Smash Temples, Burn Books: Comparing Secularist Projects in India and China, Peter van der Veer
The following excerpt addresses secularism in China (portions of the article discussing secularism in India have been omitted). As van der Veer demonÂstrates, states can institute secular regimes not just by enacting new legislation but also by mobilizing mass demonstrations in opposition to what become characterized as irrational and atavistic religious institutions.
The governÂment's emphasis on rationalism across the sociolegal landscape transformed the status of the classical religious traditions within the Chinese state. The article begins with a summary of recent secularism theory by authors such as Jose Casanova, who reject a teleological view of religious decline, secularizaÂtion, and modernism in favor of a more nuanced examination of how philosoÂphies of religion, secularism, and (we might add) law have been “fused” and/ or differentiated in different societies. In other words, it is a mistake to assume that all societies - including those in Asia - have participated in an inexorable march from religious-based legal orders to “rational” and religiously neutral political institutions and practices. To illustrate this point, van der Veer discusses the complex and fascinating interplay of ideas about science, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century China. He argues that official Chinese criticism of religion rested primarily on an anticlerical sentiment rather than a formal rejection of underlying religious concepts and beliefs, some of which were actually integrated with “modern” political and legal ideologies. In short, “religious activity seems to be embedÂded in a fully secular life” in China - and perhaps elsewhere - rather than banished from it. Secularism may have weakened - or at least redefined - the official status of religion within the Chinese state's legal and political frameÂwork, but religion remained a robust social phenomenon nevertheless.“Smash temples, build schools” (^W⅛^ huimiao, banxue) is a particularly telling slogan that was used in a campaign against temple cults and religious specialists during reforms in late Qing at the end of the 19th century. According to the reformists, led by Kang Youwei (1858-1927) and to an extent supported by the emperor, China had to modernize quickly and this had to be done by promoting education and by getting rid of religious superstition. These two elements belonged together, since education should train people in modern, rational thought while superstition and magical thought should be discouraged. Before the Communist victory in 1949 a number of campaigns, first in late imperial China and afterwards in the Republic, destroyed or “secularized,” according to one estimate, half of a million existing temples. What the Communists did after 1949 was, to a very great extent, a continuation of these campaigns. While one might have expected that the nationalists in Taiwan with their Confucian nationalism would have had a fundamentally different policy towards religion than the Communists, the opposite is in fact the case. Till the late 1960s the nationalÂists kept religious activities under a very tight control. All these campaigns against religion should have produced a secular China, but the contrary is true. In Taiwan religious activities are all over the place and with the loosening of the tight controls over religion in the PRC we see religious activity flourishing everywhere. This paradox can be understood by closely examining the nature of these secularist campaigns.
Secularism as an ideology and as a practice in China is in the first place an anti-clericalism. Anti-clericalism has deep roots in Chinese history, but at the end of the 19th century it gained both the attention of the popular media and of intellectuals who grappled with modern, Western ideas. Intellectuals, like Liang Qichao (1873-1929), Zhang Binglin (1869-1936), and Chen Yinque (1890-1969) separated Buddhism and Taoism from their clerical roots and made them into national moralities that could serve the modernization of China.
Buddhist leaders such as Taixu (1890-1947) and Daoist modernists like Chen Yingning (1880-1969) made great efforts to bring their religions under the rubric of secular nationalism. The popular press was also not opposed to religion as such, but to Buddhist and Daoist clerics who were described not only as ignorant buffoons, but also as criminals, drunkards, gluttons, and, foremost, as sexually debauched. [...]Clerics in China were also seen as dangerously violent, since their ascetic disciplines and martial arts that inflict violence on their own bodies can be turned against others for crimes of rebellious purposes. Obviously, this theme gained prominence in the late 19th century during the failed Boxer rebellion. Clerics were able to connect to secret societies that threatened the state monopoly of violence. They combined fighting techniques with magic that made the believers think they were invincible and thus extremely dangerous. The failure of the Boxer rebellion, however, showed Chinese intellectuals that there was no future in using magical means to defeat the imperial powers. Again, the theme of delusion and disguise comes up here with the notion that the illiterate masses are led into meaningless and ultimately fruitless violence by cunning clerics.
Besides a form of anticlericalism Chinese secularism is a form of scientism and rationalism. From a 19th century enlightened and evolutionary perspecÂtive it pitches scientific rationality against magical superstition. Secularism is thus a battle against the misconceptions of natural processes that keep the illiterate masses in the dark and in the clutches of feudal rulers and clerics. The term for superstition (⅛(⅛ mixin) comes from Japanese as many other terms that are employed in the discourse of modernity, like indeed the term “religion” zongjiao) itself. In using these neologisms it makes a
distinction between religion that contributes to the morality of the state and superstition that is detrimental to modern progress.
These views are shared by intellectuals of all persuasions, including the nationalists and the communists, but also by many reformist religious thinkers. This is both a discursive and an institutional shift as an aspect of the transition from the ancient regime of the Qing empire to the modern Republic. [...]Anticlericalism and scientism together were deeply connected to Western, enlightened ideas about progress, in which magic had to be replaced by scientific rationality and by moral religion as basis of national identity. Major currents of western thought, like social Darwinism, neo-Kantianism, and Marxism were absorbed in China. Not only prescriptive thought about society came to stand in the light of rationality, but also descriptive social science, such as sociology and anthropology lost their ability to describe the effects of these ideologies on society since they could not distance themselves from them. Intellectuals played an important role in the secularist projects of nationalizing and rationalizing religion and, crucially, they were part and parcel of large-scale state interventions to produce a modern, national identity. While Buddhism and Taoism were to some extent sources for the creation of national religion, Confucianism was itself being considered as already both national and rational. The attempts to transform Confucian traditions into a civil, national religion were extremely interesting as a form of social engineerÂing, but ultimately failed, largely because Confucian teachings could encompass Daoist and Buddhist teachings but not the social energy that local Daoist and Buddhist cults could mobilize.
One of the great puzzles of China today is not that it proves the secularizaÂtion thesis wrong, but that despite a century of secularism religion has not been destroyed. In fact we see everywhere in China a more open performance of religious rituals. This raises a number of issues. [...]
Firstly, then, what is the nature of Chinese religion and secularity today? On the one hand we find a general acceptance in China of the idea that religion is not important to the Chinese, that the Chinese have always been rational and secular, and with modernization even more so.
This view is not only prevalent among intellectuals, but is also more generally held. And on the other hand, there is a widespread interest in religious practices, in visiting shrines especially during tourist trips, in religious forms of healing. Both in cities and in the countryside communities are rebuilding their temples and have started in awkward negotiations with the authorities to perform their ceremonies again. Religious activity seems to be embedded in a fully secular life, in which job insecurities, health and desire for success and profit create a demand for divine support. With the decline of the “iron rice bowl” of the state this demand has only increased. The same intellectuals who deny the importance of religion pray for their family's welfare wherever they can. The chain of memory, to use Hervieu-Leger's term, however, seems to have been broken and needs to be patched up. In general people who engage in ritual (rather than theology or philosophy) are not very knowledgeable about them but in China this is quite extreme. This is enhanced by the fact that the clergy has been largely exterminated or so much brought under control of the Party that they have lost their liturgical bearings. This situation in itself gives a lot of space for new religious movements in which lay people play an important role, like the many qigong movements.Secondly, how do we explain the failure of a century of systematic destrucÂtion of Chinese religious life? One answer lies in the millenarian nature of Maoism itself. The Party absorbed quite a lot of the social energy that is available in religious movements. Mass mobilization qunzhong
yundong) for the transformation of self and society has a central place both in Chinese religion and in Maoism. Studying and especially reciting Mao's writings again recall religious chanting. The finding and expelling of class enemies and traitors follow quite precisely the trappings of Chinese witchcraft beliefs and exorcism, even in the giving of black hoods as symbols of evil to the accused. The practice of public confession likewise continues religious practice.
Thirdly, what is the future of secularism in China? As I already indicated secularity is well established in China in daily life as well as in people's selfÂunderstanding. Secularism is also certainly still the frame in which clerics have to operate. The Buddhist and Daoist associations are still largely conÂtrolled by the state.
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