in fundamentalist terms, and therefore we cannot agree with the argument that the
term relates essentially to understanding religion.
It is true that one fundamentalism feeds off another, and the construction of
globalisation in fundamentalist terms has provoked a defensive religious
fundamentalism as a response. The idea that the world has to conform to a view
of liberty and democracy that stems from the White House in the USA – a
fundamentalist kind of liberalism – has encouraged groups to espouse, for example,
an Islamic fundamentalism in opposition.
Giddens comments that fundamentalism protects a principleas much as a set of
doctrines, and hence can arise in religions like Hinduism and Buddhism that had
hitherto been ecumenical and tolerant. Fundamentalism, he adds, not only develops
in religion but can arise in any domain of life subject to forces undermining
traditional forms – whether this concerns the idea of nation, relations between people
of different cultures, the structure of the family or relations between men and
women. People feel threatened by these changes and look for ideas that attack
the European Union, feminism, anti-racism or whatever. This reaction need not (as
our examples suggest) take a purely religious form. Secular ideologies may also
be expressed in fundamentalist fashion. Think of the interpretation French
republicanism has used to justify banning the headscarf among Muslim schoolgirls
(see Chapter 15). Critics have described the anti-religious writer, Richard Dawkins,
as not only a neo-Darwinist, but also as an atheist fundamentalist. The neo-
conservatives in the USA could be described as fundamentalists even though they
do not subscribe to Islam, and militantly atheist regimes like Stalin’s Russia could
be seen as treating Marxism in a fundamentalist fashion.
It is wrong, therefore, to assume that fundamentalism has to be religious in
character, let alone Islamic, although veiled Muslim women and bearded Muslim
men, book burners and suicide bombers have emerged, as Sayyid points out, as
fundamentalist icons in the Hollywood films, like for example, Not Without My
Daughterand True Lies(1997: 8).Fundamentals and fundamentalism
Some writers suggest that fundamentalism merely involves a concern with the
‘fundamentals’ of a creed. This is far too broad a view of fundamentalism and it
is also somewhat naive. It leads writers to describe as fundamentalist mainstream
groups that are pluralistic, democratic and inclusivist (Moussalli, 1998: 14).
A useful definition and observation is the following. Fundamentalism is a
tendency that ‘manifests itself, as a strategy or set of strategies, by which beleaguered
believers attempt to preserve their distinct identity as a people or group’. This
identity is felt to be at risk in the contemporary era, and these believers fortify it
‘by a selective retrieval of doctrines, beliefs and practices from a sacred past’. These
retrieved fundamentals are refined, modified and sanctioned in a spirit of shrewd
pragmatism, as a bulwark against the encroachment of outsiders. The fundamentals
are accompanied by ‘unprecedented claims and doctrinal innovations’. These
retrieved and updated fundamentals are meant to regain the same charismatic
intensity today that (it is believed) was in evidence when the ‘original’ identity was382 Part 3 Contemporary ideologies