US Engagement with Religion in Conflict-Prone Settings

[Jedburgh]

USIP, 5 Feb 08: Religion in World Affairs: Its Role in Conflict and Peace

Summary

• No major religion has been exempt from complicity in violent conflict. Yet we need to beware of an almost universal propensity to oversimplify the role that religion plays in international affairs. Religion is not usually the sole or even primary cause of conflict.

• With so much emphasis on religion as a source of conflict, the role of religion as a force in peacemaking is usually overlooked.

• Religious affiliation and conviction often motivates religious communities to advocate particular peace-related government policies. Religious communities also directly oppose repression and promote peace and reconciliation.

• Religious leaders and institutions can mediate in conflict situations, serve as a communication link between opposing sides, and provide training in peacemaking methodologies. This form of religious peacemaking garners less public attention but is growing in importance.

• Interfaith dialogue is another form of religious peacemaking. Rather than seeking to resolve a particular conflict, it aims to defuse interfaith tensions that may cause future conflict or derive from previous conflict. Interfaith dialogue is expanding even in places where interreligious tensions are highest. Not infrequently, the most contentious interfaith relationships can provide the context for the most meaningful and productive exchanges.

• Given religion’s importance as both a source of international conflict and a resource for peacemaking, it is regrettable that the U.S. government is so ill equipped to handle religious issues and relate to religious actors. If the U.S. government is to insert itself into international conflicts or build deeper and more productive relationships with countries around the world, it needs to devise a better strategy to effectively and respectfully engage with the religious realm.

Complete 8 page paper at the link.

[Jedburgh]

USIP, 8 Oct 08: Abrahamic Alternatives to War: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives on Just Peacemaking

Summary

• Jewish, Muslim, and Christian sacred texts all contain sections that support violence and justify warfare as a means to achieve certain goals. In particular historical circumstances, these texts have served as the basis to legitimate violent campaigns, oftentimes against other faith communities.

• Many of the passages from sacred texts in all three religious traditions that are misused in contemporary situations to support violence and war are taken out of context, interpreted in historically inaccurate ways, or can be better translated. Finally, all of these passages need to be understood within (and constrained by) the primary spiritual aims of the individual faith.

• There are also a great many teachings and ethical imperatives within Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures that promote peace and present the means to achieve it. These include mandates to strive for political, social, and economic justice; tolerant intercommunal coexistence; and nonviolent conflict resolution.

• The three religious delegations that participated in the conference leading to this report presented slightly different and yet overlapping methods for peacemaking articulated by their sacred scriptures. The considerable overlap led the scholars to affirm the existence of a coherent “Abrahamic Just Peacemaking” paradigm, which began to take focus through their rigorous interfaith debate.

• Further work is needed to articulate fully this Abrahamic Just Peacemaking paradigm. The conference scholars committed themselves to continued development of this model in pursuit of a rigorous and effective faith-based program to promote alternatives to war.

[Jedburgh]

USIP, 21 Jan 09: Islamic Peacemaking Since 9/11

Summary

• Muslims in general and Muslim leaders particularly have often been severely criticized for not more energetically condemning the violent acts of Muslim extremists.

• Violent extremists are on one edge of the Muslim community. They are counter-balanced by a growing movement of Muslim peacemakers.

• Equally as notable as Islamic militancy but less noted are Muslims’ 1) widespread condemnation of terrorism and other violent acts; 2) promotion of interfaith dialogue; 3) education of Muslim youth and reeducation of extremist Muslims; and 4) promotion of peaceful conflict resolution.

[Rex Brynen]

Haaretz - 13:17 26/01/2009

IDF rabbinate publication during Gaza war: We will show no mercy on the cruel

By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent

An overview of some of the army rabbinate's publications made available during the fighting reflects the tone of nationalist propaganda that steps blatantly into politics, sounds racist and can be interpreted as a call to challenge international law when it comes to dealing with enemy civilians.

Haaretz has received some of the publications through Breaking the Silence, a group of former soldiers who collect evidence of unacceptable behavior in the army vis-a-vis Palestinians. Other material was provided by officers and men who received it during Operation Cast Lead. Following are quotations from this material:

"[There is] a biblical ban on surrendering a single millimeter of it [the Land of Israel] to gentiles, though all sorts of impure distortions and foolishness of autonomy, enclaves and other national weaknesses. We will not abandon it to the hands of another nation, not a finger, not a nail of it." This is an excerpt from a publication entitled "Daily Torah studies for the soldier and the commander in Operation Cast Lead," issued by the IDF rabbinate. The text is from "Books of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner," who heads the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva in the Muslim quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem.

The following questions are posed in one publication: "Is it possible to compare today's Palestinians to the Philistines of the past? And if so, is it possible to apply lessons today from the military tactics of Samson and David?" Rabbi Aviner is again quoted as saying: "A comparison is possible because the Philistines of the past were not natives and had invaded from a foreign land ... They invaded the Land of Israel, a land that did not belong to them and claimed political ownership over our country ... Today the problem is the same. The Palestinians claim they deserve a state here, when in reality there was never a Palestinian or Arab state within the borders of our country. Moreover, most of them are new and came here close to the time of the War of Independence."

The IDF rabbinate, also quoting Rabbi Aviner, describes the appropriate code of conduct in the field: "When you show mercy to a cruel enemy, you are being cruel to pure and honest soldiers. This is terribly immoral. These are not games at the amusement park where sportsmanship teaches one to make concessions. This is a war on murderers. 'A la guerre comme a la guerre.'"

Needless to say, I'm sure Hamas didn't have any issues mixing religion and politics.

[Bob's World]

"Muslims in general and Muslim leaders particularly have often been severely criticized for not more energetically condemning the violent acts of Muslim extremists."

You see statements like this fairly often. Maybe it’s a fair criticism, but if one compares the current turmoil in the world it is VERY similar to the turmoil that rocked through Europe in the 1500s and 1600s.

Then: The printing press sparked an information age that led to Christian Reformation, the Renaissance, and the Age of Discovery; ultimately resulting in the overthrow of the Holy Roman Empire and the emergence of the Westphalian State system. Christian populaces of northern Europe, long suppressed from achieving self-determination by Rome (through the Catholic Church) see opportunity in change to rebel. Radical Christians (known then and now as “Protestants”) used an extreme brand of Christianity to break from the Catholic Church and end Rome’s rule over northern Europe.

Now: The invention of electronic information, accelerated in recent years by the internet and cell phones sparks a new surge of science, art, exploration and political turmoil. Muslim populaces of the Middle East, long suppressed from achieving self-determination by the West (through the U.S) see opportunity in change to rebel. Radical Muslims (known now as “violent extremists”, future will judge what they will be called 400 years from now) use an extreme brand of Islam to break from U.S. Control and end the West’s rule over the Middle East.

I’m sure the good people of Rome felt betrayed as well; but I do not think that “more energetically condemning the violent acts of Christian extremists” by the Pope and his Cardinals would have accomplished much…


Bottom line is that this is about Politics, not Religion. Every insurgency must have some ideology to effectively engage the target populace, and few messages are as powerful as those wrapped in that populace's religion in a way that also attacks their frustrations.

We must compete a more successful message (not attack their message) to win this competition with Muslim extremists, and we must also modify our behavior in the Middle East. This must be a two-way street or we'll never get there.

[William F. Owen]

Bottom line is that this is about Politics, not Religion.

With respect Bob, there is no difference, for a great many people, here in the Middle East.

We must compete a more successful message (not attack their message) to win this competition with Muslim extremists, and we must also modify our behavior in the Middle East. This must be a two-way street or we'll never get there.

Again, and with respect, this is not about being reasonable or even rational. Who the message comes from, defines it. There is simply no such thing as a "better message."

The only pro-US message that will stick is one that comes from the extremists, themselves, and guards their credibility within their own communities - and to make them do that they will have to be very scared of you indeed.

[marct]

Hi Bob,

A very nice analogy and one that has some validity I suspect.

I’m sure the good people of Rome felt betrayed as well; but I do not think that “more energetically condemning the violent acts of Christian extremists” by the Pope and his Cardinals would have accomplished much…

Let me note that Luther condemned a number of the "violent acts of Christian extremists".

Bottom line is that this is about Politics, not Religion. Every insurgency must have some ideology to effectively engage the target populace, and few messages are as powerful as those wrapped in that populace's religion in a way that also attacks their frustrations.

I certainly agree that religious symbology can be extremely powerful as the basis for an ideology. I'm not sure, however, that there can be any meaningful absolute distinction between "politics" and "religion", although it certainly is possible to distinguish between "religion" and a political process.

We must compete a more successful message (not attack their message) to win this competition with Muslim extremists, and we must also modify our behavior in the Middle East. This must be a two-way street or we'll never get there.

I'm afraid I have to agree with Wilf on this one. To my mind, the difficulty, to use marketing terms, is that you have no idea what you are "selling" and if there is any demand for "it", whatever "it" may be. It is all part of the degradation of public diplomacy in the US that has gone on for the last couple of decades (hey, Matt, chime in on this one buddy !).

[Bob's World]

If we back off from current rhetoric tied to specific current U.S. values, and instead fall back to promoting (and then enabling) the sound populace -empowering principles upon which the U.S. was founded, I suspect we would have a far more favorable impact.

Self Determination is far more powerful of a concept than "Democracy" is. "All men are created equal" is far more powerful than a judgemental assessment that only current U.S. values on the roles and rights of minorities and women is correct. We had to evolve and grow into our principles; we need to allow the same opportunity for others.

The problem is that we just can't relinquish control. You can't promote democracy as the end all solution to good governance on one hand; and then refuse to recognize the officials that a populace elects simply becuase they hold positions counter to our own. The hipocrisy of such actions harms our national credibility tremendously.

We must provide a good example, and we must help enable popular sovereignty and self determination. Once we seek to lead more than control, our credibility stock will begin to rise once again.

[wm]

"
We must compete a more successful message (not attack their message) to win this competition with Muslim extremists, and we must also modify our behavior in the Middle East. This must be a two-way street or we'll never get there.

I suspect it will take more than just competing a more successful message, particularly if we accept the value of BW's analogy based on his view of the Reformation's effect on the reigning Roman Catholic political status quo.

The response of Roman Catholicism in the Counter-Reformation was to turn away from the philosophical underpinnings of its world view and message--Neo-Platonism as modified by Augustine. A different world view, based on Aristotle, as seen through the lens of Thomas Aquinas, became central to the work of the reforming monks who sought to win the world back for Rome. The religious message remained the same; what changed was the metaphysical and epistemic foundation on which the message stood.

Interestingly, a slightly different process took place in England. The Anglican Church outdid Rome at its understanding of Aristotle and won the day by focussing on the pragmatic aspects of his work, particularly the naive empirical epistemology. This more practical application to the everyday person won over the English people more effectively than the casuistry found in Thomism.

(But this is all just my opinion as a former academic with some little hands on time as a practical person too.)

[Bob's World]

I suspect it will take more than just competing a more successful message, particularly if we accept the value of BW's analogy based on his view of the Reformation's effect on the reigning Roman Catholic political status quo.

The response of Roman Catholicism in the Counter-Reformation was to turn away from the philosophical underpinnings of its world view and message--Neo-Platonism as modified by Augustine. A different world view, based on Aristotle, as seen through the lens of Thomas Aquinas, became central to the work of the reforming monks who sought to win the world back for Rome. The religious message remained the same; what changed was the metaphysical and epistemic foundation on which the message stood.

Interestingly, a slightly different process took place in England. The Anglican Church outdid Rome at its understanding of Aristotle and won the day by focussing on the pragmatic aspects of his work, particularly the naive empirical epistemology. This more practical application to the everyday person won over the English people more effectively than the casuistry found in Thomism.

(But this is all just my opinion as a former academic with some little hands on time as a practical person too.)

Would love to pick your brain on this some day.

I really do believe, that we are sooo focused on the impact of the GWOT on us, that we fail to really appreciate everything that is going on for everyone else involved.

While there is not (currently) any major Islamic reform movement going on such as led by Luther; today's information age has to be breaking down the monopoly on information and knowledge of the Mullahs just as it did to the Catholic church leadership back then. Right now we are very focused on the outward manifestations of Muslim frustration; I suspect there will be a great deal of inward turmoil as well as those promoting reformation begin to bump more often and vigourously against those who wish to just keep things the way they are (or back to some vision of a perfection that used to be).

This is going to get more complex before it gets easier...

[William F. Owen]

Needless to say, I'm sure Hamas didn't have any issues mixing religion and politics.

Ain't that the truth. To be fair the IDF has long tradition of ignoring the Rabbinate.

When the first Rabbi to reach the Wall suggesting blowing up the Dome of the Rock, he was told to get stuffed by the commander on the scene at the time, and the conversation is noted in the IDF official history.

The reason that Ha aretz has picked it up, is because it's basically out of step with a large percentage of Israeli society.