Concerned by Europe’s long and bloody history of religious persecution and conflict, the Founding Fathers rightly ensured that America would take a different course. As later codified in the First Amendment, Thomas Jefferson explained that American democracy and justice required “building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
Today, in two different nations, we’re seeing why Jefferson had it right.
In a heavily publicized display on Wednesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi worshiped at the Ram shrine/temple in Ayodhya city. That might not seem noteworthy, except that the shrine was built on the ruins of a mosque. And that mosque was smashed to pieces by Hindu nationalist rioters in 1992. Believed to be the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram, the new temple’s construction follows years of legal disputes that culminated in a 2019 Supreme Court opinion in favor of Modi’s government. Understandably, however, India’s minority Sunni Muslim population is alarmed by this Hindu shrine rising from the desecrated ruins of their holy place. Making matters worse, the Modi-supplicant Supreme Court ordered the government to grant the Islamic authority space only outside of the mosque’s original location. Modi is an important partner and India a prospectively vital ally. But this play to sectarian identity politics dishonors India’s reputation as a modern, vibrant democracy that values all its 1.38 billion people.
Similar is the tale of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia.
Home to both churches and mosques going back nearly 1,500 years, the Hagia Sophia was made into a museum in 1934 by modern Turkey’s founder, Kemal Ataturk. But last month, Erdogan had the museum turned back into a mosque. It’s part of Erdogan’s abiding effort to see Turkey’s Christian and historic heritage subjugated under his personal brand of political Islam. Seeing himself as a great Sunni Islamist competitor to Ataturk’s secular legacy, Erdogan views the restored mosque as a physical consecration of his rule. Erdogan might kneel at Vladimir Putin’s feet when it comes to the Russian leader’s slaughter of Muslims in Syria, but the Turkish leader’s Hagia Sophia gambit offers an easy play to his base. It is, however, another nail in the coffin of Turkey’s reputation as a secular democracy.
For Modi and Erdogan, then, these new monuments are more than religious places. They are designed to serve as physical repudiations of multisectarianism and simultaneous manifestations of an exclusionary national identity. Both leaders are aware their actions are broadly opposed by the international community. But that’s all part of the point. The prime minister and president are trying to show that they are leaders of destiny, unconstrained by better national tradition. And as far as they’re concerned, any citizens who aren’t on board can get lost.
Modi’s and Erdogan’s political bases might love it, but their democracies suffer under these monuments to sectarianism. Let us hope Jefferson’s legacy always abides in America.
