1 The Centre of Research of Problems of Execution of Criminal Punishments and Psychological
Maintenance of Professional Work of Employees of Criminally-Executive System, Federal Penal Administration Service Research Institute, Moscow, Russia.
2 The Centre of Studying of Problems of Management and the Organization Executions of Punishments in
Criminally-Executive System, Federal Penal Administration Service Research Institute, Moscow, Russia. *corresponding author
Abstract
The theme of this article has gained added relevance over the past two or three decades due to the unprecedented rise of extremism and terrorism among youth in practically all countries of the world. The article looks at the worldview-related and ideological foundations of preventing and counteracting religious extremism among youth. The main research method used to study the problem is comparative analysis of the Holy Scriptures which offers a comprehensive view and identifies the worldview values underlying the destructive activities of the young people who are recruited by extremist and terrorist organizations. The article reveals and describes the role and significance of the data set forth in the monotheistic Holy Scriptures (the Torah, the New Testament and the Quran) for civilizational mentality for the preventing and counteracting religious radicalism among youth. The distinctions are described of the religious perception of the world (paganism and monotheism) from the scientific world perception whose inevitable advent is predicted in the monotheistic Holy Scriptures. The article has practical value for all those who seek to promote a tolerant attitude not only to religious views, but to any views, positions and life styles as long as they do not break the laws of the country. The case is made for the need to reappraise state policy in promoting tolerance, legal consciousness and law abidance in the country.
Keywords: Religions, extremism, terrorism, civilizational mentality. Introduction
In the recent decades Russia, and indeed the entire world community of nations, have faced some fundamentally new problems. These include organized forms of extremism and terrorism in the youth milieu such as the skinheads, the AUE (first letters of “Prisoner Rules Are the Same for Everyone” or, alternatively, “Prisoner Hood Unity”) which is gaining momentum in the eastern parts of the country; the ASAB group in St Petersburg espousing right-wing radical ideology and targeting policemen; diverse groups calling themselves Natsiki (nationalists), or the National Socialist Initiative (NSI) declared to be extremist because it promotes inter-ethnic hatred and hostility under the guise of advocating a healthy life style, combating drug addiction and alcoholism. The spread of the world view and ideology of religious radicalism among youth is a particularly worrisome trend. Religious fundamentalists are way ahead of all the other groups in terms of the number of people involved in religious and terrorist organizations, their spread in various countries, the rate of unlawful acts they commit, including terrorist attacks (Ziebertz & Simon; Gnedov, 2014; Kvon et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018).
The authors of this article share their vision of the main ways of tackling the problem of preventing and countering religious extremism and terrorism in the country.
Naturally, these problems did not exist in the USSR with its official ideology of militant atheism. Therefore the Russian academic community had no previous experience or research results to fall back
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on. Because of this and many other reasons of which more will be said below, there is a lack of experience in Russia and other countries in preventing and countering this highly destructive phenomenon. On the other hand, the studies of the problem from the psychological, legal, sociological, philosophical and other angles are, in our opinion, rather superficial because they do not touch upon the underlying civilizational roots of these phenomena in the modern world and are of little help in developing a scientifically valid system of preventing and countering religious extremism and terrorism among youth. Why do we focus on the youth? First of all because an overwhelming majority of those who embrace religious extremism and terrorism are young people aged between 17 and 25 (Isik-Yigit, 2011; Gnedov, 2014). This is not accidental. Youth is the driver of humanity’s development in all spheres. Not finding support for their perception of justice and harmony in the world, a task which modern society signally fails to address, they try, first, to find answers to the existential problems of the modern world in religion.
Secondly, they mistrust the official religious organizations in the country believing that they are in the service of the establishment and are therefore incapable of solving their personal problems or indeed the social problems facing the country as a whole.
Third, with the all-or-nothing attitude characteristic of the youth they feel that social well-being cannot be achieved in the framework of current constitutions and under current regimes. They think the government should be immediately toppled, even by violence, in order to build a theocratic state based on God’s behests, laws and prescriptions clearly set out in the Holy Scriptures.
Fourth, most of them have very vague notions of the historicity of religious views and the tasks religions tackled throughout human history. This is no accident because over the past decades education systems in this country and in many other countries have neglected the issues connected with the history of people’s mental development and the ideological foundations of states. Suffice it to say that the Federal Law on Counteracting Extremist Activities in the RF was only passed fifteen years ago under the overwhelming pressure of the problems that had piled up in this field (Federal law, 2002; Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, 2015).
Fifth, we have come to the conclusion that only the actual texts of the Scriptures can be instrumental in changing the mentality of the young people who, under the influence of their “spiritual” mentors, have chosen the road of extremism and terrorism, and in persuading them to abide by the law and seek to change life in the country for the better on the basis of the Constitution. The reason for this is not only that the Holy Scriptures command unchallengeable authority among them, but also that the Scriptures very clearly predict an inevitable transition from religious (canonic) law to secular law which is the product of human intellectual activity (Oganesyan, 2017; Oganesyan, 2018).
Research Methods
The main methods of the study of the problem addressed in this article are the analysis of the monotheistic Holy Scriptures and the holy legends of the pagans to reveal the worldview and legal similarities and differences between them; observation of the behavior of people convicted of religious extremism and terrorism in penitentiary facilities; conversations with fundamentalists to reveal their values and the norms and rules they preach.
Because it is impossible within a single article to highlight all the significant aspects of counteracting and preventing religious extremism and terrorism, we thought it would be useful to focus only on the sources of religious radicalism in the modern world in order to then build an effective system of promoting religious tolerance in the modern world.
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Research findings
Let us define some terms and concepts used in this article that are crucial for our topic and that are variously interpreted in modern specialized and general dictionaries. By “civilization” we mean “the level of social development, material and spiritual culture achieved by a given socio-economic system” (Bolshoi, 2003). By “mentality” we mean the intellectual and spiritual qualities of people in their interaction and unity. In turn, the core meaning of the concept of “spirituality” is the specificity of the person’s world view that influences the person’s psychological (mental) reaction to the events in the surrounding world and ensures a stable pattern of behavior in various life situations (Oganesyan, 2017; Oganesyan, 2018).
As we wrote in our previous works, there are three main types of perception of the world and people’s behavior in human history: paganism, monotheism and, in the past two or three centuries, what we call “scientific perception of the world.” That does not include mixed (usually transitional) types.
This classification is by and large similar to the three types of human perception of the world and behavior set forth in the Torah, the New Testament and the Quran. They are people with pagan mentality who, according to the Torah, the New Testament and the Quran lived in the era of innocence and ignorance (The Bible, 1992; Quran, 2008). Then came people with monotheistic mentality who worshipped the One God, who is the creator of “heaven, earth and man.” They are the followers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They are to be followed, according to St Paul, by people with the mentality of the Father Who is in Heaven: “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.” (The Bible, 1992).
As for the concept of “religion” in the majority of modern languages the word denotes a certain perception of the world (worldview)which predetermines the inner (mental) state of man, his emotional reactions to the phenomena and events in the surrounding world and influence his behavior in various life situations. The world perception of religious people is based on their faith in the existence of God (or gods) or other terrestrial or extra-terrestrial forces that govern the world and directly influence a man’s fate. The important thing is that a religious person’s behavior is based strictly on the norms and rules prescribed by corresponding Scriptures. Therefore the semantic fields of the words “mentality” and “religion” overlap to a certain degree. This is borne out not only by entries in the dictionaries of various languages, but by philosophical, political, religious and other dictionaries (Diccionario, 2012; Englert, 2002; Miller, 2002).
It should be noted that the Scriptures say that only that person can be considered to be a follower of a faith who does not only believe that the God of the Holy Scriptures exists, but observes the prescribed norms and rules of behavior as well as the corresponding worship and veneration rituals (The Bible, 1992; Quran, 2008; Pentateuch, 1993).
So, what are the sources of religious extremism and terrorism and what are its manifestations in the modern world?
The religious worldview has engendered extremism and terrorism at all times. However, the forms and scale on which they manifested themselves and their spread varied widely in different mental epochs. Thus, in the pagan era when human life was strictly regulated by religious attitudes, customs and rituals that existed in every family and tribe, extremism manifested itself only with regard to the members of other tribes. According to pagans, when their ancestors move from the earthly world to “the other world”
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where they live as ghosts, they protect from there only their offspring. Therefore the pagan tradition demands from every family not only total isolation from other families and tribes in terms of rituals, but categorical rejection of all the “alien” dwellings, labor implements, land ownership and other life support means which are under the protection of “alien” family and tribal gods. They include dead fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers down to the seventh and, with some tribes, down to the ninth generation.
F. Coulange (2010), a well-known student of pagan religious views, wrote: “Antique religion was exclusively domestic; this was matched by ethical norms. Religion did not tell man, pointing to another man, this is your brother. It told him, he is a stranger, he cannot worship together with you in front of your family fire, he cannot approach the grave of your family, he has other gods, he cannot join you in a common prayer, your gods reject his worship and consider him to be an enemy, so he is also your enemy”.
That was why the norms and rules of the life of families and tribes were carefully hidden from strangers. There was no question of imposing one’s gods and worship rituals on other families and tribes.
Of course, there were woodlands, fields, rivers, seas, etc., outside the territories belonging to pagans. The pagan world view peopled these “no man’s lands” with creatures that protected these places. These creatures, like the gods of their own families and tribes, had to be placated with gifts and offerings in strict accordance with rituals to earn their benevolence and to prevent them from causing harm to those who were using the lands that belonged to these ”ghosts.” However, for a pagan the main protectors against the elements and their god-ghosts were his family and tribal gods who protected him always and everywhere against all and sundry ensuring safety and well-being.
As for the attitude of the pagans to other tribes, their temples and religious customs, they were extremely hostile. Thus, for example, when going to war with other tribes, pagans were convinced that they were fighting not so much hostile people as the gods who protected them. Pagans were convinced that they had obligations only to their gods, but on no account to alien gods (Coulange, 2010). Therefore members of other tribes and their religious temples were ruthlessly destroyed, burned, etc.
By contrast, the pagans studiously protected and hid their own gods (and the idols embodying them) from all aliens, just like the customs and traditions of worshipping their ancestors because personal ancestors (gods) guaranteed success and luck in all their deeds, including wars, capture and enslavement of members of other tribes. On the other hand, pagan families and tribes which lost the war, sought to worship the winners’ gods because in their opinion the winners’ gods had proved their prowess and turned out to be stronger than their own gods. Thus, religious extremism during the pagan times manifested itself not in imposing one’s gods and rituals on members of other tribes, but in destroying all the attributes of the worship of alien gods.
Over time, as trade-economic and other links between tribes grew leading to the emergence of ethnically mixed communities, there appeared gods shared by all the members of such communities. City (village) folk worshipped them like they worshipped their family gods and thought it impossible to worship the gods of other communities. If a city was prosperous and powerful, those who came to live in it considered it to be necessary (beneficial) for them to worship and venerate the gods of “that city” and the possessions that belonged to its citizens. That explains why the warriors in conquering other cities, never imposed their gods on the conquered tribes. The citizens considered their own successful gods, their
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rituals, norms and usages to be the “precious ancestral heritage.” That is why pagan victors were chary of sharing this heritage with the vanquished enemies (Kuzishchin, 1892).
This is highlighted by ancient Rome whose citizens believed that every territorial gain increased not the city state of Rome, but the territorial reach of the people of Rome. The conquest of new territories was attributed by the Romans to the protection of their own gods who were leading Rome and the Romans towards world dominance. It is clear, then, why no member of ethnic groups who lived on the conquered territories, became a Roman citizen, hence did not worship its gods and accordingly, was not bound by the laws of Rome (Coulange, 2010; Kuzishchin, 1982).
It would be appropriate to illustrate the above by citing the Acts from the New Testament dealing with the preaching of St Paul. The Judaists in Jerusalem accused Paul of inviting pagans to the Solomon Temple and took him to be tried in Synedrion where he might have faced death for his ungodly deed. However, because the Jews could not themselves execute Paul, who was a Roman citizen, he was eventually sent to be tried in Rome.
As for the mentality of the ethnic groups and peoples who adopted monotheism, it matched the new historical conditions of the people who were moving from family and tribal life to polyethnic communities and states. Under the pressure of new historical conditions the majority of humanity gradually abandoned family, tribal and “community” norms and rules in favor of monotheistic religious views with corresponding life styles.
For instance, the One God declared Himself to be the sole true God of all men regardless of their family or tribal affiliation. He announced that He was the almighty living Personality that had created all the worlds visible and invisible to man and man himself. He demanded worship and veneration of Himself claiming that He rules all the elements and natural phenomena on which depend the life and death, success, well-being, suffering and woes of all the earth people. All the traditions and customs of the pagans were banned on pain of cruel punishment. All the material attributes of paganism (idols, graven images, heathen temples, altars, etc.) were to be destroyed. The One God could not be “tolerant” of “false gods” who embodied a different mentality and were associated with norms and rules that had outlived themselves. New norms and rules of life activity had to be introduced which had been vouchsafed and clearly formulated in the Torah, and then in the New Testament and then in the Quran. The fact that all these three Scriptures spring from the same world view, ideological and legal principles, is unfortunately, unknown to our enlightened contemporaries (especially young people). Likewise, many do not know that the Quran considers the Torah, the New Testament and the Quran itself to be the three messages of the One God to the whole humankind.
It is noteworthy that monotheism puts spiritual kinship of people above blood, family or tribal kinship. It is on spiritual grounds, according to the Torah, the New Testament and the Quran, that all people are members of a single family, “brothers, sisters and close ones” who deserve respect and mutual assistance. Monotheism declared to be “enemies” all those who chose the worship of family and tribal idols and images above faith in the One God. The tradition of negative attitude to “infidels” who did not believe in the behests, laws and precepts of the One God and of treating them as the “enemies” of the true God has