Religion as Pre-Text, Art as Counter-Text

How is it possible that the “turn to religion,” as Hent de Vries called it in 1999, has led to exceedingly violent dictatorial regimes before our very eyes? On a basic level, I hold binary thinking at least in part responsible. The lessons drawn from Jacques Derrida and later, from Hent de Vries that complicate binary opposition and even argue that such oppositions are by definition logically untenable and politically damaging, have not reached the new dictators of the world. The abuse of religion as pretext – in the double sense of ante-text and excuse – to continue to rule countries with violence and even give that mode of government a fresh start in the twenty-first century, “works” because people have an easier time dividing everyone and everything in opposites than having to figure out what matters. As an example, I will examine some artworks by artist Nalini Malani in view of horrors committed with constitutional support by the current “democratically” elected Indian government. Through that analysis, I will make the case for a renewed resistance against binary thinking. The article brings some ideas from Hent's work, especially that anti-binarism, to bear on Malani's 2016–17 paintings All I Imagine as Light that responds to current horrors in Kashmir.