Patterns Legitimizing Political Violence in Transcultural Perspectives by Bettina Koch

Author:Bettina Koch [Koch, Bettina]
Language: deu
Format: epub
Publisher: De Gruyter
Published: 2015-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Whereas revolution is associated with disorder or anti-order, egalitarian principles, and atheism, Corrêa de Oliveira sees a natural relationship between the counter-revolution and the military. The military, by its nature, is counter-revolutionary. It represents order and follows “values that are greater than life itself and for which one should be willing to die.” Moreover, military morality is based “entirely upon the idea of honor, of force placed at the service of good and turned against evil.” Moreover, they fight and die for the common good.”672 Thus, to restore order, the alliance between the military and TFP is natural and organic. The counter-revolutionary military hierarchy and honor code invites to engage with the military in the complicity of cooperation. Moreover, because a military order reflects inequality as implied in divine creation, military order can be regarded as divinely sanctioned, whereas the hierarchy of the existing Church has jeopardized the divinely inspired order. Particularly the Second Vatican Council symbolizes a communist infiltration of the Church. Corrêa de Oliveira sees it as “the greatest success attained by the smiling post-Stalinist communism” that resulted in “the Second Vatican Council’s enigmatic, disconcerting, incredible, and apocalyptically tragic silence about communism” that turned the Council into an “apastoral Council.”673

It is worth noting that Corrêa de Oliveira associates the military with force, not with violence. Violence he links exclusively with communism. In reverse application, the underlying logic is similar to Enrique Dussel’s who associates coercion with legitimate use of power and violence with illegitimacy.674 As outlined in the discussion of José Comblin’s analysis of the national security state, military juntas are interested in an agreement between Church and state to give their rule additional legitimacy and a Christian outlook through rhetoric and religious symbols.675 The military, however, is not interested in the restoration of a religious state that subordinates the political realm to religious law and the authority of the papacy. Nonetheless, sufficient overlap between TFP and the military exists.

Yet, it needs to be noted that the overlap is primarily ideological, not religious, although Corrêa de Oliveira and TFP interprets their shared ideology religiously and, thus, adds another layer of religious legitimacy to their shared ideas of socio-political order. As the current Peruvian TFP-secretary reminds us, the foundation of the first TFP was a reaction to the left-wing government of President João Goulart and its land reform. Corrêa di Oliveira and his fellow campaigners saw the land reform as an attack of their private property rights. In 1964, the Goulart-government was overthrown by a military coup.676 Private property is first and foremost a political or socio-economic issue. For Corrêa de Oliveira and TFP, “property is sacred.”677 Similar, the notion of hierarchy and elitism, favored both by the military and TFP, has no genuine roots in Christianity, but rather reflects medieval feudalism. Yet, Corrêa de Oliveira gives these political principles a particular religious coloring by attaching them to a version of Christendom he perceives as authentic.

Yet, by framing the discourse over the establishment of a new order in the

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