From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

2 POWER AND POLITICS I BELIEVE, THEREFORE I AMHowever, a profound ambiguity characterises the interactionbetween faith and politics. While Marx saw religion as ‘the opium ofthe people’, blinding them to the true nature of their oppression, andGramsci saw it as a means through which elites could construct andmaintain their domination, Durkheim portrayed it as a way of buildingcollective identity that promotes social cohesion and stability. 25 Indifferent places at different times, religion can encourage activism,conformity, or hatred.Nowhere is this contradictory role more evident than in relation towomen’s rights. Fundamentalists of virtually all religions view theemancipation of women as profoundly disturbing, their influencegiving rise, for example, to the curious alliance of the Vatican, theIranian government, and the US government to block internationalprogress on sexual and reproductive rights. At the same time, organisedreligion is undergoing change, often at the behest of women activists.In the cases of Islam and Catholicism, reinterpretation of scriptureshas moved in parallel with changing attitudes and beliefs, withwomen’s rights leading to a new popular approach to the faiths,despite the opposition of the religious hierarchies (see the case studyon Morocco on page 67).39