Meditations: Religion and the Lack of It

I wrote earlier about how Stalinist the city is, and part and parcel of that feeling is atheism. Mongolia, or at least Ulaanbaatar, appears to be pretty irreligious. This isn’t entirely recent; the most prominent faith in Mongolia was generally Buddhism, which is pretty different from a “religion” as Westerners see it, and even when the great Khans were in power and had access to three major religions (Nestorian Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism), there was never a national dedication to any of them. 

So when Stalin came in, destroyed the monasteries, and attempted to eliminate religious practice, it was pretty effective, and much of the population of Ulaanbaatar today is practically atheist/agnostic. This isn’t noteworthy, I guess, but what is noteworthy is that it shows. My first couple days here, it struck me that the city was missing something, and I couldn’t quite figure out what. But then I realized: No church bells or calls to prayer, no cathedrals standing as a testament to a formerly religious world , no mosques. It might only be noticeable because of the other places I’ve been in the past year. Oxford is in some ways a collection of churches, with bells ringing most of the time (especially when you’re trying to study); Istanbul is defined as a meeting-point of different religions; and in Egypt, when the muezzin called, people made a point either to find a mosque or they got down and prayed where they were.

So this sudden lack of religious institutions—I’m feeling it. Of course, many parts of the US are irreligious, but New England still has its charming churches, Chick Fil-A is still closed on Sundays, and crosses dot the Midwest. Even New York and LA are marked by different types of worship; the skyscrapers of New York are a testament to commerce, and LA’s billboards (Lose one million pounds with Lap-Band!) and malls (from Armani to Abercrombie & Fitch outlets) display its worship of materialism and other superficial stuff. So it may not be religion exactly, but there’s an argument to be made that it is. (In 1989, Jill Dubisch wrote an article saying that the health food craze had all the necessary aspects of a religion; I’d like to see the same for NYC’s commerce or LA’s… LA-ness.)

Ulaanbaatar, then, is the first place I’ve been where I really felt the lack of religion. Where it really felt that they were missing something. So forget all the arguments you usually hear about religion and its benefits/downsides, about moral repercussions, inevitable conflict, self-righteousness, charity, etc. etc. This question is all about culture (as poorly defined a term as that is): What benefits does religion give to a society’s culture, its institutions and architecture and rhythm, and can those benefits be gained by a substitute instead? In today’s world, should those benefits be gained by a substitute instead?

 Not pictured: Churches, temples, or mosques.

Mongolia is Awesome: Stand Up For Your Rights!

Stalin had told Genden multiple times that he should get around to destroying Buddhist temples and purging the monks, but Genden refused to do so. Genden resented growing Soviet ambitions to control Mongolia and use it as their own satellite state, and at some point, Genden called the Soviets “Red Imperialists.” When Genden was in Moscow in 1935, he had a few too many vodkas (he was a very heavy drinker) and shouted at Stalin, “You bloody Georgian, you have become a virtual Russian Czar!” Yeah, that’s right. Genden told Stalin what everyone else was thinking years before they even knew they were thinking it.

But that’s not all: The tension swiftly escalated into physical conflict, and as the story goes, Stalin kicked Genden’s walking stick, Genden literally slapped Stalin across the face in return, and smashed Stalin’s pipe on the table. Thus he proved, in case anyone had forgotten, that the Mongolians have no fear, and they will slap mass-murdering dictators if they feel like it. Also that they hate smoking. (Kidding!)

Though one moral of this story might sound like, “You will do Awesome things if you get drunk enough,” another moral is definitely, “You will face the consequences for your drunken antics.” Back in Mongolia, Genden was voted out of office for threatening Mongolian-Russian relations, and a couple years later Stalin had him arrested and executed for being a Japanese spy and conspiring with Buddhist radicals. Although, I guess, if you’ve got to die (and you pretty much were going to die soon under that regime), you might as well have smashed Stalin’s pipe while you were alive.

Meditations: Stalin Lives!

Walking around Ulaanbaatar, one cannot escape the feel of Stalinism that absolutely pervades the place. If I were given only three words to describe the city, “Stalinist” would indubitably make the list, and I’m not sure that, if I were given only one word, “Stalinist” wouldn’t be it.

It shows in the city’s name: “Ulaanbaatar” is translated as “Red Hero,” and it received its name in 1924 after being conquered by communists. (Who exactly the “Hero” is, I have yet to discover, though I suspect it is Sukhbaatar, who also gives his name to the main Square of the city.) And the buildings… I never realized until I got here how much of an effect architecture has on a place (which shows how little I’ve been paying attention). Most of the standing structures in Ulaanbaatar were built by the USSR, and they look like exactly what you’d expect: Square apartment buildings. Period. But it’s a neglected sort of Stalinism, like an abandoned communist city, despite the crowds of people walking around, knowing to avoid the open manholes and unbothered by the bits of wreckage that stand on (or are) the side of the road. Grass pokes through the concrete and makes a reluctant appearance in backyards and parks, but even the plants here look Soviet.

But here’s the thing: Ulaanbaatar is not communist. It is not Soviet, and officially, it never was. The Mongolian people are pretty ready for the future, evidenced by some of the new modern buildings and the rapid privatization of the country’s industry. When the coordinator of International Programmes dropped me off, I asked about a statue in front of the NUM and wondered who it was. She said she doesn’t like him much, that he was president of Mongolia when the NUM was founded, but she does not like him much (she repeated), because he was friends with Stalin. So people’s attitudes seem to be very un-communist.

My first meditation, then, is very appropriate to Mongolia in general (as I’ll get to later): How significant is the past? What prompts a people to reject their past, and once they collectively want to, how easy is it? Is it even possible, or does the past still stand as long as the buildings do? How are our own societies still tied to the past? Did America emerge the way it did due to the very fact that it was without a past, that it was a people starting fresh and erecting their own buildings? Getting back to Mongolia, is the Stalinism something that will wear off as new institutions of the country emerge (i.e. democracy, capitalism, technology), or has it made enough of a mark that they’re stuck with it for a while? What effect will new institutions have not only on the literal remnants of the past (buildings, statues, etc), but also on people's views of the past? And I haven’t even started with gers yet.