Using Religion to resolve conflicts

[Rachie]

Hi everyone- I wanted to share the below with you directly and paste it here, but I cannot as there is a limit to 1,000 words. So, when 1,000 comes I will link to it if you want to read further. I wrote the below for an MA International Relations some years ago. Reading this article again has really reignited my passion in this field of conflict resolution. I am all for highlighting potential avenues for people and will also link to a website where you can learn more about this topic, religious peacebuilding.

I am sharing with you a much shorter version of my article which is friendly for online. I cannot paste the case studies as there is a limitation with the words. This was edited I think by a professional for grammar etc before I submitted it.

So, what do you think, did you know that religion can also be used constructively to resolve conflicts in the international arena. Religion can be used as a force for peace.

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The constructive use of Religion in conflict resolution​

In Christianity Jesus and God were at heart against violence and they were proportional in use of its application. God’s views are clearly reflected in Psalm 11 "The Lord examines the righteous, but the wicked, those who love violence, he hates with a passion." The Church of England in the UK now works on a model called the five marks of mission. One of the church’s mission is to seek to transform unjust structures of society to challenge violence of every kind and to peruse peace and reconciliation.

With me and my personality I find that my faith's justice principles has given me more zeal to fight against injustice when I sometimes see it.

I will discuss how conflict resolution can be applied to ameliorate modern day destructive conflict in society. In many parts of the world today, especially in developing countries, religion is still an integral part to the lives of many. Religion can be used constructively or destructively and it is the destructive use of religion that often makes headline news whereas the constructive use of religion receives little or no attention.

In this article I will centre on the constructive use of religion faith based conflict resolution which is a form of track 2 diplomacy in application. In this article I will argue that religion can be used constructively to contribute towards resolving conflicts. Therefore religion can be utilised as a force for peace in the international arena.

Faith-based actors have had an impact on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and contributed to rebooting South Africa with a new moral consciousness. The Catholic lay international (NGO) Sant' Egidio has helped to play a part in the signing of the Guatemalan peace accords. Faith based actors have also played a part in the peace negotiations in Northern Ireland and I will briefly discuss in this article how this happened. I will also briefly discuss other conflicts that religion has contributed in resolving.

The constructive use of religion has clear implications for conflict resolution. We need to learn how to apply conflict resolution skills and tools in our management of dispute mediation.

I hope some of you enjoy reading it and learning how religion can be used constructively to resolve conflicts.

Introduction

The re-emergence of religion as a political actor in international relations has not gone without tension. Eminent social scientists, such as Max Weber and Auguste Comte, predicted the demise of religion as societies advanced. Instead, in International relations, what we have been witnessing since the 1979 Iranian Revolution is the steady re-emergence of religion as a political actor.

Faith-based actors orientate their peace-building and conflict resolution around the values of their faith and their faith shapes their outlook. They can mediate in conflicts that may be termed religious or have a religious component which does not limit their peace building to conflicts surrounding religion. Secular individuals can also be trained in peace building in religious disputes and peace building initiatives.

Faith based dispute management can be initiated by individual actors or institutions/organisations and by inter-religious councils.

I argue in this article that whilst it cannot be reasonably denied that religion can be used destructively. Faith based conflict resolution, which is a form of track 2 diplomacy or is now sometimes referred to as track 7 diplomacy can also contribute towards resolving conflicts.

This ability of religion to be used constructively or destructively is the dual nature of religion and what is at the heart of Scott Appleby’s terminology the ‘Ambivalence of the Sacred' (Appleby 2000). Faith based conflict resolution offers the potential for rich resources of peace-building that are often missed. The constructive use of religion has clear implications for domestic and international relations.

What we have been witnessing since the end of the Cold War is the destabilisation it left behind.

The legacy of imperialism and colonialism in many parts of the world is also still being felt today. We are also witnessing a reaction against Western supremacy and ideologies in some parts of the world.
Track 1 diplomacy hard power has essentially proved ineffective on its own in managing emerging conflicts. The UN was late to recognise this and this will be discussed further.

Megan Shore makes the case that, if religion is part of the problem then it needs to also be part of the solution (Shore 2009:3). What we have been witnessing are new ways of exploration and rejection, and in some countries this has surfaced through religion, I will explore this further on.

Religion is for many people a strong component of identity, values and norms and therefore, may help determine peoples’ moral compass and what they are willing or not willing to do. This is crucial to take into account within the realms of conflict resolution.

What I aim to demonstrate in this article is the latent potential of faith based conflict resolution and what I present is just the tip of the iceberg but my case studies should be able to provide useful insights for other cases. I concentrate on religions of the Abrahamic faith tradition, but more so Christianity in this article but all religions have the potential to be used constructively. Religious peace builders guided by the underlying principles of their faith can also attempt to get disputants to tap into the positive conflict resolution tools that can be found within their own sacred texts.

The constructive use of Religion in conflict resolution

Meet the Peacemakers - Tanenbaum

 

[Dagan]

If allowed to counter:

Every conflict you mention was started specifically because of religious tensions. Every major war, genocide, apartheid and such in our world history actually had religious foundations they claimed as their rightful backing to do every atrocity they levied. Practically every serial killer of note, even claims that their god made it clear to them to do what they did (or rather, they created one...or they are one). In each of these cases, per any resolution, of course religion had to be on the table for a "portion" of ending conflicts...because that's what started everything...but that was really more about the spin on it all...the cute bow on the final story of things being "over now." Dig in for real, and you'll find that everything ended in blood and profitable compromise. Are said, one-time-enemies now economic partners who profit greatly off one another? Yeah. That's how said resolutions happened - that's why they don't fight anymore. Case in point: pay real close attention to what's going to stop the Ukraine and Taiwan conflicts. No major god claims greed and riches as the way to fix things. No, that's mankind's way of doing things....and that's the ongoing reality that occurs, sadly.

I do think you are on a just and righteous path, but I will add detail to things ----- I contend that the full way to ensure religions don't keep starting conflicts...and for religions to be at the forefront of preventing conflicts...is for said followers to actually "know" 100% of what they are talking about, what they say they represent and what is only in said texts of their belief systems. This happens by actually reading the texts cover-to-cover...and then understanding it...not cherry-picking, taking things out of context...not "interpreting it" however many various ways to fit the narrative of the week....just simply knowing and honoring the literal, only meanings alone, and that it has to be across the board, known and followed accordingly. AND THEN...folks don't need to stop at just reading their one, professed faith cover-to-cover. Read the other texts of other faiths, as well because that's the ONLY way a person can further know what they're talking about and not make ignorant offenses and start conflicts yet more so, when it comes to addressing or having conversations with others per their cultures / faith / beliefs.

I don't mean this maliciously at all....but folks need to read more than one book....and not just parts of them....the entire books. Add historical records and factual texts in there, too, please. Every major war or heinous atrocity that I can think of are well rooted in ignorance and arrogance, and logically, being fully educated would be what remedies things or just prevents them in the first place.

 

[Rachie]

@Dagan I do enjoy a counter argument and I am going to get back to what you wrote-but the first part stood out to me about the violence so I am just going to paste the below and return when I have had a good chance to think about it all and slot it all together.

I wrote this and didn't add to the online public friendly documented. I omitted about the religious violence as this just was about the constructive use of religion-noting that the destructive can take place as well.

Let me just post this and return-

Part 1b

Religious Violence Revisited

This is not a dissertation about religious violence but it is necessary to reflect on the objections about religious actors being used as third party interveners. It is also necessary to reflect on the contested area-religious violence- and the role that religion might play in escalating conflicts. One assumption that can be made is that, if a conflict is religious, involving a religious element will again stir up tensions. Also, another assumption that can be made is that some religious actors can do more harm than good in the long run and should not play an active part in conflict resolution. It is also essential to examine the objections, to see where and how we can improve the role of faith- based actors this will be developed in Chapter 2c.

Religion can be used destructively; individuals’ can use religion to legitimise violent acts. This is something that we cannot ignore. Some religious actors can go to areas of conflict and inflame hatreds for their own purposes. Some religious leaders can be very exclusive (elevating their beliefs over other faiths in dogmatic ways) and use their religious texts to legitimise and justify violence. Religion can also be used politically, as we have seen with Political Islam- Elizabeth Shackman Hurd explains that Political Islam is the drawing on of Islamic symbols, terms and events taken from the Islamic tradition, to peruse a political agenda (Hurd 2008: 117).

Jonathon Fox conducted a study into domestic conflicts in the post cold war era and the role religious violence played in these conflicts (Goldewijk 2007:129) He used data from the Minorities at Risk Report, State Failure Dataset and the Religion and State Dataset (RAS). He identified eight trends concerning domestic conflicts. The second trend that he identified was that religion is rarely the cause of conflicts and is only the primary cause of conflicts in a minority of cases (ibid 2007:129). This trend leans closely to the instrumentalist argument. Instrumentalists argue that religion is not in most cases the root cause of conflicts. They argue that the root cause of conflicts emanates from social, economic and political causes. In order to ameroliate so-called religious conflicts it would mean tackling the root cause of conflicts.
The media, I argue, fuel this misrepresentation of conflicts. I do not downplay the way that ethnoreligious conflicts can function but continually not giving any debate to the other issues involved serves to confirm that religion again is the main source of conflicts and presents a distorted picture. It can also detract attention from socio-economic problems that need to be addressed. Fox’s seventh trend also identified that religion can be used as source of peace and as a potential tool for conflict resolution (ibid 2007:129).

Susanna Pearce also conducted a study in 2005, involving territorial conflicts between 1946 and 2001 (Pearce 2005: 333). Pearce used religion as a control variable to isolate the role that religion played instead of just using the broad definition of identity conflicts which, makes it very difficult to determine the role that religion played. Pearce found that “when the relevance of religion to the conflict is incorporated to address the limits of identity-oriented definition of a religious conflict the relationship between the involvement of religion and conflict intensity weakens below an accepted level of significance"(ibid: 343 ).

The subject of religious violence is a contested one and scholars have not yet been able to establish causality between religion and violence (ibid: 340). However, most academics in conflict resolution seem to support the idea that the involvement of religion in a conflict can make it more intractable and also appear to be in agreement that, because religion is deeply rooted in conceptions of identity, it has the potential to escalate conflicts. I also support this argument. It is also important to note that extremists only make up a very small minority of people that are religious. This also however does not detract from the contribution that committed religious actors can make and I will now explore this in part in chapter 2.

Part 2c

Possible Limitations

Tsejeard Bouta, S Ayse Kadayifci Orellana and Mohammad Abu Nimer in their desk based study listed possible grounded or ungrounded accusations of proselytization as a potential limitation for faith-based peace-building and argued that this can negatively affect some faith- based peace-builders ability to conduct their work(Bouta, Nimer, Orellana 2005:40). These scholars also listed some faith-based peace-builders potential lack of professionalism as a possibly limitation. They found that some of the faith-based actors in their desk based study “appear to lack the professionalism of some of their secular counterparts to act professionally”(ibid:41) They found that some ecumenical faith-based actors appeared more interested in building relationships with counterparts rather than treating peace-building as a profession that requires skills and experiences.

If religious leaders from different faiths are committed to building peace faith-based actors will have more chance of being successful. The chances of success are lower if one religious leader is not committed.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2009 Renata Stuebner found that some religious leaders meddled in politics and pursued their own separate religious and political interests (USIP 2009:1). This is something that is a negative reality.

Potential lack of organisation in missions might result in faith based actor’s competing with one another to offer assistance which can lead to a muddled unorganized mess on the ground. This does not just apply to faith based actors; it also applies to all track two secular NGOs also. This is often a complaint about third party interveners.

I have in this chapter explained the theory behind conflict resolution and conflict transformation and also explained the role of faith based actors and looked at some possible limitations to faith based conflict resolution and peace-building. Faith based actors because of their norms and values can develop a holistic commitment to conflict transformation. They can also act as intermediaries and mediators and have a top down and bottoms up effect. In some communities they are essential in building sustainable peace. It is clear though that faith based conflict resolution offers rich resources for conflict resolution and peace-building that should not be overlooked.

 

[Rachie]

If allowed to counter:

Every conflict you mention was started specifically because of religious tensions. Every major war, genocide, apartheid and such in our world history actually had religious foundations they claimed as their rightful backing to do every atrocity they levied. Practically every serial killer of note, even claims that their god made it clear to them to do what they did (or rather, they created one...or they are one). In each of these cases, per any resolution, of course religion had to be on the table for a "portion" of ending conflicts...because that's what started everything...but that was really more about the spin on it all...the cute bow on the final story of things being "over now." Dig in for real, and you'll find that everything ended in blood and profitable compromise. Are said, one-time-enemies now economic partners who profit greatly off one another? Yeah. That's how said resolutions happened - that's why they don't fight anymore. Case in point: pay real close attention to what's going to stop the Ukraine and Taiwan conflicts. No major god claims greed and riches as the way to fix things. No, that's mankind's way of doing things....and that's the ongoing reality that occurs, sadly.

I do think you are on a just and righteous path, but I will add detail to things ----- I contend that the full way to ensure religions don't keep starting conflicts...and for religions to be at the forefront of preventing conflicts...is for said followers to actually "know" 100% of what they are talking about, what they say they represent and what is only in said texts of their belief systems. This happens by actually reading the texts cover-to-cover...and then understanding it...not cherry-picking, taking things out of context...not "interpreting it" however many various ways to fit the narrative of the week....just simply knowing and honoring the literal, only meanings alone, and that it has to be across the board, known and followed accordingly. AND THEN...folks don't need to stop at just reading their one, professed faith cover-to-cover. Read the other texts of other faiths, as well because that's the ONLY way a person can further know what they're talking about and not make ignorant offenses and start conflicts yet more so, when it comes to addressing or having conversations with others per their cultures / faith / beliefs.

I don't mean this maliciously at all....but folks need to read more than one book....and not just parts of them....the entire books. Add historical records and factual texts in there, too, please. Every major war or heinous atrocity that I can think of are well rooted in ignorance and arrogance, and logically, being fully educated would be what remedies things or just prevents them in the first place.

I wrote my dissertation which I passed some time ago now. I will tell you though if we just look at South Africa the real cause doesn’t appear to be religion, but racial and social injustice. We need to look at the real root systemic causes of problems. If I unpicked all of them it would turn into something of some length, so let South Africa stand as an example where it is not religion that is the primary cause as such. The Bible in Galatians 3:28 stresses that we are all equal before God. God is not a God that supports racism. I think what I posted answers really your questions. I think multitrack diplomacy a mix of hard power and soft power may be needed in some cases to work together. I agree with Megan Shore, that if religion is part of the problem then also often needs to part of the solution as such. Each case will need to analysed separately about what tools are needed. I do like the analogy of the Ambivalence of the Sacred' that religion can be used constructively or destructively and it remains as so for me. Religion isn't going anywhere, so we need when we can to try and work constructively as well with it.

I certainly read enough information to inform opinion and my MA dissertation. I encourage others to read more themselves if they are interested in the topic, so they can form their opinion. It brings me memories about what I read and the state of my room at that time. I am glad that dispite illness I have the ability to share what I wrote in part, even if not used for a professional basis. I am training as a hospital chaplain volunteer and these conflicts resolution tools will be very useful to my job, thank you.