Description
This paper examines the idea of resistance through the writings of three thinkers who understand liberation as a religious or spiritual process: Ali Shariati (Iran), Ignacio Ellacuría (El Salvador), and Joel Kovel (United States). While they expose the neocolonial and racial hierarchies underpinning the postwar international order, they also interrogate their own religious and intellectual traditions, critically engaging Islamic and Catholic theologies, modernity, and Marxism through their visions of liberation.
Shariati envisions liberation as both an existential journey toward the transcendent and a collective struggle for justice. Ellacuría defines it as the restoration of human dignity through his vision of a “civilization of poverty” that transcends religious and national identities. Kovel conceives liberation as a spiritual process that persists despite modern “despiritualization,” opening the door to a utopian vision that transcends modernity.
Placing these thinkers in dialogue reveals resistance as a dialectical process grounded in both self-critique and outward critique. This perspective challenges the tendency to solidify religious identities as fixed sites of resistance or to absorb them into the discourse of the nation-state. Instead, their writings collectively propose a plural, evolving, and self-reflective language of liberation, moving beyond the boundaries that define both religious communities and modern nations.
