3 - Mi corazón late Husayn: Identity, Politics and Religion in a Shi‘a Community in Buenos Aires

Summary

Muslim Political Identities in Diasporic Contexts

Thxe religious field in Argentina today is plural (Mallimaci 2000) and diverse (Frigerio 2007). For all that contemporary Argentine society is in transition towards a more open social fabric, the latest statistical surveys (Mallimaci 2008) reveal that it nevertheless maintains a strong Christian presence within. While Catholicism preserves high levels of institutional hegemony and enjoys certain privileges in its relationship with the state (Esquivel 2010; Mallimaci 2010), difference is less costly than in the past, when state control translated into persecutions and prohibitions of other religious identities distinct from Catholicism (Calvo 2004, 2006; Zanatta and Di Stéfano 2000).

Authors such as Mallimaci (2015) have described a process of transition from Catholic monopoly to religious pluralism. They talk about the shattering of the ‘myth of the Argentine Catholic nation’. Mallimaci and Giménez Béliveau (2007) explain that in the Southern Cone of South America religiosity has become hazy. Catholic symbols and rituals are utilised and re- articulated by different religious and lay actors. They also claim that the process of modernisation in this region is heterogeneous and expresses lay and secular tendencies, new forms of collective or individual belief (selfstyled believers and nomadic subjects) and even forms of unbelief (2007: 47). These authors emphasise that modernity in Latin America does not necessarily imply a process of secularisation but is characterised by the break-up of the Catholic monopoly (Giménez Béliveau and Esquivel 1996: 117–18; Mallimaci 2001: 22–4) and the pluralisation of the religious field: in other words, the existence of a fluid and fragmentary landscape.

A different vision from the above is suggested by authors like Frigerio and Wynarczyk (2008). In their reading, the analysis of the breakdown of religious monopoly – primarily the Catholic monopoly – accepts or assumes an overly linear transition which loses sight of minority groups’ difficulties and negotiations. Diversity and pluralism for them are not synonymous. They recognise the existence of greater religious diversity, or rather, its greater public visibility. This does not, however, imply a real and effective positive assessment of this diversity. They recognise the existence of ‘asymmetric tolerances’ (2008: 248), which, in Argentina at least, does not imply the same type of relationship or interreligious dialogue between Catholicism and the other Abrahamic traditions as exists with African-American cults, Umbanda or even Evangelical groups.