through the immanent.
According to him, the immanent is everything in this world, which is real and
can be perceived with the five senses and can be communicated by all humans. While
the transcendent is something that goes beyond what is usually seen in daily life,
cannot be perceived and is outside of human existence. However, the relationship
between the immanent and the transcendent in Beyer's view is paradoxical, because
the transcendent (beyond the normal) can only be read, understood and communicated
through the immanent, that is, through sacred symbols.14
A religious believer who claims that his religion is the most correct and leads to
salvation, then the right of other religions to exist continues to be denied. In a
pluralistic society, this kind of rejection is a declaration of war and therefore
encourages violence. In many religions, the claim of religious truth is actualized in the
form of an action to invite others who are considered to have gone astray to be
straightened out to the path of truth. What is called religious propagation is a rite to
offer religious truth to the truth of other religions (the beliefs of others). Because
others often also have their own beliefs of truth, there are clashes of truth in the name
of religion. The clash between the truths ultimately leads to domination and violence.
In the context of the relationship between religion and society, religion is also an
identity factor. Identity can be interpreted as a sense of belonging to a certain ethnicity,
national or social group which in turn provides social stability, status, worldview, and
a certain way of thinking. Religion can be one of the factors that determine the identity
of a group. When this identity is threatened or there is a concern about the loss of an
identity by another group, then in conditions like this, violence can occur at any time.
Although many conflicts and violence are initially political and economic and
religious identity plays only a secondary role, religion can be a very serious additional
role and add to the heat of conflict.
What the author wants to explain is that when a certain social system that was
initially supported by ethical arguments (religion) or certain values is destroyed and
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collapses, then behind it there will be another social system that is also supported by
other ethical values (religion). For example, recently there has been a discourse on the
need for Islam as an alternative system for the social system that can cover the
bankruptcy of the capitalist system. Such discourses will inevitably provide new
tensions in social relations. The concrete form is the increasing moral support given to
the social struggle of the oppressed with religious arguments derived from very
different prophetic teachings.
Thus, the relationship between religion and violence in the functioning of
society will always involve power. As Michael Foucoult said, power will give birth
to anti-power. Where there is power, there is always resistance, not in the sense of an
external or opposing force but because of the power itself. There is a plurality of
forms of resistance, such as power does not come from one source, just as resistance
does not come from one place. Understanding religion and power, we cannot escape
from talking about how the power of religious elites (Scholars, Ulama, Pastur, Bikhu,
and so on) influences religious interpretation. In religious traditions, there will always
be religious elites and religious masses or congregations. Religious elites are those
who have good enough religious knowledge and therefore have a mandate and
legitimacy as an "extension" of the Prophet or God. They hold full religious
interpretation and become a place for jama‟ah (followers of ordinary religions) to ask
questions and hang their religious fate before God.
However, in another fact, conflicts or differences in religious interpretation
between religious elites are very frequent. In the next stage, there are claims of truth
against religious interpretation and it is possible that there will be a battle of religious
interpretation which often leads to violence. The phenomenon of the emergence of
religious schools and sects is an example of how religious elites play the role of
agents who incite internal violence in a religion or belief system. Although such
conditions are not sterile from political and material problems, violence and
domination of power in the name of religion can sometimes be difficult to distinguish
whether it is purely political or purely religious.
The ways in which religious politicians or religious politicians work in
draining the emotions of the masses by carrying religious symbols are examples of
how religion is a field that is very popular as a political mount for power. Up to here,
once again in this position, religion is neutral and objective. Religion is innocent but
is always used as a scapegoat. Power and politics are the eternal interests of human
beings who use various means to obtain them, and one of them is to use religion as a
vehicle.
d. Religion as a Source of Meaning for Life
One of the important realities felt by mankind in this modern life is the feeling
of the absence of absolute and universal values that can be reassuring. This is because
after the enlightenment period in the Middle Ages, human reason occupied the
position of the number one and there was a process of elimination of religion,
therefore the measure of truth no longer refers to the traditional values of religion, but
refers to the measure of human rationality alone. Then these values crystallized into
the understanding of humanism. However, because human rationality has limitations
in finding what is considered right and good, those values become relative and
tentative. What is considered right and humanist, turns out to sometimes become
ammunition that overruns the values of humanity itself, the process of dehumanism
occurs.
The emergence of humanism on the historical stage was marked by the
existence of the renaissance, namely the longing for noble values from Greece and
Rome. Through the mouthpiece of the renaissance, humanism promotes human
potential beyond the limits of its nature. Humanism figurifies humans as the central
point of nature that moves towards the confirmation of humans as supermen.15
Humans who feel superior because of the discovery of science and technology
through their brilliant brains, make them even more ambitious to conquer nature as an
object that must be used as much as possible for the benefit of humans. The result that
we are witnessing now is the anger of nature that hits humans in the form of floods,
droughts, environmental pollution, energy crises, which are actually the result of
human actions themselves with the results of their inventions.
Problems that arise on the surface of life are overcome by various approach
methods that are the result of the formulation of the human brain. Humans try to think
positively by using accurate logic to answer life's problems. Regarding the problem of
death, sustenance, fate, which is close to the lifeblood of life, humans are not able to
answer it positively and creatively. How naïve humans are on this earth. He
formulated his life path through the philosophy he created, but he was trapped in the
formulation of life itself.
The real challenge in this modern century is that man is faced with a situation in
which on the one hand he has succeeded in obtaining extraordinary material progress,
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succeeding in controlling the forces of nature for his pleasure and forming an
unparalleled technological and industrial society, but on the other hand man has failed
to master his basic passion to form relationships between men based on love.
sacrifice, mutual trust, piety, and service. Family institutions are declining, public
relations are at their lowest, extortion in the economic field is becoming a reality, and
political struggles are everyday scenes. Cultural tensions have divided people, social
injustice has destroyed the soul of humanity. Man himself becomes arrogant because
he has succeeded in creating a new world, but he is really ashamed and confused
because the new world has not succeeded in making his soul happy. He succeeded in
controlling nature, but failed to control himself.
In simple terms, A.M.Saifuddin describes that modern humans display their
faces in three dimensions, namely godless humanity (humanism), godless matter
(materialism), and godless behavior (Atheism).16 As a result, humans become
alienated in the midst of technology created by them and lose meaning in searching
for the meaning of life for themselves. This kind of situation is what Paul Tillich
describes as a meaningless situation, a situation of meaninglessness in modern human
life. And the effort to be able to escape the three-dimensional siege as proposed by
A.M. Saifuddin is that humans must seek and return to religious values as the
Supreme morality for life.
An interesting picture of the alienation and the search for meaning of life carried
out by modern man is as described by Najib Mahfudz, an Egyptian author, in his short
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story entitled "Zabalawi".17 The content of this short story describes the desire of the
"I" of the main character of this short story - to find Zabalawi, someone who can treat
the pain he suffers. Long story short, the "I‟ never found a cure for the disease, but he
was instead found by Zabalawi.
This story contains a metaphor for the desire of modern man to find a spiritual
path and inner experience. In this context, it must be admitted that religion is able to
provide and offer a meaning that can cure the thirst for meaninglessness of modern
humans. In religion, it is recognized that there is an important aspect that is
categorized as holism, namely the belief in the existence of universal truths that are
not only local, but also cosmic which in technical terms is called The Heart of
Religion, which exists in every religion the search for meaning through The Heart of
Religion is an effort to always actualize religion in human life.18
This is perhaps the reason why the murder of religion by modern man always
fails, because after religion is removed, after a while man tries to yearn for and bring it
back. In the theoretical treasures of modern social sciences, religion is not only a
source of search for meaning, but religion is also often associated with the importance
of integration. This opinion was put forward by Emile Durkehim,19 in his book The
Elementary Forms 0f The Religious Life (1912), Durkheim found the essence of
religion in its function as a source and former of mechanical solidarity. He argues that
religion is a system needed by society to bind individuals into a unity through the
formation of belief systems and rites. Through sacred symbols, religion binds people
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into various groups of society.20 In the midst of the flow of globalization, one of the
effects of which is to raise awareness of local identity and the spread of ethnic
sentiment, the world is becoming increasingly polarized in various groups that are
very difficult to integrate. If Durkheim's thesis is true that religion is an adhesive
factor for integration, then the role of religion in today's conditions cannot be ignored.
Once again this is proof that the existence of religion cannot be eliminated just like
that.
For Durkheim, religion is a sui generic reality, meaning that religious
representations or symbols are not delusional, nor do they merely refer to other
phenomena, such as the forces of nature. Religious representation is constitutive to
society. Religious representation exists in the minds of individuals so that it instills
egocentric impulses and disciplines the individual, so that he can deal with external
reality. It is the representation of religion, with its ability to direct and control personal
motivation, that makes society possible to realize. He really shows very clearly the
importance of religious action to stimulate individuals to participate positively in
social life, and to confront individual tendencies to run away from social life.
Conclusion
In the end, it must be admitted that modern society with its global system cannot
simply ignore the role of religion. Religion will always be present and presented in
every period of the journey of human life. Marginalizing religion is a futile act,
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because religion is an intrinsic part of every human mind and psychology, however if
the human ratio rejects it. This reality can be witnessed in every phase of the
historical journey of human life, where religion has always been a matrix that plays an
important role and even the main spirit that dynamizes people's lives. In various parts
of the world today, there are even movements that have the same goal and breath,
namely returning to spirituality. This movement emerged along with the bankruptcy
experienced by modern humans in finding the essence and meaning of life. Then the
spiritual aspect of the religions of the East became their choice. Although not
completely taken, aspects of meditation and religious rituals become a place to gain
peace. Others even take it all or choose a particular religion to quench their spiritual
thirst.
In addition, Globalization requires a single model in the world and society.
Everything, including religion, becomes an instrument for society to interact and
communicate. The particularity of religion has transformed into something universal
in language and symbols that are agreed upon by consensus by the world community.
As an instrument of communication, religion relativizes itself so that it has a
functional flexibility for interactive instruments. It moves from closed religious
exclusivity to open public idioms that can be accessed by anyone who is not limited to
certain religious groups.
