Not all about opium: the Marxist attitude to religion

Marx's ideas on religion have been widely misrepresented and misunderstood. According to the myths, Marx saw religion as nothing but a false consciousness perpetrated by the ruling class to pacify the masses and aid their exploitation. Marxists are supposedly implacably hostile to religion, to political movements led by religious people, and even to people's right to practice religion.

Establishing Marx's true position is particularly important at a time when the demonisation of Islam is the central ideological tenet of the so-called "war on terror". Defending Muslims is a vital task for socialists today - and one that fully accords with the real Marxist approach to religion.

Marxism holds that the material world exists independently of human consciousness - or the consciousness of any other entity. Marx was an atheist, but he sought to understand why religious ideas have been so important in different societies.

For Marx, people's ideas are conditioned by material reality: "It is not the consciousness of people that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness."

But this does not mean that people's ideas are a straightforward or wholly accurate reflection of reality. People are trying to make sense of a world full of exploitation and senseless brutality - a world that does not make sense. As Marx explains:

This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, ... its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realisation of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality.

In other words, religious worship is a response to alienation - the fact that humans are not free to fulfil their potential because of class bondage and oppression. People are clamouring for a way to make sense of the world and give meaning to their existence in difficult circumstances.

So Marx not only felt sympathy toward religious people, he also understood how religion and religious leaders can become a platform for resistance to oppression (e.g. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or Hamas in Palestine).

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Those who wish to present Marx as anti-religious trot out only the last sentence, implying that Marx saw religion as a dangerous narcotic, whereas in context it's clear Marx was referring to the medical use of opiates for pain relief.

As long as humans are alienated and oppressed, many will look to religion. Marxists therefore must relate positively to workers who are religious, and to whatever movements and leaders emerge to express the grievances of workers and the oppressed. We do not judge the validity of social struggles based on how religious or secular they are.

Take the movement led by the Russian Orthodox priest, Father Gapon, who organised a workers' union in St Petersburg in the early 20th century. The Bolshevik leader Lenin was impressed with Gapon's ability to connect with the needs of the working class and even tried to recruit him.

Although it emerged some years later that Gapon was a police agent, the movement he led still played a pivotal role in the history of Russia's workers' movement. In 1905 the Gapon unions led the march to the Winter Palace to present a petition to the Tsar; the brutal murder of these marchers by the police sparked the 1905 revolution. And, this revolution made socialist organisations a mass force amongst Russia's workers for the first time.

Islamophobia

Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have both written best-sellers that campaign against religion. Hitchens - a former leftist turned "critical" supporter of George Bush - is living proof that being an atheist does not make you more left-wing. He sees the "war on terror" and the invasion of Iraq as glorious wars for democracy, parroting Bush's line that the Islamist resistance to US and Israeli aggression occurs because "these people hate our freedoms".

Like many other anti-Muslim bigots today, Hitchens appeals to the values of the Enlightenment; as if Bush was motivated by his study of Voltaire! But let's remember why this European intellectual movement was progressive in the 18th century. Its appeals to reason and its hostility to religious authority were a tremendous step forward at a time when Europe was dominated by feudal relations, and when the absolutist state and the church intertwined to form the bastion of power that ruled society.

The church upheld the idea of the divine right of kings and of a "natural order" in which some people were nobles and others peasants. The church/state entity restricted what could and could not be said or thought. Attacking the domination of the church in these circumstances was an essential part of calling into question the feudal power structure, and assisting the revolutionary process.

But today's Islamophobes, like Hitchens, are not attacking the powerful in our society; they are attacking a persecuted minority. Furthermore they are providing ideological assistance to the most powerful imperialist military in history.

Richard Dawkins specialises in depicting religious people as irrational, illogical and often dangerous. In The God Delusion he writes:

Much of what people do is done in the name of god. Irishmen blow each other up in his name. Arabs blow themselves up in his name. Imams and ayatollahs oppress women in his name. Celibate popes and priests mess up people's sex lives in his name. Kosher butchers cut live animals' throats in his name. The achievements of religion in past history [include] bloody crusades, torturing inquisitions, mass-murdering conquistadors, culture-destroying missionaries ...

Many oppressive rulers have used religion to justify their brutality. George Bush would claim that God is on his side, although many Christians detest what he has done in Iraq. However, the repressive regimes that called themselves Communist and were led by atheists, also have a rotten track record, and the fact that religion was often suppressed under these Stalinist dictatorships perpetuated misconceptions about the Marxist attitude to religion.

Marx was a democrat before he became a socialist. His socialism is actually about extending democracy by giving the working class majority democratic control over the economy. Workers in Mao's China or Stalin's Russia had no democratic control over anything. For Marx, religious freedom was a fundamental democratic right and religion was a private matter in which the state should not interfere.

The defence of religious freedom has always been a key principle of genuine Marxism, and for good reason: the struggle for socialism must necessarily involve the mass of the world's workers, the majority of whom will identify with some faith. Marxists therefore strive to build solidarity among workers across all faiths.

Dawkins argues that religion is to blame for war. This patently false idea provides a cover for imperialism. The world's rich and powerful states compete with each other for resources, access to markets, and so on. Corporations in powerful countries like the US rely on their government to look after their interests - including using force to shore up their status in the world.

The conflict in Palestine, for example, is not about religion; it is about occupation. The racist state of Israel is built on stolen Palestinian land. Many Zionists involved in setting up Israel were secular nationalists and often atheists. While Islamic groups like Hamas now play a leading role, the Palestinian resistance was initially dominated by the secular factions of the PLO.

Unfortunately, left-wing organisations and individuals have at times taken a wrong position on questions of religion. When the French government banned the hijab from schools and government buildings, much of the French left failed to defend Muslims. Disgracefully, they supported this racist attack on the dubious grounds of defending secularism, and the bizarre claim of defending women's rights (by stopping young women from attending school because of what they choose to wear?).

So, we need to be wary of claims about "defending secularism", and look at the political context. The real issue may well be about “scapegoating” and oppressing a minority. Often it will be about imperialists finding a pretext for war - as with the so-called "war on terror".

It is not only in relation to oppressed religions like Islam that socialists must show respect and sensitivity. We also want movements for change to include people who belong to so-called mainstream religions.

Sections of the Australian left seriously erred in their reaction to the Pope's visit to Sydney in July. A rally was organised to oppose the Pope's homophobia and stance on contraception. As led by the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP), it became an exercise in sniggering at religious people. The DSP's decision to thrust condoms at pilgrims led to an inevitable confrontation. Such behaviour can only isolate the left from potential allies. Some pilgrims had attended a rally for Aboriginal rights that week, and many Catholics groups and individuals have been involved in the anti-war movement.

None of this is to say that we are not for secularism as such. We, as Marxists, are for the separation of Church and State. But socialists will never tolerate attacks on people's right to practise religion, especially as it relates to oppressed groups, and the left must not belittle people of faith.

Marxists have no problems seeking allies among religious people. The revolution that needs to take place on this earth must involve people of various faiths as well as those of no faith. Making a fetish of secularism and atheism will not aid this process.