Paul Saffo
January 2005
Natural disasters have always reverberated in the realm of belief and the Sumatra-Andaman Islands megathrust quakes and tsunami will be no exception. In fact, given the area's history as well as it's current unrest, it is quite likely that the long term geopolitical impact of this event may dwarf the shocking loss of life and property stemming directly from the quakes and tsunami. A turn towards fundamentalism is the obvious outcome to consider, but not the only possibility. While history offers ample instances of natural events triggering a turn to fundamentalist religious superstition, other disasters suggest that rejection of gods in favor of a more secular view is also possible. This essay considers these two possibilities and a third outcome, a wildcard scenario leading from the quake to the establishment of a new great religion.
Krakatau's lesson: give me that old-time religion
The disaster strikes. Tsunami hit the shores of Indonesia. Tens of thousands are dead. Islamic clerics speak of events as proof of god's wrath against the intemperate, the impious and those who would abandon tradition in favor of novelties from abroad. Aceh province in 2004? No, Banten province on the northern tip of Java, 500 miles to the southwest and 120 years earlier.
The event was the explosion of Mt. Krakatau in August 1883, and the social parallels between that earlier disaster and the Sumatra quake are eerily similar. Like the Sumatra quake, the Krakatau explosion generated a large tidal wave and killed a large number of people (estimated 40,000 dead). Its physical effects were felt worldwide, as the dust and aerosols emitted affected world climate in the months to follow. Researchers led by Don Olson have even identified the eerie blood-red sunsets caused by Krakatau to be the inspiration for Muench's famous painting "the Scream." (see Sky and Telescope Magazine February 2004).
But the greatest similarities are cultural. Aceh, the Sumatran province closest to the earthquake's epicenter is today riven by sectarian violence. In the 1880s, Banten, the Javan province closest to Krakatau was similarly the locus of religious unrest. Islam had been present in Indonesia for several centuries, but Banten was the center of an especially conservative Islam with millenarian overtones. Spurred in no small part by the presence of the Dutch plantations and an oppressive colonial government, Banten witnessed the rise of a simmering indigenous resistance that orbited around notions of the return of the "Ratu Adil," the "righteous king" (or the Madhi) who would lead the masses in ejecting the foreigners from Indonesian soil.
The unrest began in the early 1800s, well before the Krakatau explosion, but the stresses brought on by the myriad disasters of earthquake, tidal wave and ash fallout exacerbated the unhappiness and in the minds of many, fulfilled the prophecies of fundamentalist preachers. A religious reawakening was already afoot in Java when Krakatau exploded, but the awakening accelerated after 1883 with an upsurge in pilgrims, circulation of the Prophet's last messages and growth of fundamentalist Islamic brotherhoods. A mellow, tolerant Indonesian Islam was replaced by a new muscular, intolerant, fundamentalist—and at times eschatological—Islam.
The post-explosion social ferment reached its peak with the peasants' revolt of Banten in 1888. Though the revolt proper lasted less than a month, it marked a sea change in Indonesian society—and the beginning of a long decline of power for the Dutch colonists. There was no doubt that natural events had cast the dice in favor of the fundamentalists. Shaken by the vast disaster of the volcano, many Indonesians turned to a fundamentalist god, while others remained passively on the sidelines.
The parallels with Aceh are obvious, but this time the impact could be far larger. Indonesia is home to the world's largest population of Muslim faithful, and of course the tsunami touched the shores of Sri Lanka and India, both places with populations of myriad faithful. The signs of this outcome are not yet present, but as this is written, barely four months have passed since the original quake.
Lisbon's Lesson: Disasters as support for deistic secularism
The Great Quake struck Lisbon on the morning of All Soul's Day, Saturday November 1st, 1755. Buildings crumbled, fires began to lick at the ruins and then a series of tsunami devastated the docks and shoreline. The aftershocks continued through the day, one strong enough to collapse the Church of St. Catherine (who in the 20th Century, would ironically, be adopted as the patron saint of geologists), killing a large number of citizens who had taken refuge there.
The physical destruction was horrific, but the greatest damage was psychic. Lisbon was not merely the capital of Portugal but famous as a center of devout Catholicism, its populace known for their deep faith and piety. If ever there was a city to be spared God's wrath, it was Lisbon. Yet Lisbon was not merely leveled, but leveled by an Act of God on All Souls Day, one of the holiest days of the year.
This fact did not just shock the Portuguese—it stunned all of Europe. The quake arrived just as postal, publishing and transportation innovations were shrinking the continent, and thus the quake gained attention like no other event before it. The Lisbon disaster struck in the midst of an intellectual revolution—the early Enlightenment, that moment in European history when the Continent's intellectuals self-consciously viewed themselves as employing rationality to lead the world toward progress and away from ignorance and superstition.
The aftershocks and tsunami shifted the trajectory of the Enlightenment. Before the quake struck, the early Enlightenment was witnessing a struggle between intellectual optimists like Pope and Leibniz who embraced spirituality and Deism of a benign and loving God, and intellectual pessimists like Voltaire who adopted a darker more pessimistic view. Until the Lisbon quake, the optimists were carrying the day, their position exemplified by Alexander Pope's 1734 "Essay on Man," in which Pope argued that everything works out for the best in a world controlled by a benevolent God.
The Lisbon Quake shook this optimism to intellectual rubble and energized the Enlightenment's pessimists. How could a "benevolent God" possibly destroy a great and pious city? Soon after the quake, arch-pessimist Voltaire proclaimed that the disaster demonstrated that evil still lurked in the world, which by implication was ruled by a distant and indifferent God. Alarmed by Voltaire's extreme conclusion, Rousseau countered with bleak optimism: God hadn't done better in protecting this flock because he could do no better. God loved man, but he was not omnipotent. It is hard to imagine what would be more terrifying to the faithful as this very public debate unfolded; Voltaire's all-powerful but indifferent Almighty, or Rousseau's loving but weak God.
Voltaire revisited the Lisbon Quake in his wildly popular novel, Candide. in which the shipwrecked Candide and Pangloss walk into Lisbon just at the temblor strikes. What unfolds in Voltaire's tale is a devastating send-up of the optimists' its-all-for-the-best philosophy with Dr. Pangloss serving as a thinly disguised Leibniz spouting Popean optimism and jargon from the Leibntz-authored Thêodicêe. Candide leads us through a dark comedy of misadventures including a perfunctory auto-de-fe cooked up by Lisbon's priest hoping to mollify an angry god by slow-roasting a few Jews and hapless others.
Candide was a best-seller and thus Voltaire's influence on public thought cannot be overestimated. For example, the ironic "best of all possible worlds" phrase that is so commonplace finds its origins in the terrified Candide who bloodied in an aftershock notes to himself, "If this is the best of all possible worlds, whatever must the others be like?" But Voltaire closes on a note that echoes where the Enlightenment found its intellectual angle of repose. Of course the optimism of Pope and Leibnitz is folly, for evil does exist in the world. But even in that face of evil, progress is possible, for despite the odds, human optimism is unquenchable even by earthquake, fire and flood. In other words, enlightened by wisdom and reason, man will prevail even if God is distant or indifferent or not all-powerful.
The 2004 Sumatran quakes and tsunami also occur in a period not unlike the early Enlightenment. Burgeoning scientific discovery has led to mind-bending technologies that have captured the public's imagination—and fears. Communications and transportation are making the world an ever-smaller place. And thus the audience observing the seismic tragedy is vastly larger than the population suffering its direct effects.
Meanwhile, the global community is engaged in open and acrimonious debate over the role of technology and its relationship to both religion and mankind's place in the universe. While part of the world is embracing fundamentalist religiosity, other regions such as Europe are becoming ever more secular. Voltaire's once-Catholic France is now a land of religious unbelievers.
Observing the quake on TV and the Internet, how many of us are not unlike Voltaire or Rousseau, each of us trying to make personal sense of the tragedy and then attempting to fit it into a larger worldview. And in the face of religious devouts who would try to drive us back to an earlier time of blind faith, how many of the global observers conclude that the evident randomness of the disasters serves as a reminder that if a God exists at all, it is a God who is either distant or not all-powerful. Like 18th century Europe, this tragedy could actually steer global society towards an enlightened deistic secularism and away from more fundamentalist worldviews.
A wildcard: A new great Religion
Finally, a wildcard. Might this or some future disaster trigger the emergence of a major new religion? And indeed, it is surprising that though hundreds of new religions appear and disappear every year, it has been centuries since a truly new great religion has appeared on this planet. We are overdue, and seismic events like the Sumatra quake/tsunami might just become the nucleus around which an entirely new belief system coalesces.
We have already seen signs in this direction. The 1980s rise of so-called New Age beliefs is really just an exploration on the frontiers of belief for a new system. Secular humanism is another manifestation of this questing, and even the turn towards fundamentalist sects is evidence of the same. Outwardly such Christian fundamentalism looks like a turn backwards, but it really is a step into new space, in effect a Christian marketplace populated by restless shoppers joining small congregations and moving on when they become bored or dissatisfied or unhappy. And indeed, these believers move on with breathtaking frequency. Gone are days when one stayed in one church for life as the majority of believers change congregations every year. Believers now change churches with the ease and casualness once reserved for changing TV channels.
The result is that there is a vast population of global religious restless, looking for the next big thing to believe in. They are adrift, uneasy, unsure of their place and without knowing it, awaiting the arrival of a messiah. Religions often arise out of misery and uncertainty. Christianity emerged from the turmoil of Roman-occupied Palestine. Buddhism arose from the despair of life in India. Islam arose out of the emptiness felt by nomadic tribes when they saw great new religions emerging among their neighbors.
Will the next great religion arise from the vast impoverished misery of the developing world, or will it come from the disaffected rich in the US and Europe? Then there is China to consider. All things considered, the emergence of a new great religion may in fact not be a wildcard, but a near-certainty. It is not a matter of whether, but merely when—and how. The wildcard is what will trigger its emergence. Disasters like the Sumatran quake are good catalysts—witness how Krakatau boosted Islam in the Indonesian archipelago. Perhaps unnoticed a new religion is appearing in south Asia there even as these words are being written.
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