PETER
L.
BERGER
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in country after country, by those who did the importing. But there
is yet another stage in this play of mirrors: The idea came from the
West, found resonance outside the West-and then returned to the
West, ideologically reinvigorated, to inspire another generation of
Westerners. This latter incarnation of the Third-World idea, as
Third Worldism in Europe and North America, has its own religious
undertones that merit attention .
But first, back to peasants . One of the most important things to
understand about the impact of modernization on traditional
• peoples is the ambivalence with which it is perceived . On the one
hand, it is experienced as a threat to long-cherished institutions,
values, and identities. On the other hand, and at the same time,
modernization is seen as a great promise. The ambivalence of threat
and promise is reflected in attitudes to the West, which, after all , has
been the harbinger of modernity everywhere. These ambivalent
attitudes can be found among peasants as well as among writers and
politicians . Ambivalence extends both to the gifts of modernity and
to the bearers of these gifts . Ambivalence characterized the
beginnings of Third-World ideology in the 1950s and it characterizes
the present-day rhetoric of Third-World advocates . Both the threat
and the promise of modernization have religious implications .
Modernity threatens tradition, and for the vast majority of human
beings tradition is inextricably linked with religion, so that
modernity necessarily appears as an antireligious force. Nor is this a
misperception: modernization and secularization have been
empirically linked processes. At the same time, the hopes aroused by
the promise of modernity have very often been expressed by means
of religious symbols, from the Taiping Rebellion to the latest
manifestos of liberation theology.
One of the most poignant expressions of this religious
ambiguity was the so-called Cargo Cult , which, in different forms ,
has appeared in Melanesia since the early years of this century. The
basic features of Cargo movements were always the same. A prophet
arose and announced that soon ships (later this became airplanes)
would appear from the world of the ancestors and that these ships (or
airplanes) would bring wonderful gifts-the "cargo" from which the
movements derive their name.
It
seems that "ships of the dead"
bringing gifts are an old feature of Melanesian mythology. What is
new is the nature of their cargo-now this cargo consists of
all
the
