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M. Introvigne: Address to Summit 2022, Session V
Written by Dr. Massimo Introvigne, managing director, Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR)
Friday, August 12, 2022
Address to Summit 2022 and Leadership Conference,
Seoul, Korea, August 11-15, 2022
In 2011, I served as the representative of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), of which the United States and Canada are also participating states, for combating racism, xenophobia, and intolerance and discrimination against Christians and members of other religions. I organized an OSCE conference in Rome attended by representatives of some 50 states, and proposed what I called the “Rome model of religious prejudice.” I am always pleased when I see that the Rome model is still quoted by scholars and diplomats.
According to the Rome model, religious prejudice generates a sequence of three evils: intolerance, discrimination, and persecution.
First, unpopular minorities are slandered through the media—intolerance. When the media have convinced many, laws and administrative measures follow which limit the activities of these minorities—discrimination. Since laws rarely succeed against the strong will of religionists, the next stage is physical persecution.
In Nazi Germany, Jews were depicted as evil by the media, cartoons, and movies (intolerance) until anti-Jewish laws were passed without much protest (discrimination). In a few years, the Holocaust followed (persecution).
It is a slippery slope. Intolerance may seem less severe than persecution, but—as it happens with a small ball rolling down an inclined plane—either we stop the fall at its first stage or it will be too late.
Three features of intolerance are important today. First, certain groups are slandered by using the word “cults” and its functional equivalents in other languages, such as sectes in French or xie jiao in Chinese.
An overwhelming majority of scholars of religion have concluded since the late 20th century that there are no cults. The word “cult” is just a label used to discriminate against groups that some powerful forces do not like.
There are, of course, criminal religious movements (and individuals), both within the oldest religions—such as pedophile Catholic priests and terrorists who misuse the name of Islam—and the new ones. But the word “cult” just creates confusion, supports discrimination, and does not explain anything.
Second, those who want to discriminate against certain religious groups accuse them of being excessively interested in money, soliciting extravagant donations, and avoiding the payment of taxes. In most cases, either this is not true or the behavior of the discriminated groups is not different from that of mainline religions. Yet these accusations are powerful tools of discrimination, as it happened in the cases of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in France and Tai Ji Men in Taiwan, before higher courts of law identified the accusations as fabricated.
Third, and most alarming, today the opponents of groups they label as “cults” are becoming skilled in playing an old confidence trick. They move the cards quickly until we lose sight of which card is on the right and which is on the left. When crimes happen that have some connection with religious movements they do not like, they quickly switch the cards representing the victim and the perpetrator.
This month in Korea a husband who hated a religious movement called Shincheonji and was in contact with anti-cultists and deprogrammers killed his wife, a Shincheonji member, and her brother. Immediately anti-Shincheonji activists called a press conference and depicted the murderer as a victim. If the wife had not been a member of Shincheonji, they explained, the poor man would not be spending the rest of his life in jail. The cards were moved quickly, and some media bought the story that Shincheonji was the villain, while —whatever opinion you may have of it as a religion—it was in fact the victim.
Of course, the most spectacular case of this confidence trick is the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The assassin is not a member of the Unification movement. On the contrary, he hates the Unification movement, of which his mother is a member. He likely has been excited by the anti-Unification campaign promoted by certain greedy lawyers and media, and wanted to kill Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, the movement’s co-founder, as well. Yet the greedy lawyers and anti-cultists quickly switched the cards on the table. Before somebody might accuse them of having influenced the weak mind of the killer with their hate campaigns, they called press conferences. They depicted the Unification movement, which was clearly the victim of the assassin’s hate, and their own, of being in fact the villain of the story. Unfortunately, their trick worked in the sense that it was followed by a significant number of media, not only in Japan.
Let me conclude by being absolutely clear. Those who perform such tricks are not simply wrong. They support, protect, and sometimes cause hate crimes, just as those lawyers who defend clients accused of rape by blaming the raped woman and suggesting that perhaps she had provoked the rapist or was not dressed conservatively enough.
Understandably, victims are so shocked that they simply defend themselves by saying, “Look, didn’t you see? Somebody switched the cards. I am not the perpetrator, I am the victim.” This is true, but it is not good enough. To get out of the victimization cycle, victims should name and shame the card sharpers. We should help the victims. We should reverse the narrative, put the cards back in their place, and denounce the con men and women who lie and deceive.
It is not impossible. Through scholarly articles, conferences, seminars, and the daily magazine on religious liberty, Bitter Winter, which I helped to found in 2008, some friends and I have succeeded in promoting narratives about recent incidents that are both alternatives to what most media have reported and, more importantly, true.
To Mrs. Moon and her followers who have had much to endure in their lives, to those slandered after the Abe assassination, and any other group victimized by unscrupulous lawyers and reporters, I have this to tell you: You are not alone. We are with you. We will fight with you—and eventually we will win.
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