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fundamentalist-type developments when nationalism and religious revivalism have been intertwined. In Sri Lanka, the drive for the ‘Sinhalization’ of national identity, advanced by militant groups such as the People’s Liberation Front, has been expressed in the demand that Buddhism be made a state religion. Such pressures, however, merely fuelled Tamil separatism, giving rise to a terrorist campaign by the so-called Tamil Tigers, which began in the late 1970s and continued through to the Tigers’ military defeat in 2009. THE FUTURE OF FUNDAMENTALISM The question of the future of fundamentalism conjures up two starkly different scenarios. The first raises doubts about the long-term viability of any religiously based political creed in the modern world, and highlights the particular limitations of fundamentalism as a political project. In this view, fundamentalist religion is essentially a symptom of the difficult adjustments thatmodernization brings about, but it is ultimately doomed because it is out of step with the principal thrust of the modernization process. Modernization is essentially a Westernizing process, and it is destined to prevail because it is closely associated with both the trend towards economic globalization and the spread of liberal democracy. This suggests that religion will be restored to its ‘proper’ private domain, and that public affairs will once again be contested by secular political creeds. This analysis suggests the politico-cultural project that lies at the heart of fundamentalism will gradually fade, with religious groups (if they retain any political significance) being absorbed into broad nationalist movements whose major elements are secular. While civic nationalism, orientated around the cornerstone principle of self-determination, is destined to survive, there would appear to be little future for militant ethnic nationalist movements, especially when they are based on religious distinctiveness. If fundamentalist undercurrents continue to exist in any shape or form they are unlikely to amount to more than a politics of protest, devoid of a clear political programme or a coherent economic philosophy. In the rival scenario, fundamentalism offers a glimpse of the ‘postmodern’ future. From this perspective, it is secularism and liberal culture, rather than fundamentalist religion, that are in crisis. Their weakness, dramatically exposed by the rise of fundamentalism, is their failure to address deeper human needs and their inability to establish authoritative values that give social order a moral foundation. Far from the emerging global system fostering uniformity modelled on Western liberal democracy, it is more likely that as the current century unfolds, it will be characterized, as Huntington (1996) predicted, by a clash of civilizations. Competing transnational power blocs will emerge, and religion is likely to provide them with a distinctive politico-cultural identity. Fundamentalism, in this version, is seen to have strengths rather than weaknesses. Religious fundamentalists have already demonstrated their adaptability by embracing the weapons and spirit of the modern world, and the fact that they are not encumbered by tradition but travel ‘fast and light’ enables them to reinvent their creeds in response to the challenges of postmodernity.
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