Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Vol. 7, No. 3, 283–301, September 2006 ISSN 1469-0764 Print/ISSN 1743-9647 Online/06/030283-19 © 2006 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14690760600819473 Protest Rituals and Uncivil Communities JESUS CASQUETE University of the Basque Country Taylor and Francis Ltd FTMP_A_181888.sgm 10.1080/14690760600819473 Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 1469-0764 (print)/1743-9647 (online) Original Article 2006 Taylor & Francis 7 3 0000002006 JesusCasquete jesus.casquete@ehu.es ABSTRACT Our world features communities suffering from an excess of collective iden- tity. If these communities value group over individual liberties, resort to violent means in order to pursue their goals, and members join them on a relatively voluntary basis, they qualify as ‘uncivil’. Two such contemporary communities are compared: the Basque move- ment around the terrorist organisation ETA and the right-wing constellation around the National Democratic Party in Germany. Both are of a radical nationalist nature. Out of the resource-pool at the disposal of social groups and communities to preserve their bound- aries in a largely hostile environment, this article will consider one central factor: namely, their political liturgy and politics of the streets. Contemporary western political religions, it will be argued, stage ritual demonstrations with such extraordinary frequency not merely to put forward their demands in society, but also as an inner means of communica- tion in order to preserve group solidarity. I Ain’t afraid of your Yahweh, I Ain’t afraid of your Allah I Ain’t afraid of your Jesus I’m afraid of what you do In the name of your God Holly Near Too Much Bonding, Too Much Uncivility Both an excess and a shortage of group solidarity are symptomatic features of a collective disease – thus might be stated the departure point of this article. Although it is admittedly hard to discern where the desirable balance lies exactly, a liquid ‘we feeling’ prevents group integration, whereas an all too strong esprit de corps often leads to a pathological collective state in the form of social isolation, sectarianism, ethnocentrism, or self-closure within a narcissism of minor differences. In their effort to deal with what is deemed a negative trend in contemporary western societies – namely, the erosion of the social bond – social analysts have Correspondence address: Department of History of Political Thought and of Social Movements, Faculty of Social and Communication Sciences, University of the Basque Country, 48940 Leioa, Basque Country, Spain. Email: jesus.casquete@ehu.es.