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When God Stops Fighting: How Religious Violence Ends
A gripping study of how religiously motivated violence and militant movements end, from the perspectives of those most deeply involved.
Mark Juergensmeyer is arguably the globe’s leading expert on religious violence, and for decades his books have helped us understand the worlds and worldviews of those who take up arms in the name of their faith. But even the most violent of movements, characterized by grand religious visions of holy warfare, eventually come to an end. Juergensmeyer takes readers into the minds of religiously motivated militants associated with the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq, the Sikh Khalistan movement in India’s Punjab, and the Moro movement for a Muslim Mindanao in the Philippines to understand what leads to drastic changes in the attitudes of those once devoted to all-out ideological war. When God Stops Fighting reveals how the transformation of religious violence manifests for those who once promoted it as the only answer.
Mark Juergensmeyer is arguably the globe’s leading expert on religious violence, and for decades his books have helped us understand the worlds and worldviews of those who take up arms in the name of their faith. But even the most violent of movements, characterized by grand religious visions of holy warfare, eventually come to an end. Juergensmeyer takes readers into the minds of religiously motivated militants associated with the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq, the Sikh Khalistan movement in India’s Punjab, and the Moro movement for a Muslim Mindanao in the Philippines to understand what leads to drastic changes in the attitudes of those once devoted to all-out ideological war. When God Stops Fighting reveals how the transformation of religious violence manifests for those who once promoted it as the only answer.
196 pages, Hardcover
Published January 11, 2022
About the author
Mark Juergensmeyer
54 books23 followersMark Juergensmeyer is a professor of sociology and global studies, affiliate professor of religious studies, and the Kundan Kaur Kapany professor of global and Sikh Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was the founding director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, and is a pioneer in the field of global studies, focusing on global religion, religious violence, conflict resolution and South Asian religion and politics. He has published more than three hundred articles and twenty books, including the revised and expanded fourth edition of Terror in the Mind of God (University of California Press, 2017).
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March 22, 2023
When God Stops Fighting: How Religious Violence Ends, Mark Juergensmeyer (1940- ), 2022, 179 pages, ISBN 9780520384736, Library-of-Congress BP190.5.V56
Clear, insightful, succinct. Distilled from thirty years studying religious violence (and a lifetime studying religion, society, and conflict). p. xi.
Excerpt from the preface here http://juergensmeyer.org/how-religiou...
Three religiously-motivated wars, now ended: Juergensmeyer interviewed participants who did, and who did not, recant their militancy. The rebels, and the authorities, each entered into a state of imagined war in treating their opponents as extreme enemies, as less than human. p. 139. After the war ends, the image of cosmic war may live on symbolically, perhaps someday to rise again. p. 148.
Juergensmeyer on Iraq, 20 years after the U.S. invasion: http://juergensmeyer.org/twenty-years...
Islamic State, Iraq and Syria, 2003-2019, militarily provoked, militarily defeated. pp. ix, 2-3, 5, 7, 17-54. "We Sunni are second-class citizens under Shi'a rule. ISIS may or may not kill you; the Shi'a surely will. ISIS? Maybe it's a political movement dressed up like religion." p. 25. The inability of the US-occupied country to find a role for former soldiers in Saddam's huge military was a reason that many of them joined ISIS. p. 138. ISIS used extreme violence to control its enemies and its own population. p. 30. ISIS installed its own imams: few traditional Muslim leaders supported ISIS. p. 43. "A band of vicious men collecting cars and women." p. 51. Iraqi jihadists called the American prison camp "Jihadi University." Prisoners held classes on Islamic theology, jihadi ideology, militant organization, and strategy. Ex-convicts emerge as hardened, well-trained militant zealots. pp. 34-35, 39. Jihadi recruiters painted anti-government slogans on walls at night in Sunni areas. Security forces next day would arrest lots of young Sunni men who had nothing to do with it, and send them to prison, where the jihadi workshops are. The arrests turned their families anti-government, too. p. 41. Everyone in the American prison confessed to anything, to stop the torture. p. 39. Most suicide bombers were young boys or non-Arabic-speaking foreigners, recruited online. p. 47. Some 30,000 recruits came from outside the Arabic-speaking Sunni-majority Middle-Eastern region. p. 46. Many were sons of migrants from the Middle East, alienated and marginalized in the West. p. 49. "I estimate the online community declined 20% to 40% after 2018, lower by 2021. Much communication has shifted to the encrypted dark web." p. 50. "I was seldom able to speak with women since they were more hesitant about interacting with foreigners, though often I found that when they did begin to speak it was hard to stop them." p. 23. ISIS was militarily defeated, but Sunnis in Iraq still feel disrespected: conditions are ripe for renewed militancy. pp. 142-143. "When Muhammad said he would willingly kill Americans, my nervousness turned to apprehension. Seeing me, he smiled and said, 'not you, Professor.'" p. 144. Ten thousand ISIS fighters remained in Iraq and Syria, and attacked hundreds of times, long after ISIS lost all its territory. p. 147.
Moro Movement for a Muslim Mindanao, Philippines, 1969-2019. Ended by negotiation. pp. ix, 1-2, 7, 55-85, 109. In 1972 President Marcos instituted martial law to quell the unrest. The result was the opposite. p. 57. There were about 1,000 fighters in the peak year, 2000. p. 59. Guerrilla attacks failed to force the government to create the militants' desired autonomous Muslim homeland. p. 63. Splinter group Abu Sayyaf degenerated into a criminal gang, kidnapping and extorting millions of dollars from victims' families, beheading if ransom wasn't paid. By 2020, a few hundred militants remained. p. 67. Inaction on negotiations with moderate militant groups lent credibility to extremists. p. 69. In 2017, the criminal-gang faction took an entire city hostage. p. 70. The army bombed the city to rubble. p. 71. More young men joined the militants. After years of inaction, the Philippine legislature finally ratified the agreement granting autonomous status to Muslim parts of southern Mindanao. The army's negotiator with the rebels was a general who had been a rebel himself. "He respected us." p. 139.
Khalistan movement for Sikh separatism, Punjab, India, 1976-1995. p. 113. The Sikh majority felt they were treated as second-class citizens in their own territory, robbed of their water rights and mistreated by police. p. 140. Reasons for end include an all-out assault by the Indian police, and collapse of popular support. pp. ix-x, 3, 7, 86-115. Eventually the people became sick of all the killings. p. 113, 133. "When the villagers turned against us, we knew it was over." --Wassan Singh Zaffarwal. p. 115. Guerrillas are fish who need the water of popular support. p. 135. The Indian army killed 2,000 Sikhs, including militant leader Bhindranwale, in 1984, in the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar. pp. 88, 97, 124, 130. Indira Gandhi was then assassinated 1984.10.31. p. 97. Two Sikhs in 1986 assassinated the army officer who had ordered the temple attack. p. 91. The guerrillas got their weapons by looting police stations. p. 92. All told, 20,000+ people were killed in the uprising, including 6,000+ In 1991. pp. 98-99, 112. Many militants were killed by rival factions. p. 101. They ended up like street gangs. p. 112. Militant violence prompted police to exterminate the movement, which they did. pp. 92, 102. Some 80% of the militants (and many innocent people) were killed. pp. 107, 111. "A greater sin than murder is to not seek justice." --Bhindranwale. p. 98. "Anyone who complies with an oppressive regime is never a Sikh." --Bhai Dhanna Singh. p. 103.
In each case, aspects of the struggle linger on. pp. x, 114. The end is a cessation of hostilities, not friendly mutual tolerance. p. 15. "When do you say, 'He's not a threat anymore?'" p. 52. Peripheral members put militancy behind them and get on with their lives. True believers may accept the end of the battle, but await the restart of the war. pp. 53-54.
Negotiation is not possible until both sides have lost the will to fight. Military conquest works only if survivors give up, rather than continuing guerrilla war or terrorism. Hostilities end with abandoning the idea of war--the idea of a do-or-die struggle between good and evil. The idea springs from fear. pp. 4-6, 16. Enemies may be real and/or imagined. "Those people aren't like us. They don't even follow our religion. Satan is acting through them. God is on our side. This is God's war. We cannot lose. Fighting serves God." pp. 7-8, 12-14.
Permalink: worldcat.org: https://www.worldcat.org/profiles/Tom...
goodreads.com: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(As of 3/29/2022, goodreads.com user reviews were inaccessible except by logged-in goodreads members. As of 5/14/2022, all of the following goodreads pages were accessible without being logged into goodreads.)
There will be a quiz at the end of the hour: goodreads.com trivia questions from Mark Juergensmeyer's works:
Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in 20th Century Punjab: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
Radhasoami Reality: The Logic of a Modern Faith:
https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
Imagining India: Essays on Indian History: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
The Oxford Handbook of Global Religions: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
Songs of the Saints of India: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
Gandhi's Way: A Handbook of Conflict Resolution:
https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
All of the above, and others: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/auth...
(It's much more fun to set questions than to take them. Professors should pay their students.)
Mark Juergensmeyer quotes on goodreads.com:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quot...
Juergensmeyer's articles in religiondispatches.org:
https://religiondispatches.org/author...
Juergensmeyer's essays and web posts:
http://juergensmeyer.org/
Juergensmeyer's tweets:
https://mobile.twitter.com/juergensmeyer
Juergensmeyer's articles in UCSB Orafalea Center's globalejournal:
https://globalejournal.org/contributo...
Juergensmeyer's podcasts on religiousstudiesproject.com:
https://www.religiousstudiesproject.c...
Professor emeritus, University of California-Santa Barbara:
https://global.ucsb.edu/people/mark-j...
Juergensmeyer's Wikipedia page, including selected books:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_...
Juergensmeyer's books on amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/Mark-Juergensm...
Juergensmeyer's books on goodreads.com:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Juergensmeyer's books on librarything.com:
https://www.librarything.com/author/j...
Articles in thewire.in:
https://m.thewire.in/byline/mark-juer...
Videos at berkleycenter.georgetown.edu:
https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/...
My Juergensmeyer bookshelf on goodreads.com:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
My Juergensmeyer book list on worldcat.org:
https://www.worldcat.org/profiles/Tom...
Clear, insightful, succinct. Distilled from thirty years studying religious violence (and a lifetime studying religion, society, and conflict). p. xi.
Excerpt from the preface here http://juergensmeyer.org/how-religiou...
Three religiously-motivated wars, now ended: Juergensmeyer interviewed participants who did, and who did not, recant their militancy. The rebels, and the authorities, each entered into a state of imagined war in treating their opponents as extreme enemies, as less than human. p. 139. After the war ends, the image of cosmic war may live on symbolically, perhaps someday to rise again. p. 148.
Juergensmeyer on Iraq, 20 years after the U.S. invasion: http://juergensmeyer.org/twenty-years...
Islamic State, Iraq and Syria, 2003-2019, militarily provoked, militarily defeated. pp. ix, 2-3, 5, 7, 17-54. "We Sunni are second-class citizens under Shi'a rule. ISIS may or may not kill you; the Shi'a surely will. ISIS? Maybe it's a political movement dressed up like religion." p. 25. The inability of the US-occupied country to find a role for former soldiers in Saddam's huge military was a reason that many of them joined ISIS. p. 138. ISIS used extreme violence to control its enemies and its own population. p. 30. ISIS installed its own imams: few traditional Muslim leaders supported ISIS. p. 43. "A band of vicious men collecting cars and women." p. 51. Iraqi jihadists called the American prison camp "Jihadi University." Prisoners held classes on Islamic theology, jihadi ideology, militant organization, and strategy. Ex-convicts emerge as hardened, well-trained militant zealots. pp. 34-35, 39. Jihadi recruiters painted anti-government slogans on walls at night in Sunni areas. Security forces next day would arrest lots of young Sunni men who had nothing to do with it, and send them to prison, where the jihadi workshops are. The arrests turned their families anti-government, too. p. 41. Everyone in the American prison confessed to anything, to stop the torture. p. 39. Most suicide bombers were young boys or non-Arabic-speaking foreigners, recruited online. p. 47. Some 30,000 recruits came from outside the Arabic-speaking Sunni-majority Middle-Eastern region. p. 46. Many were sons of migrants from the Middle East, alienated and marginalized in the West. p. 49. "I estimate the online community declined 20% to 40% after 2018, lower by 2021. Much communication has shifted to the encrypted dark web." p. 50. "I was seldom able to speak with women since they were more hesitant about interacting with foreigners, though often I found that when they did begin to speak it was hard to stop them." p. 23. ISIS was militarily defeated, but Sunnis in Iraq still feel disrespected: conditions are ripe for renewed militancy. pp. 142-143. "When Muhammad said he would willingly kill Americans, my nervousness turned to apprehension. Seeing me, he smiled and said, 'not you, Professor.'" p. 144. Ten thousand ISIS fighters remained in Iraq and Syria, and attacked hundreds of times, long after ISIS lost all its territory. p. 147.
Moro Movement for a Muslim Mindanao, Philippines, 1969-2019. Ended by negotiation. pp. ix, 1-2, 7, 55-85, 109. In 1972 President Marcos instituted martial law to quell the unrest. The result was the opposite. p. 57. There were about 1,000 fighters in the peak year, 2000. p. 59. Guerrilla attacks failed to force the government to create the militants' desired autonomous Muslim homeland. p. 63. Splinter group Abu Sayyaf degenerated into a criminal gang, kidnapping and extorting millions of dollars from victims' families, beheading if ransom wasn't paid. By 2020, a few hundred militants remained. p. 67. Inaction on negotiations with moderate militant groups lent credibility to extremists. p. 69. In 2017, the criminal-gang faction took an entire city hostage. p. 70. The army bombed the city to rubble. p. 71. More young men joined the militants. After years of inaction, the Philippine legislature finally ratified the agreement granting autonomous status to Muslim parts of southern Mindanao. The army's negotiator with the rebels was a general who had been a rebel himself. "He respected us." p. 139.
Khalistan movement for Sikh separatism, Punjab, India, 1976-1995. p. 113. The Sikh majority felt they were treated as second-class citizens in their own territory, robbed of their water rights and mistreated by police. p. 140. Reasons for end include an all-out assault by the Indian police, and collapse of popular support. pp. ix-x, 3, 7, 86-115. Eventually the people became sick of all the killings. p. 113, 133. "When the villagers turned against us, we knew it was over." --Wassan Singh Zaffarwal. p. 115. Guerrillas are fish who need the water of popular support. p. 135. The Indian army killed 2,000 Sikhs, including militant leader Bhindranwale, in 1984, in the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar. pp. 88, 97, 124, 130. Indira Gandhi was then assassinated 1984.10.31. p. 97. Two Sikhs in 1986 assassinated the army officer who had ordered the temple attack. p. 91. The guerrillas got their weapons by looting police stations. p. 92. All told, 20,000+ people were killed in the uprising, including 6,000+ In 1991. pp. 98-99, 112. Many militants were killed by rival factions. p. 101. They ended up like street gangs. p. 112. Militant violence prompted police to exterminate the movement, which they did. pp. 92, 102. Some 80% of the militants (and many innocent people) were killed. pp. 107, 111. "A greater sin than murder is to not seek justice." --Bhindranwale. p. 98. "Anyone who complies with an oppressive regime is never a Sikh." --Bhai Dhanna Singh. p. 103.
In each case, aspects of the struggle linger on. pp. x, 114. The end is a cessation of hostilities, not friendly mutual tolerance. p. 15. "When do you say, 'He's not a threat anymore?'" p. 52. Peripheral members put militancy behind them and get on with their lives. True believers may accept the end of the battle, but await the restart of the war. pp. 53-54.
Negotiation is not possible until both sides have lost the will to fight. Military conquest works only if survivors give up, rather than continuing guerrilla war or terrorism. Hostilities end with abandoning the idea of war--the idea of a do-or-die struggle between good and evil. The idea springs from fear. pp. 4-6, 16. Enemies may be real and/or imagined. "Those people aren't like us. They don't even follow our religion. Satan is acting through them. God is on our side. This is God's war. We cannot lose. Fighting serves God." pp. 7-8, 12-14.
Permalink: worldcat.org: https://www.worldcat.org/profiles/Tom...
goodreads.com: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(As of 3/29/2022, goodreads.com user reviews were inaccessible except by logged-in goodreads members. As of 5/14/2022, all of the following goodreads pages were accessible without being logged into goodreads.)
There will be a quiz at the end of the hour: goodreads.com trivia questions from Mark Juergensmeyer's works:
Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in 20th Century Punjab: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
Radhasoami Reality: The Logic of a Modern Faith:
https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
Imagining India: Essays on Indian History: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
The Oxford Handbook of Global Religions: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
Songs of the Saints of India: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
Gandhi's Way: A Handbook of Conflict Resolution:
https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
All of the above, and others: https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/auth...
(It's much more fun to set questions than to take them. Professors should pay their students.)
Mark Juergensmeyer quotes on goodreads.com:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quot...
Juergensmeyer's articles in religiondispatches.org:
https://religiondispatches.org/author...
Juergensmeyer's essays and web posts:
http://juergensmeyer.org/
Juergensmeyer's tweets:
https://mobile.twitter.com/juergensmeyer
Juergensmeyer's articles in UCSB Orafalea Center's globalejournal:
https://globalejournal.org/contributo...
Juergensmeyer's podcasts on religiousstudiesproject.com:
https://www.religiousstudiesproject.c...
Professor emeritus, University of California-Santa Barbara:
https://global.ucsb.edu/people/mark-j...
Juergensmeyer's Wikipedia page, including selected books:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_...
Juergensmeyer's books on amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/Mark-Juergensm...
Juergensmeyer's books on goodreads.com:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Juergensmeyer's books on librarything.com:
https://www.librarything.com/author/j...
Articles in thewire.in:
https://m.thewire.in/byline/mark-juer...
Videos at berkleycenter.georgetown.edu:
https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/...
My Juergensmeyer bookshelf on goodreads.com:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
My Juergensmeyer book list on worldcat.org:
https://www.worldcat.org/profiles/Tom...
May 19, 2022
3.8 I was surprised at how slim this book is when I received it; I expected it to be a massive tome based on the title. Instead, Juergensmeyer focuses on 3 case studies (ISIS in Iraq, the Muslim Mindanao in the Philippines, and the Sikh Khalistan Movement in Punjab) and I think he should have indicated that the focus is narrow in the title/front cover.
I had mixed reactions that continued to fluctuate as I read this. His interviews with members/people associated with these groups were very effective and interesting to read. The first chapter is a pretty basic primer on what constitutes imagined religious violence (cosmic war as he calls it). He intersects it with politics and even some socio-economic issues (just a bit) but honestly, the first chapter was too long for being so basic. Most people who have read, heard news about, learned about in history classes, experienced, or just thought about religious violence in some kind of way probably know most of what's covered in it. He spent too much time spent referencing his other books, as well.
The organization of the Punjab/Khalistan chapter was confusing. He jumps right in assuming the readers know about the events of the 1980s/1990s. Later he goes back and really explains the history of Operation Code Blue and the rebel Sikh movement. But the first half of the chapter was just too overwhelming and for that reason, off-putting. It's interesting to me, because that's the 3rd case study and I felt like the organization of the ISIS and Mindanao chapters that came before were more clear and easy to follow the timeline.
There was a lot for me to contemplate and continue to think about after finishing this book, so I appreciate that. I do wish that there would have been one more conclusion chapter (the book is only 148 pages, and again, the first chapter cut be more concise) that compared and evaluated his conclusions about these 3 examples to other examples of religious violence (the Crusades, al-Qaeda's Jihad, 16-17th century Catholic-Protestant Europe?). This book will leave me thinking about these issues for a long time and I may even come back to reread parts of it in the future.
I had mixed reactions that continued to fluctuate as I read this. His interviews with members/people associated with these groups were very effective and interesting to read. The first chapter is a pretty basic primer on what constitutes imagined religious violence (cosmic war as he calls it). He intersects it with politics and even some socio-economic issues (just a bit) but honestly, the first chapter was too long for being so basic. Most people who have read, heard news about, learned about in history classes, experienced, or just thought about religious violence in some kind of way probably know most of what's covered in it. He spent too much time spent referencing his other books, as well.
The organization of the Punjab/Khalistan chapter was confusing. He jumps right in assuming the readers know about the events of the 1980s/1990s. Later he goes back and really explains the history of Operation Code Blue and the rebel Sikh movement. But the first half of the chapter was just too overwhelming and for that reason, off-putting. It's interesting to me, because that's the 3rd case study and I felt like the organization of the ISIS and Mindanao chapters that came before were more clear and easy to follow the timeline.
There was a lot for me to contemplate and continue to think about after finishing this book, so I appreciate that. I do wish that there would have been one more conclusion chapter (the book is only 148 pages, and again, the first chapter cut be more concise) that compared and evaluated his conclusions about these 3 examples to other examples of religious violence (the Crusades, al-Qaeda's Jihad, 16-17th century Catholic-Protestant Europe?). This book will leave me thinking about these issues for a long time and I may even come back to reread parts of it in the future.
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