The Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis (JTPP) is a peer-reviewed, biannual, scholarly journal of contemplative cutting edge research and practice on subjects related to human social flourishing and peace.

Editor: Dr Jeremy A Rinker

Associate Editor: Nilanjan Dutta
Publisher: Abhijit Mazumder

ADVISORY BOARD

Dr Amii Omara-Otunnu • Dr Ashwani Kumar • Dr Bandana Purkayastha

Dr Jacint Jordana • Dr John Doyle • Dr Lenin Raghuvanshi • Ms Michelle Ndiaye

Dr Rahul Mukherji • Dr Shankari Sundararaman • Dr Vandana Shiva

JTPP (https://jtpp.uk), bringing together peace practitioners and academics, fills an important transdisciplinary gap that exists in current academic literature.

JTPP endeavours to support scholarship that highlights

the human potential for transformation,

a holistic and collaborative approach to complex systems,

the transdisciplinary nature of solutions to wicked social problems, and

a shared sense of purpose in human transnational activism for positive change.

JTPP thus provides a dynamic forum for sharing information and experiences primarily catering to academics, and activists particularly in the disciplines of Peace and Conflict Studies, Political Science, International Relations, Human Rights, History, as well as professionals, policymakers, organisations, institutions and individuals who nurture a firm belief in peace and human rights.

JTPP invites SUBMISSIONS from academics, scholar-practitioners, and social activists. Please see: Author’s Corner (https://jtpp.uk/authors-corner/) for Submission Guidelines.

JTPP follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

For SUBSCRIPTION, please see: https://jtpp.uk/subscription-plan/

Published by Frontpage Publications Limited (https://frontpagepublications.com), Level 2, 13 John Prince’s Street, London W1G 0JR, in both print and online versions, in January 2020.

In association with Peace and Justice Studies Association (https://www.peacejusticestudies.org).

ASSOCIATES at: Delhi, Honolulu, Istanbul, Kampala, Kolkata, London, Madrid, Norwalk

Vol. 2
August 2020
No. 2

Contents

List of Contributors

Editor’s Welcome and Introduction

JEREMY A RINKER

Is an Oath to Hitler also an Oath to God?

The Debate about Loyalty Oaths in Germany: 1934-1945

EDMUND PRIES

Religious and Secular Forgiveness in the Contemporary World

WIM LAVEN

The National Chief Imam of Ghana: Religious Leadership and Peacebuilding in an Emerging Democracy

OKECHUKWU C IHEDURU

Interfaith Dialogue on Religious Tolerance and Peaceful Coexistence in Nigeria: Practitioners’ Experience

BOSEDE AWODOLA & OLALEKAN A BABATUNDE

The Role of Religion in Building Terrains of Peace

SHOMA CHOUDHURY LAHIRI, MIHO IWATA & BANDANA PURKAYASTHA

Role of Sunday Schools in Peace Education in Karachi, Pakistan

MUNIR LALANI, SARFAROZ NIYOZOV & ASTER ASIF SARDAR

Promoting Cultures of Peace: Reflections on Soka Gakkai International (SGI) Buddhism’s Contributions to Peacebuilding

ALEX OTIENO

Engaged Buddhism ≠ Buddhist Nationalism

Charges of Genocide towards Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar

DANIEL RHODES

Kaleidoscope

Curated by NILANJAN DUTTA

Book Review

DANIEL RHODES

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List of Contributors

AWODOLA, BOSEDE, PhD, works for the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), Nigeria as an Associate Professor of Research. She has worked and published extensively in the areas of peacebuilding and conflict management. Her research interests centre on women, children, and armed conflicts, post-conflict rehabilitation and reintegration and building capacities for peacebuilding. Bosede currently heads the National Peace Academy which is the capacity building unit of the IPCR.

BABATUNDE, OLALEKAN A, is a fellow, peacebuilding and evidence practitioner with the Nigeria’s Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Zululand, South Africa, and his research interests include youth and violent extremism, migration and impact evaluation. Besides consulting for UNDP and IOM, Olalekan coordinates and supervises research students of the National Open University of Nigeria. His writings have appeared in ‘Peace Review’, ‘International Journal of Development Research’, and Nova Science Publishers.

CHOUDHURY LAHIRI, SHOMA, PhD, teaches Sociology at St Xavier’s College (Autonomous) Kolkata, India. She worked on the People’s Science Movement in Kerala, India and has published a few articles on it. Her research interests lie in the fields of social movements, ecology, science and development. Shoma has recently published an edited volume on qualitative research methodologies titled, ‘Doing Social Research: Qualitative Methods of Research in Sociology’ (2020), by Orient Blackswan, India.

DUTTA, NILANJAN, Associate Editor, ‘Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis’, is also a freelance journalist based in Kolkata, India, and is better known as an activist being involved in various social movements, particularly the civil liberties, environmental, anti-nuclear and peace movements. Having researched on various allied topics with fellowships from the SOAS, University of London, SARAI-CSDS and Calcutta Research Group, Nilanjan has authored, co-authored and edited a number of books on related subjects and made a few documentary films as well.

IHEDURU, OKECHUKWU C, PhD, is Professor of Political Science in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University, USA. His most recent scholarship has focused on the role of non-state actors, including domestic and transnational religious organisations, in regional identity formation in Africa. Iheduru has been director of Arizona State University’s international education programme based at the University of Ghana, Legon since 2007.

IWATA, MIHO, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Towson University, USA. Her research interests focus on racist systems, racial hierarchies, migrants, and human rights. Passionate about social justice, Miho has analysed Japanese concepts of race and racial hierarchies and how ideologies and institutional arrangements affect migrants to Japan, including Japanese Brazilians. Miho has published on this topic and on human rights in the US. She also co-authored the book ‘As the Leaves Turn Gold: Asian Americans and Aging’ (2012), published by Rowman & Littlefield, USA.

LALANI, MUNIR is a Lecturer at Notre Dame Institute of Education, Karachi, Pakistan. He has also experience of working at Pathways British School, Karachi, as an academic coordinator. Munir has completed his MPhil (Education) from the Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development. His research interest is in the area of peace education. Munir’s recent publications include a research paper on reducing attitudes of prejudice and discrimination through Anne Frank narratives and a chapter on peace education—challenges and possibilities.

LAVEN, WIM, PhD, instructor of peace studies, political science, and conflict resolution, focuses his research on forgiveness and reconciliation, which he relates to his wide range of experiences from mediating disputes in small claims court to interventions during complex humanitarian disasters. He is on the executive boards of the International Peace Research Association and its North American affiliate the Peace & Justice Studies Association (PJSA). Wim also works on the editorial team for the ‘Peace Chronicle’, being brought out by PJSA.

NIYOZOV, SARFAROZ is an Associate Professor of Curriculum Studies, Teacher Development, and Comparative, International Education at OISE, University of Toronto, Canada. He is also a former Director of the Institute for Educational Development of the Aga Khan University. Sarfaroz has authored more than 70 publications which include Post-Soviet education and Islamic education. His most recent publication is a co-edited volume of ‘Globalization on the Margins: Education and Post-Socialist Transformations in Central Asia’ (Second Edition, 2019), by IAP, Lexington, USA.

OTIENO, ALEX is Assistant Professor at Arcadia University, USA where he has taught undergraduate courses in sociology, anthropology and public health, and graduate courses in international peace and conflict since 2001. His current research explores issues at the intersections of critical global citizenship, contemplative practices and peacebuilding, governance of everyday life and human security, and Pan-Africanism and the history and political economy of human rights practice. Alex is currently undertaking an ongoing multifaceted inquiry into Nichiren Buddhism and peace praxis.

PRIES, EDMUND, PhD, is Associate Professor of Global Studies (Peace and Conflict Studies), Religion and Culture, Social Entrepreneurship and Community Engagement at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. His research focuses on religion and peace/conflict and on the history of oath swearing/refusal, as well as Just War Theory and International Humanitarian Law. He also writes on pedagogy. Edmund is the recipient of four awards for teaching excellence. He co-edited the book, ‘Peace Studies between Tradition and Innovation’ (2015), published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

PURKAYASTHA, BANDANA, Professor of Sociology and Asian & Asian American Studies, University of Connecticut, USA, has published extensively on human rights, intersectionality, transnationalism, migrants, violence and peace, including with Frontpage Publications. She has received awards for her research, teaching, and leadership, locally and nationally, including, most recently, ASA’s Jessie Bernard award for a career of scholarship and leadership improving the lives of women and other marginalised groups. For more information, please look at: https://sociology.uconn.edu/person/bandana-purkayastha/

RHODES, DANIEL is the Director, Undergraduate Social Work Programme at the University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNC-Greensboro), USA. A PhD in Cultural Studies with a Graduate Certificate in Women and Gender Studies from the UNC-Greensboro in 2008, Daniel obtained his Master’s in Social Work from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1996 and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Daniel has been engaged in community-based work for over 20 years, working in mental health, therapeutic foster care, and working with immigrants and refugees.

RINKER, JEREMY A, PhD, Editor, ‘Journal f Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis’ is Assistan Professor & Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Peace & Conflict Studies at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, USA where he researches the intersections between narrative and nonviolent social change. Jeremy’s research interests revolve around the centrality of justice discourse, trauma awareness, and collective resilience in movements aimed at transforming social conflict, historical injustices, and structural violence. His book, ‘Identity, Rights, and Awareness: Anticaste Activism in India and the Awakening of Justice through Discursive Practices’ (2018) was published by Lexington, USA.

SARDAR, ASTER ASIF has an experience of over ten years of teaching religion. Besides teaching religion, her area of specialisation is in teaching of English and Pakistan Studies. She has completed her BEd (Hons) from Notre Dame Institute of Education, Karachi, Pakistan. Sardar’s research interests include emerging pedagogies, teaching and learning, and her recent research centres around studies aiming to enhance cooperative learning skills of Year 3 students of a private school in Karachi, Pakistan.

Disclaimer

While the information contained in this journal is believed to be true and accurate at the time of publication, neither the authors, editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors and/or omissions that may have been inadvertently made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the materials contained in this journal.

Editor’s Welcome and Introduction

Once again, a hearty welcome to our fourth issue (Vol. 2, No. 2) of the Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis (JTPP). I promise that you will not be disappointed in choosing to be our reader, and I hope you will continue to support the JTPP. One would think that as editor I would, by now, have run out of creative things to say about this exciting young journal from Frontpage Publications Limited, but this issue articulates such timely research and analytical thinking that the originality remains abundant.

As always, the journal continues to open a critical and much needed space for exploring the transdisciplinary practice of peace, and, we welcome your detailed review and feedback. Once again, we have worked diligently to compile a diverse and global set of papers that explore complex relationships and local variations in peace praxis. The diversity of writing, arguments, and ideas in this issue will not disappoint. In the midst of our difficult contemporary times, this issue continues the JTPP’s evolving tradition of tackling vexing and persistent social and political issues. Through single-authored and collaborative articles that span the globe to explain the connections between religion, conflict, and peacebuilding, this fourth issue deserves a close reading. Despite limited attention in academic circles, religion remains a key driver of social change. Through privileging peace praxis, and simultaneously not discounting religion, this issue of the JTPP provides a unique look at what R Scott Appleby (1999) has called religious ‘militants for peace’ (p.121).

Asking questions about religion’s role in conflict and peace engages important social science questions about hermeneutics, political power, and cultural identity and norms. Undoubtedly, religion is a cause of both war and peace, but cognate terms like religious conflict and peaceful religions can be misleading. In the words of Jayne Docherty (2001), we are all in the process of ‘worldviewing’ in social conflict—our beliefs and values (religious or otherwise) inform our attitudes and behaviours. The articles in this fourth issue of the JTPP all expose how religious beliefs and practices are often used to achieve interests and settle old scores. Each, in its own way, reminds us of a famous quote by Dr B R Ambedkar, one of India’s founding fathers that sums up the paradoxical relationship religion can often play in society. ‘Religion is for man. Man is not for religion’ (Speech of Ambedkar, 1936). The fact is, oversimplifying religion as simply a cultural phenomenon unrelated to political organisation or as solely dealing with soteriology can lead to, at best, misguided recommendations for conflict resolution and, at worst, progressively escalating episodes of injustice and violence. We cannot deny the important role of religion in society, but we must also not overemphasise the importance of religion in conflict, since this can often work to hide other important factors like economic disparity or structural violence as drivers of conflict dynamics. More than just a missing dimension of statecraft (Johnston & Sampson, 1995), religion is a guide to social actors, behaviours and attitudes. Still, to avoid the many pitfalls inherent in studying religion’s role in conflict, it may only be possible to follow Richard Horsley’s advice that when striving ‘for critical studies of religion, we must almost certainly be thinking in terms of “religion and...”’ (Horsley, 2003: 39) In other words, religion, in Horsley’s sense, cannot be understood as a stand-alone social phenomenon. Subsequently, compound ideas like ‘religious conflict’ become meaningless due to the broad connotations and presumptions they arouse. Each of the pieces in this issue helps to provide illustration of this need for conjunctive thinking and open questions about the power of religion as a means of peacemaking.

Although the complex transdisciplinary dynamics of religion and conflict surely deserve a focused critical attention that would require many volumes, we are confident that this issue represents a novel set of cases and global contexts to better understand religious actors in conflict situations. In balancing works that speak to academic transdisciplinary collaboration, as well as, pragmatic activism, the JTPP is proud of its unique, nonconventional, and inclusive approach to engaged peace praxis. From the editor’s vantage point, this fourth issue could not come at a more opportune time. Religious actors are important, yet often misunderstood, players in both local and global movements for peace. As global fundamentalism and anti-democratic forces are on the rise, we must maintain a focused attention on process of interpretation and belief. The academic freedom and introspective creativity found in this issue’s pages represent one small marker of the ongoing counterrevolution against the conservative forces of polarisation and disinformation.

The breadth and depth of the fourth issue is well represented in the first two papers. Exploring oath-taking (Edmund Pries) and forgiveness (Wim Laven), the opening articles frame some of the basic assumptions we have about religion as a resource for personal and societal mobilisation and change. In ‘Is an Oath to Hitler also an Oath to God? The Debate about Loyalty Oaths in Germany: 1934-1945’ (pp.16-35), Edmund Pries explores the ancient role of oaths, historically a religious act, in establishing loyalty to temporal power. Though a well-worn period of history, Pries’ exploration of military loyalty oaths to the Führer during World War II provides a critical assessment of the meaning and powerful reaches of oath-taking. Karl Barth’s theological arguments supporting his refusal to take the Hitler oath forestalled punishment for his anti-national indiscretion but continued to ‘vex [various denominations of] the church’ (p.22) in Germany. Often such oaths are the first in a series of events that lead to violence, war, and/or genocide and form a religious grounding that makes other religiously sanctioned ideas, like forgiveness, next to impossible.

In the second Article (pp.35-36), Wim Laven explores a ‘transdisciplinary model of forgiveness’ (p.42) that resources a history replete with narratives of injustice. In ‘Religious and Secular Forgiveness in the Contemporary World’, Laven explores the recent murder of George Floyd and civil rights area resistance to expand our understanding and definitions of forgiveness. Though ‘people really do forgive differently’ (p.62), through qualitative and quantitative survey methods, Laven illustrates that ‘forgivingness increases with religiosity’ (p.47). Both these papers ask seminal questions about how religious ritual and practices can be a foundation of both social violence and peace.

From the exploration of Christian religious practices in the US and Europe, the third and fourth articles transport readers to the African continent to explore interfaith dialogue (Awodola & Babatunde) and religious leadership in the work of peacebuilding (Iheduru). Both articles articulate the growing Christian-Muslim conflict in West Africa and touch on important work being done to build tolerance and democratic institutions in the region. In ‘The National Chief Imam of Ghana: Religious Leadership and Peacebuilding in an Emerging Democracy ’ (pp.66-98), Okechukwu C Iheduru tells us the important role that Sheikh Osmanu Nuhu Sharubutu, Ghana’s National Chief Imam since 1993, plays in the image of Ghana as ‘an oasis of peace and stability in West Africa’ (Iheduru, p.67). Blending discussion of the origins of peacebuilding with the uniquely Ghanaian context, this third article in JTPP’s current issue provides a unique case study in what Iheduru call the ‘local turn in peacebuilding’ (pp.66, 68, 76, 78, 87, 92) by exploring the diplomacy and charisma of religious leadership.

Awodola & Babatunde’s fourth article adds to this focus on peacebuilding practices through relaying practitioner’s participation and observation of an interfaith dialogue process designed by the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), a Nigerian Government agency that promotes the mitigation of conflict. Awodola & Babatunde’s unique article entitled ‘Interfaith Dialogue on Religious Tolerance and Peaceful Coexistence in Nigeria: Practitioners’ Experience’ (pp.99-118) is a case study of the dialogue praxis and outcomes of interfaith dialogue in the context of Christian and Muslim identity divisions and neoliberal capitalist development. In highlighting the ‘disconnect between the fundamental drivers of violence and how they were discussed and addressed’ (p.112), the article suggests ways forward to empower the bringing of ‘interfaith leaders together to resolve issues of national concern’ (p.117). In moving from religious practices to peacebuilding work, the second set of articles that you find herein move the emphasis from more theoretical and definitional concerns to practical and pragmatic analysis of local peacebuilding work.

The fifth and sixth articles in this issue continue the praxis balance in moving to the region of South Asia. In ‘The Role of Religion in Building Terrains of Peace’ (pp.119-142), Choudhury Lahiri, Iwata and Purkayastha argue that Sikhism and Islam, in both the US and Indian context, ‘emphasised religious identity in public spaces amidst conflicts and have simultaneously reached beyond their religious boundaries to forge relationships with other communities’ (p.119). Using print media to document the post 9-11 organising of Muslims and Sikh’s in the US and India, the authors show how ‘imposed boundaries can be transgressed’ (p.132) to build what they call terrains of peace. In such a context, religion provides the grammar for practitioners to craft such terrains.

In ‘Role of Sunday Schools in Peace Education in Karachi, Pakistan’ (pp.143-169), Lalani, Niyozov and Sardar build on this intra-religious grammar to explore peace education among Christians in a majority Muslim country. Drawing attention to over 6,000 Sunday Schools in Karachi, the authors interview a small number of Sunday School teachers and students to establish the heretofore under-addressed peace education work among Pakistani Christian communities. Noting the extensive work done with Madrassa education reform in Pakistan and Nigeria by the Salam Institute for Peace and Justice (a peacebuilding organisation based in Washington DC with which this editor formerly worked), this article provides ‘the perspectives and possibilities of peace education in Christian Sunday School’ (p.165) contexts. Balancing praxis, mixed method, and inter/intra-religious dynamics, these articles re-conceptualise our understanding of what religious peacebuilding looks like in different localities.

The final set of articles leave the Abrahamic traditions all together—a feat too often glossed over in most works on religion and peace. In ‘Promoting Cultures of Peace: Reflections on Soka Gakkai International (SGI) Buddhism’s Contributions to Peacebuilding’ (pp.170-193), Alex Otieno presents our readers to the Soka Gakkai International’s annual peace proposals and creation of cultures of peace through dialogue. Providing a truly transnational perspective and personal testimony, Otieno’s piece describes the author’s own discovery of SGI Buddhism in Kenya and the United States as both religious practice and research focus aimed at ‘efforts to generate new narratives that support peacebuilding discursive practices’ (p.171). Otieno’s reflective scholarship provides a creative exploration of socially engaged Buddhist practices ‘of critical peace and human rights education’ (p.186).

In a similar vein, Daniel Rhodes takes us on a journey to Burma in the final article in this issue. In his piece entitled, ‘Engaged Buddhism ≠ Buddhist Nationalism Charges of Genocide towards Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’ (pp.194-217), Rhodes explores the paradoxes in the career of the Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi and how Buddhist ethics have clashed with nationalistic movements in the country. Through auto-ethnography, participant observation, and close analysis of the Rohingya conflict in Rakhine State of Myanmar, Rhodes articulates the disjuncture between engaged Buddhist ethics and the ‘underwhelming’ (p.212) presentation of Aung San Suu Kyi at the United Nations International Court of Justice (UNICJ). Following on the work of SGI in the previous article, Rhodes’ article illustrates a clear sense in which Buddhism has always been engaged in peace and justice work. This last set of articles leave the reader with an understanding that Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are not the only sources of religiously based peacebuilding. Buddhism has a long tradition of engagement with social injustice and change.

Once again, thank you for reading us—you too are now a party to this collaborative and transdisciplinary knowledge-building exercise. You are part of this experiment of peace praxis, and I am pleased that you joined us on this important journey towards understanding religion and peace in our fourth issue. I sincerely believe you will enjoy reading these eight academic articles. I remain convinced that the JTPP, as exhibited through this profound collection of articles in the fourth issue, represents a vital and collaborative critical voice. This issue also supports the fact that religion does still matter in the modern world. In the twenty-first century, we are finally at a place where we can strategically leverage the diversity of religious systems in what David Chappell calls peacework (1999: 18).

As you turn the pages of our fourth issue, be reminded that the walk of peace is taken in each individual step. The case study research articulated in this issue on religion and peace only scratches the surface of the opportunities and limitations of using religious beliefs, practices, leaders, and institutions for irenic purposes. I am confident that each will inspire a broader understanding of religious theology, movement, and praxis as means to peaceful social change. Please share this issue with friends, colleagues, and fellow activists as we work to build our journal’s readership.

If you like what you read, please ask your university (or local/municipal) library to subscribe by going to the following link: https://jtpp.uk/subscription-plan/. I believe that the articles in this fourth issue of the Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis (JTPP) provide hope, a sense of collective responsibility, and the informed analysis necessary to make real change in the world.

May your work of peace praxis develop and thrive. We welcome your feedback and continued support as we grow this exciting journal. Enjoy.

Metta,

DR JEREMY A RINKER

Department of Peace and Conflict Studies

The University of North Carolina Greensboro, USA

Editor, Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis (JTPP)

E: jarinker@uncg.edu

REFERENCES

Appleby, Scott R, Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation, Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 1999

Chappell, David (ed.), Buddhist Peacework: Creating Cultures of Change, Sommerville, MA: Wisdom Publications 1999

Docherty, Jayne, Learning Lessons from Waco: When Parties Bring their Gods to the Negotiation Table, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001

Horsley, Richard, ‘Religion and Other Products of Empire’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 71, No. 1, 2003, pp.13-44

Johnston, Douglas & Sampson, Cynthia, Religion, The Missing Dimension of Statecraft, New York: Oxford University Press, 1995

Speech delivered by Dr B R Ambedkar to the Bombay Presidency Mahar Conference, 31 May 1936, Bombay as translated from Marathi; retrieved from https://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1127:speech-by-dr-br-ambedkar&catid=116&Itemid=128 on 14 July 2020

Is an Oath to Hitler also an Oath to God?

The Debate about Loyalty Oaths in Germany: 1934-1945

Edmund Pries

ABSTRACT

Loyalty oaths were an integral part of earliest human civilisation and endure into the present. Developed to signify and seal a bond of loyalty between citizen and leader(s), the breaking of this sworn commitment could result in the severest of punishments—most frequently death. This oath contract could also be abused by the governing party. Such was the case with the oath sworn to Adolf Hitler between 1934 and 1945. This paper surveys the response to the Hitler oath from its initiation to the end of Hitler’s regime. Debates arose: should the civil servant oath to Hitler be sworn by church officers, religious teachers and the clergy? Karl Barth’s position is examined. Why did some challenge the form but not the content of the oath? Did the military oath of allegiance to Hitler prevent officers from revolting against Hitler? Why did this prevent some from acting and not others?

KEYWORDS

Loyalty, oath, Hitler, Anabaptist, Mennonites, Jehovah’s Witnesses

INTRODUCTION

The oath is an ancient asseveration that stretches back in recorded history for at least 4,000 years. Whether one reaches into the annals of the Hittite Kingdom 3,700 years ago, ancient Greece or imperial Rome, oaths were the legal and rhetorical means by which persons proclaimed their loyalty, sealed a contract, assured a promise, or declared the truth of their testimony (Pries, 1995: 4-25). Oaths have continued to play these roles into our present culture and, despite historical changes of practice, there is no indication that they will disappear from political, juridical or popular culture. There were, and are, essentially two oath categories: promissory oaths and declaratory oaths. As the descriptors suggest, one makes an irrevocable promise to something that will be done (e.g., a business contract) or maintained (e.g., loyalty) in the future. In other words, something must be done. The other declares that something that has been declared is true (e.g., testimony about a witnessed event). A testimonial oath in a court of law in advance of testimony can also be a promissory oath, since a sworn promise has been made (to tell the truth), which represents an action that needs to be performed (Pries, 1995 & 2013).¹

Historically, an oath was a sacred act, a religious act. That is why it was called a sacramentum—because something or someone was pledged to the Deity (Klinger, 1987).² The persons swearing an oath bonded themselves to the vengeance of God. The phrase at the end of every oath, ‘so help me God’, had little to do with a humble prayer for God’s assistance in fulfilling the promise. Instead, it was and still is a self-imprecation: ‘may God smite me, if I do not fulfill this oath’. Second, the oath is administered with essential religious symbols. For example, in pre-sixteenth-century Europe, an oath was sworn on religious relics (Pries, 1995: 22; Brunner, 1906, 1928: 2: 573; Crawley, 1917; Klinger, 1987). Protestant Reformers, however, did away with relics, but retained the practice of swearing on the Bible (Pries, 1995).³ Alternatively, one might say that they legitimated only one oath-swearing relic: the Bible. This tradition was followed by the courts located in territories that embraced the Protestant Reformation and is still practised most widely; oaths are still sworn on the Bible—or on other religious books. There were, of course, the radical groups, both in the sixteenth-century European Reformation and in the seventeenth-century English Reformation that not only did away with all relics and objects, including the Bible, but also the oath itself (Pries, 1995). These groups included Mennonites and Quakers. Such ‘oath refuseniks’ were, after a time, eventually given the opportunity to ‘affirm’ the content of an oath without formally swearing and without reference(s) to God. Their reason for refusing to swear references to God were based on Jesus’ teaching not to swear oaths⁴ but to speak simply and truthfully at all times. Furthermore, they believed it was wrong to ‘bind’ God to promises they made by appealing to God as their guarantor in the oath (Pries, 1995). Their arguments for refusing the oath were, therefore, also rooted in religious precepts. Thus, whether to swear the oath or refuse it was seen as a religiously based act. We can conclude, as humans have for thousands of years, that an oath is a true actus religiosissimus. It is also the ultimate speech-act, or a communal human speech document. It binds people to their commitments and upholds and strengthens the societal structures through sworn bonds of loyalty. In pre-literate or semi-literate societies, the oath was the glue that held societies together. This is also why those who refused the oath, including groups like the sixteenth and seventeenth-century Anabaptists, Mennonites and Quakers, were seen as the greatest threat to social and political stability (Pries, 1995).

An oath was never completely one-sided. Even those authorities who demanded an oath of fealty or loyalty from their subjects were required to act reasonably. Many distinctions arose: to whom or to what was the loyalty pledged? To the king? To an individual? To a Constitution? To a magisterial council? To a politically defined territory? To the community? All of these mattered—especially when the loyalty of the citizens was exploited.

This essay examines the role of the loyalty oath that was sworn to Adolf Hitler between 1934 and 1945. The question of where and to whom loyalty is proffered via the sacred oath is essential for understanding social and political allegiance and military obedience during World War II Germany and, significantly, in the five years leading up to the war. The ensuing debate about whether to swear the oath to Hitler or not and what the religious and societal implications might be is an important part of this survey. Furthermore, as will be discussed below, some scholars (Kane, 2008) have seen the oath as providing the key to understanding the military cohesion that bolstered the march to war and also provided a buoyant and focused allegiance in the midst of political and military turmoil during the war. Others (Weinberg, 1998: 371-372; Weinberg, 2003: 980) may ascribe less coercive power to the oath but nevertheless agreed that the oath played a significant role in shaping political and military relationships before and during the World War II. This study will, therefore, situate itself at the crossroads of debate: whether to swear the oath or not—and the concurrent debate about the effective meaning of an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

SWORN MILITARY OBEDIENCE AND THE NEW HITLER OATH

On 2 August 1934, Paul von Hindenburg, President of Germany, died.⁵ On the same day, an edict was pronounced that required all military personnel to render a new oath of obedience to their Führer (Leader), Adolf Hitler, who henceforth assumed the offices of both President and ‘Reichskanzler’ (Chancellor of the Empire), but was formally designated ‘Führer and Reichskanzler’. The new oath read as follows:

I swear by God this sacred oath, that I will render unconditional obedience to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, and that as a brave soldier I shall be prepared at all times to give my life for this oath.⁶

This new oath replaced a military oath (the Weimar Oath of 2 December 1933—only instituted eight months earlier—which was on most points quite similar, except that the soldier promised to serve, not a person, but the people and the fatherland ‘faithfully and honestly’ (Kane, 2008: 227). Prior to that oath, the Weimar Oath of 14 August 1919 required loyalty to be sworn to the Constitution (Kane, 2008: 227). The change was clearly dramatic: first from loyalty to a Constitution to pro patria (the fatherland) along with its embedded political imaginary—and finally, allegiance to one man: Adolf Hitler. The detailed impact of this change is easily observed within the oath and cannot be underestimated:

As already stated, it was to a single person: Adolf Hitler (Führer of the German Empire and its people); It rendered unconditional obedience to this person; It required every brave soldier to be prepared to die on behalf of this oath—and, as clearly implied, on behalf of the person to whom this oath was sworn. And: it was described as a sacred oath—sworn with God as both witness and guarantor. Thus, the religious sanctity of the oath was not forgotten or sidelined, but clearly articulated in the very first words of the oath.

The change was clearly dramatic: first from loyalty to a Constitution to pro patria (the fatherland) along with its embedded political imaginary —and finally, allegiance to one man: Adolf Hitler.

Finally, if the oath was a sacred invocation of God, this oath to Hitler was also an oath to God—and, by clear implication, breaking this oath to Adolf Hitler would also entail the breaking of one’s oath to God, and inviting divine punishment.

CIVIL SERVANTS, THE CLERGY AND THE HITLER OATH

Military personnel were not the only ones required to swear a new oath to their Führer after 2 August 1934. Civil servants likewise had to render an oath of obedience to the German Führer. It was only slightly different, as follows: ‘I swear I will be faithful and obedient to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, to observe the law, and to conscientiously fulfill my official duties, so help me God.’⁷ This created an immediate crisis for the church because, in Germany, Protestant and Catholic clergy, as well as professors, teachers of religion and church officials, were (and still are) considered civil servants. Both Protestant (called Evangelisch—or Evangelical⁸—in German) and Catholic churches receive their funding not primarily from donations, but from taxes levied by the government on their behalf. While originally only professors, teachers of religion and church officials were required to swear the oath, pastors would eventually be added to that list. This new mandate created an immediate crisis for many church leaders, who objected and initially refused to swear the oath. At the vortex of the ensuing debate over the oath was the famous Swiss Reformed theologian, Karl Barth, perhaps the most famous twentieth-century Protestant theologian and at this time a professor of theology at the University of Bonn.

Military personnel were not the only ones required to swear a new oath to their Führer after 2 August 1934. Civil servants likewise had to render an oath of obedience to the German Führer. It was only slightly different, as follows: ‘I swear I will be faithful and obedient to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, to observe the law, and to conscientiously fulfill my official duties, so help me God.’

THE KARL BARTH AFFAIR

When Barth was accused of refusing to swear or sign the oath, he disputed the accusation. He said that he had not refused to swear an oath but, instead, was prepared to do so according to his own formula. He claimed that he merely sought to add the following words, ‘So far as I can defend it as an Evangelical Christian’.⁹ Needless to say, that statement and re-interpretation was not very well received by the authorities. His at times withering critique of the Nazi-installed German National Church was well-known. They knew that for Barth, ‘so far as I can defend it as an Evangelical Christian’ likely meant, not very far. As a result, he was suspended from the theological faculty at the University of Bonn.

Barth’s opposition to the new oath also created great consternation among the church leadership.¹⁰ It was feared that his outspoken position would cause the Confessing Church to be labeled ‘reactionary’ or ‘liberal’.¹¹ The Confessing Church, for which Barth was an active theological voice, was a Protestant Church group that sought to remain independent of state influence or control, especially by refusing to join the newly established German National Church, a National Socialist supporting organisation created by the National Socialist state. The authorities indeed saw his teachings as a threat and not sufficiently German. In the words of The New York Times correspondent on 26 November 1934: ‘[Barth’s] teachings are constantly referred to by the German Christians as “Swiss theology” and the leaders of the swastika movement in the church insist he represents liberal principles of religious life and thought that are “wholly Occidental and wholly contrary to the present-day German ideal.”’¹² Being accused of having a Swiss (as opposed to a German) viewpoint was also one way of seeking to disenfranchise him. He was, after all, Swiss.¹³ Barth’s books were confiscated from bookshops and he was ordered to face trial, wherein the state would seek his expulsion from the University of Bonn.

Religious and Secular Forgiveness in the Contemporary World

Wim Laven

‘Mom, I love you. I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I’m dead.’
‘I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe. Ah! They’ll kill me.
They’ll kill me. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
Oh!’ ‘Ah! Ah! Please. Please. Please.’

George Floyd’s last words

25 May 2020

ABSTRACT

Transdisciplinary discussion of forgiveness addresses a range of timeless and practical questions. Philosophical discussion on interpersonal forgiveness relates to ethical understandings and the moral dimension of giving or receiving forgiveness but can miss qualities of personal, political and spiritual importance. Psychology aids the metaphysical discussion of forgiveness by dealing with different understandings of the emotional and cognitive components of forgiveness. Academics, however, tend to care more about whether or not people should forgive, and what, and to what degree, they feel when they forgive. This paper argues for a different metaphysical understanding of forgiveness in terms of transactions presented by the interdisciplinary fields of conflict management, resolution and transformation. This examination presents forgiveness in a novel way, by defining forgiveness in relational terms by focusing on managing relationships and in response to conflicts. Forgiveness can relate to opportunity, resistance, and resilience in relationships that can be benefitted through intervention and third parties. Unforgiveness, on the other hand, can relate to dysfunction and vulnerability. The model offered helps to examine what happens when parties with different understandings of forgiveness experience moral dimensions in conflicts engage in apologies and forgiveness and/or whether or not their processes may succeed. It presents the role of religion as a resource, and looks at differences between religious and secular practices. In the last analysis, forgiveness may be more functional and practical than ethical theories of forgiveness present.

The Crux of the Argument

With so much discussion on whether or not we should be more or less forgiving, we have not addressed the questions on how do we forgive. And we have ignored differences between religious and secular forgiveness. As a result, I argue for a framework for thinking about forgiveness in terms of disagreements between parties. Forgiveness is good when it stabilises or improves good relationships. Forgiveness and unforgiveness are bad when they increase dysfunction and vulnerability for parties and/or relationships. This also highlights the role and potential for outside and third party interventions, which goes beyond victims and offenders.

The presentation showcases a transdisciplinary overlap and understanding of forgiveness while establishing differences in secular and religious reactions to conflict. It does justice to the responses from persons belonging to various realms of studies, Humanities, Science and Technical education as well.

KEYWORDS

Forgiveness, religious forgiveness, secular forgiveness, George Floyd

INTRODUCTION

There are many valuable discussions that need to happen following events like the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black American man in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, at the hands of four police officers charged in the crime. Rights and liberties are challenged by law and order; the public helplessly watches crimes in progress with no recourse to the excessive force and militarised police departments; communities are left traumatised and searching for answers. The example is not gratuitous for the purposes of this paper. The timeless philosophical and ethical questions on forgiveness being addressed do not arise from concern over minor infractions, but from deep-seated concern over justice and healing when contemplated over grave injuries. The framework offered explores dimensions accounting for the ethnic-cultural intersections of forgiveness (Abu-Nimer, 2001); defines forgiveness for justice processes (Enright & North, 1998); considers challenges like the possibility of forgiveness when victims, like George Floyd, are dead (Wiesenthal, 1997); the possibility of forgiving yourself (Snow, 1992); the role of punishment in forgiveness (Murphy & Hampton, 1988); traumatising and retraumatising victims (Grovier, 1999); understanding forgiveness for deeds (the sins) or individuals (the sinners) (Pettigrove, 2010). This framework processes forgiveness in terms of the impacts of harm(s) on inter and intra-personal relationships and the degree to which individuals have control over whether or not they forgive.

This examination requires an assessment of multiple levels of violence: direct violence, what role(s) did each of the officers play in this tragedy; cultural violence, what features of law enforcement and American culture promote and support the behaviours that contributed to Floyd’s death; structural violence, how does racial bias, the criminalisation of poverty, ‘broken windows policing’, etc., factor into Floyd’s death; systemic violence, how have economic and political ideologies historically developed and manifested in ways that allow law enforcement to disproportionately impact communities in ways that beg the questions: ‘Was Floyd’s death was intentional?’ ‘Can we forgive this injustice?’ This study demonstrates the need for a transdisciplinary articulation of the moral and metaphysical framework of forgiveness and offers one.

Forgiving those who have sworn oaths to protect and serve but betray the public trust in commission of violent aggression, terrorising communities, and even murdering those who count on them for protection is a tall order.

Forgiving those who have sworn oaths to protect and serve but betray the public trust in commission of violent aggression, terrorising communities, and even murdering those who count on them for protection is a tall order. The construction and understanding of means for healing from the damages commissioned in the name of failed institutions can be improved with the framework I offer. Dramatic injustice and upheaval like what is currently being experienced can shift and share burdens, tasking survival in the face of systemic bias, prejudice and violent oppression to larger communities. Defining the limits of forgiveness in the context of current injustices can help with identifying viable opportunities for healing. Can and should we forgive the police who kill unarmed Black men accused of minor offences? The modern world is full of ethical challenges and moral uncertainty. This paper argues for a different metaphysical understanding and transdisciplinary definition of forgiveness according to relationships and transactions presented by the interdisciplinary fields of conflict management, resolution and transformation among others.

In the following sections, the contemporary world and moral harm are examined through exposure to police brutality and racialised violence as demonstrated in the murder of George Floyd. This will help to expose the antagonisms and limitations with current definitions of forgiveness. A transdisciplinary definition of forgiveness that looks at conflicts and relationships as central to our understanding is offered. Empirical evidence to describe religious and secular forgiveness and differences in preferences for forgiveness is provided. This data driven analysis identifies different types or styles of forgiveness. Some discussion on how these findings can help to manage conflict and relationship outcomes is then presented, and I conclude with some thoughts about the utility of this research and some next steps.

THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

Declarations of equality and basic human rights are presented as aspirational goals and ideals. It seems the capacity to do good in the world is matched by a nefarious counterpart. Advances in science and medicine can prolong life and increase the quality of our lived experiences, but only for those with access. Some injustices have been addressed—we no longer expect to hear stories of patients dying from appendicitis (cured with a routine surgery) while being transported from a ‘whites only’ hospital to one that treats ‘coloured’ people—while many other injustices remain—people die from treatable conditions all the time. Much like academia responded to World War II and the genocidal efforts of the Nazis in the holocaust in studying obedience to authority (like with the Milgram Experiment) and new classifications of evil (like with Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil), I argue that cases like George Floyd’s death need to be examined from the breadth of all disciplines and rigorous devotion to truth and understanding. What I offer here, however, is just a slice; serious injustice can help us to understand the practice of forgiveness, and thinking about what it would mean to forgive can help us to understand serious injustice.

George Floyd was suspected of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Law enforcement offices were called; he was restrained with his arms behind his back, and ended up held down on the ground by three officers while a fourth stood guard. One of the officers (Derek Chauvin) held him down with a knee firmly planted in the back of his neck. After five minutes and fifty-three seconds George Floyd loses consciousness, he has said some version of ‘I can’t breathe’ twenty times; onlookers plead, ‘you’re killing him’, and asked to ‘take his pulse’ (Hill et al., 2020). An officer checks, but does not find a pulse. After eight minutes and forty-six seconds, the knee is removed. Roughly an hour later, he is pronounced dead.

On 25 May 2020, the world witnessed a gruesome spectacle; we watched the life of a man fade away in an extrajudicial execution; Floyd was killed before a court could guarantee due process and a trial for alleged crimes, which were not eligible for the death penalty. We knew the tragedy we witnessed was avoidable, and the death was unnecessary. Clearly identifying a problem—George Floyd should not have been murdered—does not necessarily produce a clear solution. There have been a range of responses; public actions have included both non-violent and violent protests, riots and rebellion. Communities have been traumatised and fierce cultural and political divides have been inflamed. In a nation with an ugly history of lynching, some see it as a continuation of pejorative racial animus. Alt-right extremist and white nationalist groups have also notably taken advantage of opportunities to pursue their prejudicial agendas through property damage and exacerbating chaos; according to former FBI agent Clint Watts: ‘the numbers are overwhelming: Most of the violence is coming from the extreme right wing’ (Timberg, 2020). Currently there is no answer to the question asked by Dr Martin Luther King Jr, which has been revisited so many times, Where do we go from here? His observation, community or chaos is all too familiar: ‘[T]he persistence of racism in depth and the dawning awareness that Negro demands will necessitate structural changes in society have generated a new phase of white resistance in North and South’ (King, 1968: 12).

George Floyd’s murder is a case like hundreds of others every year: cultural, structural and systemic violence contributing to unnecessary death and suffering. Harm is inflicted by the countless contextual and historic factors that precede his last unanswered call for help. ’

George Floyd’s murder is a case like hundreds of others every year: cultural, structural and systemic violence contributing to unnecessary death and suffering. Harm is inflicted by the countless contextual and historic factors that precede his last unanswered call for help. The knee in his neck plays a part in centuries of terrorism against marginalised communities. The challenge is paradoxical; forgiving the unrepentant is an unjust practice—giving what is not deserved; forcing victims to carry the hurts and scars—never healing—is equally unfair. The process presented aims towards the intersection of healing and justice, and understanding the range in ways people do so.

DEFINING FORGIVENESS

Forgiveness is commonly defined as an intentional interpersonal process of reconnection and healing in the aftermath of unjust wrongdoing (Murphy & Hampton, 1988; Worthington, 1998; 2005), healing relationships and trauma (Minow, 1998; Newberry, 2004), and involving a person’s ability to overcome feelings of anger, resentment, and revenge (Newberry, 2001; 2004). This practice is rooted in and attached to what we remember and think about transgressions (Margalit, 2004), forgiveness is fundamentally a question of fairness (Downie, 1965), and is commonly derived from religious beliefs and spiritual practices (Butler, 1846; Worthington, 1998). Donald Shriver Jr’s case study (1987), Forgiveness and Politics: The Case of the American Civil Rights Movement, by design, provides qualitative depth addressing the deeper meanings and nuances on the perspectives of its subjects (Berg & Lune, 2012; Maxwell, 2005) to truly address forgiving racial injustice, and concludes:

The National Chief Imam of Ghana: Religious Leadership and Peacebuilding in an Emerging Democracy

Okechukwu C Iheduru

ABSTRACT

Analyses of the complex relationship between religion and social conflict rarely explore the contributions of religious leaders in deepening existing peaceful social order and/or preventing the eruption of violent conflicts or wars. Ghana—a relatively peaceful, Christian-majority country—and the activities of Sheikh Osmanu Sharubutu, its National Chief Imam exemplify successful ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding through the diplomacy of religious leaders not based on war and post-conflict situations. For over 30 years, Sheikh Sharubutu’s peace praxis has been instrumental in ending frequent and bloody intra-Muslim conflicts, deepening interfaith harmony and preventing the eruption of violent conflicts. Sharubutu’s successes are attributable to the cooperation of ‘believers’ (religious authorities and peacebuilding institutions) in ‘the miracles of transformation through interfaith dialogue’ rooted in African indigenous accommodative values of religious pluralism, tolerance and mutual respect. Ghana, however, teams with domestic and external forces that are radically delegitimising this foundation of its ‘oasis of peace’ image; the process coupled with the fact that Ghana actually has the same mix of structural variables that have plunged other African countries into violent and often protracted conflicts, could undermine sustainability of local peacebuilding by religious leaders like Sheikh Sharubutu. These include the impending battle to succeed the 101-year-old National Chief Imam; the proliferation of ex-African ‘fundamentalist’ religious actors and transformation of educational institutions into sites of inter and intra-faith rivalry. Moreover, some of the Sheikh’s advocacy activities about social issues grounded in the same ‘accommodative’ indigenous values that justify social exclusion and/or violence against certain marginalised minority communities further undermine the effectiveness and emancipatory potential of local turn in peacebuilding. These contradictions and developments further challenge the binary and essentialist opposition of ‘the local’ to ‘the international’ in peacebuilding scholarship and practice that often romanticises local peacebuilders while underestimating their paradoxes. This case study suggests that charismatic religious leadership that fails to address the root causes and effects of conflict is as much of a threat to the establishment of durable peace as the withdrawal of international peacebuilders is to the recurrence of violence.

KEYWORDS

Peace, peacebuilding, religious leadership, interfaith dialogue, conflict management, chief imam, Ghana, Africa

INTRODUCTION

Scholarly and policy debates about peacebuilding by religious leaders focus largely on societies that have experienced war or post-conflict situations. This myopia neglects religious leaders whose intervention in grassroots and/or macro-level social conflicts have been critical in intensifying existing peaceful social order and/or preventing the eruption of violent conflicts or wars involving members of the same or different faith groups. Although it is rarely included in discussions about the complex relationship between religion and conflict, the seeming absence of ‘religious conflicts’ in the Republic of Ghana and its relative peacefulness could be attributed partly to the reassuring role of specific religious leaders who seek to foster the embrace of religious pluralism, tolerance and mutual respect—rooted in African indigenous accommodative values and nourished by dialogue among different faith groups (Haar, 2005: 3-34; Nkrumah-Pobi et al., 2020: 73-82). Conversely, Ghana also teams with domestic and external forces that are increasingly delegitimising religious authority and peacebuilding institutions anchored in religious pluralism, potentially setting the country on the course of widespread violent conflicts that could threaten national security. These contradictory trends are significant because Ghana’s image as ‘an oasis of peace and stability’ in West Africa (Joy FM News, 2007)¹ belies the country’s history of bouts of violent eruptions of conflict driven by ‘the same mix of ethno-political competitions for state power and resources; north-south horizontal inequalities; ethno-regional concentrations of Christians and Muslims; highly ethnicized elections; a natural resource dependent economy; and a politically polarized public sphere, among others, that have plunged other countries in Africa into violent and often protracted national conflicts’ (Pul, 2015).

Despite popular acknowledgement of religion as one of the sources of the country’s supposed ‘exceptionalism’, there is scant attention to the role of specific religious leaders in deploying their religious and moral authority in peacebuilding initiatives (Langer & Ukiwo, 2008: 205-226). The current National Chief Imam of Ghana, Sheikh Osmanu Nuhu Sharubutu, is one such faith leader who has been a central pillar of peace among Muslims and between Muslims and other faith groups in Ghana for almost three decades. Whereas his peacebuilding activities in a relatively peaceful country represent a ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding, his peace praxis is shaped by domestic, regional and global factors that define the scope of religious harmony within a given polity. The intersection of domestic, regional and global dynamics in this example of local peacebuilding challenges the binary and essentialist understanding of ‘the local’ and ‘the international’ in peacebuilding that has tended to romanticise the interpretation of local peace governance structures (Paffenholz, 2015: 857-874). Moreover, some of Sheikh Sharubutu’s religious peacebuilding and social advocacy activities amplify certain traditional cultural practices and beliefs that contradict the liberal notions of peace rooted in universal human rights. Additionally, a ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding anchored in the charisma of one religious leader contains internal contradictions that could unravel in the absence of such a revered leader. Finally, the fact that Ghana shares similar mix of domestic and regional vulnerabilities and adverse global geopolitical issues lurking around like its neighbours renders its acclaimed exceptionalism or ‘oasis of peace’ anchored in religious harmony illusory (Suleiman, 2017: 315-324). These contradictions call for a reappraisal of local peacebuilding to deepen understanding of the ambivalent relationship of religion to peace practice and its policy implications.

The remainder of the paper first briefly reviews the literature on the complex relation between religion and peace and conflict and how it may illuminate this case study. This is followed with a brief account of the religious landscape of Ghana, particularly the intra-Muslim relations and how they have shaped the discourse of peace and security in the country. I then discuss Sheikh Sharubutu’s antecedents, followed by analysis of his peacebuilding praxis in selected ‘religious’ and ‘communal’ conflicts that erupted in Ghana over the past three decades. The penultimate section highlights potential challenges to the sustainability of local peacebuilding by religious leaders, namely the chaotic politics of succession to the office of National Chief Imam, the influence of ex-African Islamic religious actors and the politicisation of education as a site of inter and intra-religious power struggles in Ghana. The paper ends with a concluding section.

RELIGION, LOCAL PEACEBUILDING AND PEACE PRAXIS

Conceptually, ‘peace’ is often associated with harmony and absence of hostility and violence; whereas in a social sense, it commonly describes a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. Peace does not automatically materialise; it is built through praxis, defined as conscious efforts to put into practice the theories about how to create harmony and absence of hostility and violence (Bajaj, 2015: 154-166). In 1975, the Norwegian sociologist, Johan Galtung, introduced the concept of ‘peacebuilding’ in peace studies. He contended that

peace has a structure different from, perhaps over and above, peacekeeping and ad hoc peacemaking . . . The mechanisms that peace is based on should be built into the structure and be present as a reservoir for the system itself to draw up . . . More specifically, structures must be found that remove causes of wars and offer alternatives to war in situations where wars might occur (Galtung, 1976: 297-298).

In his landmark, An Agenda for Peace 1992, then UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s operationalised ‘peacebuilding’, particularly in post-conflict settings, as

a process that facilitates the establishment of durable peace and tries to prevent the recurrence of violence by addressing root causes and effects of conflict through reconciliation, institution building, and political as well as economic transformation. (Boutros-Ghali, 1992)

For John Paul Lederach, peacebuilding

encompasses, generates, and sustains the full array of processes, approaches, and stages needed to transform conflict toward more sustainable, peaceful relationships. The term thus involves a wide range of activities that both precede and follow formal peace accords. Metaphorically, peace is seen not merely as a stage in time or a condition. It is a dynamic social construct. (Lederach, 1997: 20)

Instructively, Barnett et al., on the other hand, define ‘post-conflict peacebuilding’ as ‘all external efforts to assist countries and regions in their transitions from war to peace, including all activities and programs designed to support and strengthen these transitions’ (Barnett, et al., 2007: 38), betraying the top-down, paternalistic mind-set of many Western writers and policy makers. Moreover, these definitions apply more to societies recovering from war, not countries like Ghana which may not have experienced major violent conflict, but nonetheless have indigenous state and non-state actors engaged in peacebuilding processes aimed at establishing mechanisms and structures to prevent wars or conflict and build sustainable peace; or even strengthen existing harmonious relations.

One of the institutions often associated with solidifying peace and avoiding relapse into conflict is religion. However, scholarly and policy debates about this relationship have gone from framing religion as the cause or instigator of conflict (Cavanaugh, 2009) to religion as the medium through which political and economic contests are expressed; or as a source of peaceful end to such conflict and post-conflict rebuilding. In this vein, ‘faith-based diplomacy’ is seen as ‘the missing dimension of statecraft’ to end these wars or violent conflicts through mediation and good offices of religious organisations and actors (Johnston & Sampson, 1994). Advocates of religion as a resource for peace thus emphasise designing appropriate structures to achieve ‘the miracles of transformation’ through interfaith dialogue (Abu-Nimer, 2002: 15-32; Little & Appleby, 2004; Mbillah, 2004).

As few of the anticipated ‘miracles’ of peacebuilding occurred through faith-based diplomacy (Richmond, 2014) or failed to attain sustainability beyond or in the absence of external actors instigating, imposing and/or financing them (Lederach, 1997), a ‘local turn’ away from the ‘dictatorship of top-down peacebuilding’, i.e., the habit of framing post-conflict states as devastated, dysfunctional, lacking the institutions to deal with conflicting issues, thereby craving for therapeutic governance, whereby the international community comes in to assert their measures on a society or polity no longer capable of managing its own affairs. The local turn in the study and practice of peacebuilding emphasises the importance of local-level knowledge and decentralisation initiatives to increase peacebuilding effectiveness, local capacity and ownership (inclusion of local agency and ‘voices from below’ as essential parts of peacebuilding policy (Mitchell & Hancock, 2012; Donais, 2012; Leonardsson & Rudd, 2015: 825-839). Theorists and practitioners were enjoined to pay increased attention to local dimensions of peace in a wider context of increased assertiveness by local actors, an emphasis that signified a loss of confidence by major actors in international peace-support actors, amidst a wider critical turn in the study of peace and conflict. Local legitimacy, partnership and ownership of international peace interventions are seen as a fast track to success, sustainability and exit (Mac Ginty & Richmond, 2013: 763-783). The ‘local turn’ has, however, been criticised and blamed for some of the flaws in post-conflict peacebuilding and reconstruction. First, the local is ‘a not always helpful construction’; it can be unenlightened, dangerously compromised, biased, and could exacerbate latent conflict triggers such as inequality and social exclusion. Sometimes, ‘local ownership’ of neoliberal, externally imposed peacebuilding ends up marginalising the very people who have been impacted by conflict without making any positive difference on the ground (Omeje, 2019). Consequently, attempts have been made to navigate around this confused understanding of the local by applying a critical lens that can separate the concept of the local from territory and see it in terms of activity, networks and relationships among actors engaged in peacebuilding (Mac Ginty, 2015: 840-856).

One of the epistemological consequences of the recourse to localism in the framing and executing peacebuilding, however, is the employment the ‘soft’ power of religious leaders and religious institutions to promote peace. Recently, the World Economic Forum (WEF) amplified the view that ‘local turn’ anchored in faith and faith leaders represents a powerful and largely untapped resource to tackle issues pertaining to community safety in 2020 and beyond:

Interfaith Dialogue on Religious Tolerance and Peaceful Coexistence in Nigeria: Practitioners’ Experience

Bosede Awodola & Olalekan A Babatunde

ABSTRACT

Intolerance has been one of the major problems of nation-building in Nigeria. It stems from misunderstanding, pretence and sharp ideologies. The April 2020 violent resistance of some youths to the COVID-19 prevention measures by the government exemplified the extent of insensitivity and sectarianism. In a bid to mitigate its threat to peace, security and development in the northern region of the country and the Sahel, series of interfaith dialogues have been held since 2013 to reconcile strained relations, while promoting understanding, trust, love and forgiveness among adherents of both Christianity and Islam and other communities. The facilitation experience by the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Abuja, Nigeria is a disparate aggregate of amazement, deception and disappointment. Drawing from this mixed experience, that includes observation, participation and elicitation, the account provides deeper insight into the intractable disposition of religious violence and extremism in the northern part of the country. Also, due to age-long traditions and influence of certain radical actors, it reveals the perverse issues that seem to make dialogue an ineffective tool in addressing religious intolerance and extremism in Nigeria. This further explains why as soon as participants—individuals and communities—indicate a promising change in behaviour and commitment to communiqués issued, the region tends to relapse into status quo. It is suggested in the conclusion that religious harmony and peaceful coexistence will be fostered if stakeholders and actors complement intra and interfaith dialogue with education, as this combined approach will create ownership and self-consciousness. It is then that the region will forge a shared vision towards ending fear and violence.

KEYWORDS

Interfaith, dialogue, tolerance, understanding, coexistence

INTRODUCTION

The threat and recurring violence in Nigeria is well known for sombre headlines. The Northern Nigeria tends to be the most affected given its recent history. It is evident from the violent resistance of some youths to the COVID-19 prevention measures in Kusada, Katsina State in which a police station and vehicles were burnt and one life was lost because they were not allowed to pray for Jumaat in the mosque (Punch [Newspaper], 2020). The incident was entirely avoidable if more openness and understanding were demonstrated including respect for feelings and healthy practices other than one’s own. This kind of blatant religious partisanship has been the bane of more inclusion, robust diversity and regional cohesion in many parts of Nigeria.

In this respect, there has been a series of religion-inspired violence, instigated by fundamentalists and perpetrated by street urchins in Northern Nigeria since the independence in 1960. Between 1980 and 2009 more than 50 religious crises occurred in Nigeria (Ezeibe, 2010). Among such acts of violence are the Maitatsine armed attacks of 1980 to 1985 that claimed 5,000 lives, impromptu violence against alleged blasphemies of Islam, that is, the riot that disrupted the Miss World beauty pageant in 2002, the backlash against a Danish newspaper’s cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2006; Kasuwan Magani in 1980, Zango Kataf and Gure-Kahugu in 1989, Kafanchan and Lere in 1987, Tafawa Balewa in 1991 as well as Ilorin and Jerein in 1989 (Eniola, 2010). In the ongoing decade-old Boko Haram (BH) terrorism, 37,500 lives were lost so far, 4.6 million displaced in the three north-eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, over 244,000 became refugees and more than half a million children suffered from malnutrition. The democratic government (referring to as the fourth republic from 1999) was confronted by an insurgency perpetuated by the radicalised Islamic fundamentalist BH (meaning ‘western education is an abomination’) since May 2011 (Council on Foreign Relations, 2020; Paden, 2015: 4).

This is in addition to the destructions of property and the unforgettable abductions against Christians and Muslims, particularly over the 200 Chibok schoolgirls in Borno State for over six years running (only a few have been released), amongst others. Threat to human security did not only come from armed insurgency, but also from strayed youths and denizens of the street who under the guise of religion, at the slighted opportunity took to killing and destroying property.

The violence was made worse with the imposition of Sharia (Islamic) laws in most of the northern states, and therefore, deteriorated the relationships between Christians and Muslims shortly after the nation assumed democratic governance in 1999. Cities such as Kaduna and Jos were split or clustered along religious lines. There were attacks and counter-attacks on lives and properties of both communities, which strained social relations. This is because the adherents of both Christianity and Islam who were driven by intolerance, sharp ideologies or religious pretence had persistently adopted violence to undermine the free will of the people and wreak havoc. Across the country, this has led to animosity, distrust, suspicion and resentment among the Christians and Muslims in particular, with accusations and counter-accusations.

The adherents of both Christianity and Islam who were driven by intolerance, sharp ideologies or religious pretence had persistently adopted violence to undermine the free will of the people and wreak havoc..

To reverse the trends and resolve the underlying causes of religious violence and embittered relations, the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), a government agency that promotes peacebuilding and mitigates conflicts, has since 2012 adopted dialogue as one of the most relevant and appropriate non-violent approaches to religious conflict and extremism in the country. Despite the conversation outputs and outcomes, there are still deep tensions and acrimony among the religious followers, which could further escalate religious tension and crisis as a result of unpatriotic zealousness, deceit, extremism and nonchalance of the leaders and followers.

Over time, IPCR has gathered diverse knowledge in managing these conversations. Therefore, it is important to share key highlights of the strategy as well as the lessons, good and bad, that the Institute has learnt in coordinating and facilitating such discourses. This article sheds light on the experience of the IPCR in organising and facilitating interfaith dialogue in Nigeria, with Christianity and Islam as dominant faiths. This is done by focusing on its efforts at restoring strained relations and promoting tolerance and peaceful coexistence among adherents of the main faiths (Christianity and Islam), particularly in Northern Nigeria where religious strives are prevailing. However, the identities of dialogue participants have been hidden, while who said what are not disclosed for reasons of sensitivity and confidentiality. The experience, though national, has been so personal that it has had profound effects on how the authors view Nigerian religious conflicts. The authors understand the task to relive the past and thus have no conflict of interest while reporting the experience. Consequently, careful attempts are made to present a thorough but fair account of the dialogue proceedings based on our direct involvement in the intervention.

CONCEPTUALISING INTERFAITH DIALOGUE

Attempts to understand the Nigerian interfaith dialogue projects aimed at promoting religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence must take into account the basic underlying factors within its environment that influence such interventions. But first, it is important to explain what interfaith dialogue (or interreligious dialogue) means within its historical development. According to Shafiq (2011), interfaith dialogue is a relatively modern term, which has metamorphosed within a space of 40 years, with the primary role to remove misunderstanding and accept difference. There has been a chain of formal and informal events scattered across the globe that led to the growth and development of interfaith dialogue. But it is of significance to note that the major turning point was the promulgation of a document, Nostra Aetate, in 1965 that opened up the Roman Catholic Church at the second Vatican Council to interfaith dialogue in general with a particular focus on the relationship with Judaism (Magonet, 2015: 38; IPCR, 2014: 13). Likewise in 1965, Arthur Schneier and a group of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christians, along with Jewish and Muslim clergies founded the Appeal to Conscience Foundation that facilitated interfaith communication on conflicts (Garfinkel, 2004: 2).

Other political events and activities that impacted the world order such as the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab States in 1967, and 9/11 attacks in 2001 necessitated high-level religious leaders and peacemakers to initiate dialogues especially among the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Amid the definitions that are abound, the concept has transformed to connote ‘a way of communication among religious communities that helps the dialogue partners understand each other’s beliefs, values and concerns’ (Rahman, 2014). Organisations like the United Religions Initiative (in early 1990s), the Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies in Amman, Jordan (1994), the Doha International Centre for Interfaith Dialogue (2008) and many others were established to promote culture of dialogue, the peaceful coexistence of humanity and the acceptance of others (Magonet, 2015: 41).

Faith that underscores a critical element of interfaith dialogue does not point to what people believe, but that of how they believe. Expectedly, in its pursuance of global peace and harmony, the United Nations is now at the forefront of the promotion of interfaith dialogue.

At the core of its foundation is the promotion of values such as equality, freedom and participation. Faith that underscores a critical element of interfaith dialogue does not point to what people believe, but that of how they believe (Fowler, 1983). Expectedly, in its pursuance of global peace and harmony, the United Nations is now at the forefront of the promotion of interfaith dialogue. The essence is conversation, which may be of different types, settings, goals and formats, but it is not an all-encompassing concept. That is, it is not a debate but an activity targeted at achieving mutual understanding, mutual problem solving and not proselytising (Garfinkel, 2004). In short, the need for tolerance, respect, overcoming fears and prejudices remains the crux of interfaith dialogue.

In Nigeria, the call for tolerance and understanding between religious groups and to stem the incessant religious violence has informed interfaith dialogue. According to Adiele (2001: 3-5), an Islamic Council of Nigeria (ICN) and Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) were formed in 1973 and 1980 respectively, with the aim to provide a forum for dialogue. The CAN created the directorate of interfaith and ecumenism, which is tasked with the responsibility of promoting ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. The Catholic Church created a department of mission and dialogue of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN), which has provided an opportunity for dialogue between Catholic and Muslim women/youths. The Federal Government of Nigeria also recognises the necessity of dialogue among the religions. This led to the formation of Nigerian Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) in 1999 with 25 members each from Christian and Muslim groups, whose task is to promote dialogue and peaceful co-existence in the country (Omonokhua, 2012: 67).

Moreover, individuals and grassroots interfaith non-governmental organisations (NGOs) at grassroots have been in one way or the other involved in interfaith dialogue in Nigeria. For instance, the experience of the imam and the pastor in Kaduna State demonstrates how former enemies can join forces to encourage peace between major communities of faith. Other grassroots interfaith non-governmental organisations have also made use of sports to bring youth communities together in states like Kano and Plateau. Some 500 religious leaders, academics and senior government officials at all levels from across the country, especially the north, were brought together by the Interfaith Initiative for Peace (IIP) in August 2014 to address common challenges and interfaith cooperation (Paden, 2015: 8). Organisations like the Turkish UFUK Dialogue and King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAIISID) are also doing tremendous work on interfaith dialogue in Nigeria. Ogbuehi (2016) notes that the three religions in Nigeria share things in common, such as the existence of a spiritual world, God, Satan, angels, Jinn or spirits, final judgement and the hereafter. However, they have failed to utilise these common features for peace in the country. The level of tolerance among religious groups still remains a daunting challenge in Nigeria.

CONTEXTUALISING RELIGION AND INTERFAITH DIALOGUE IN NIGERIA

To contextualise interfaith dialogue in Nigeria, it is important to take a retrospect of the broader patterns of religious affiliation and conflict across the country; in order to understand the intricacies and the threat conflict poses to the peaceful co-existence and the need for interfaith dialogue in the country. According to Paden’s (2015) narrative, Nigeria is not only the largest half-Muslim, half-Christian country, but also ranked as by far the most religious. He states that the far northern states are Muslim-majority, the south-east and south-south are clearly Christian, while the religiously mixed states of the north-central and south-west are also politically mixed. The author further describes Nigeria as the largest country in the world with religious identities evenly divided between Christians (90 million) and Muslims (90 million). Though this figure may be disputed due to the inability to develop national data on religion, sometimes Muslim population could be put at 50% of the country (majority are in the North), Christian at 40% (majority in the South) while African Traditional Religion Practitioners at 10% (Kim, 2009).

This arguably is connected to the multi-ethnic nature of the country with more than 300 ethno-linguistic groups, though dominated by Hausa-Fulani at 30%, which tend to be Muslim. Yoruba at 20% are split evenly between Christian and Muslim, whereas Igbo are 17%, and predominantly Christian, and the remaining percentage apportion to other ethnic groups. In this case, ethnic and religious identities may be conjoined, which also tend to reinforce regional zones: the north, predominantly Muslim; the south-west, a mixture of Yoruba Muslims and Christians; and the south-east, largely Christian Igbos (Panden, 2015: 1-6). Perhaps, the complexity of this composition may have prompted Kim (2009) to describe Nigeria as one of the 55 conflict-stricken Third World countries where factors such as ethnicity and religion influenced the behaviours of social groups leading to perpetual conflict. Its multi-ethnic groups are tied to various religious organisations with Muslims and Christians constituting the majority. Certainly, this raises the question of the relationship of religious identities among the ethnic groups in the country.

There is a thin line between politics and religion in the region and by implication, religion influences the political sphere of the country. Political leaders have politicised religion to undermine the rights of the masses, and oftentimes used it for political gains.

The Role of Religion in Building Terrains of Peace

Shoma Choudhury Lahiri, Miho Iwata & Bandana Purkayastha

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses some aspects of the role of religion in building peace. If religion uses a definition of peace that is closely intertwined with social justice, the achievement of human rights and human securities becomes underscored. This paper focuses on living religious practices people are engaged in their everyday lives, instead of a focus on religious texts or institution-focused religious practices. Social activities related with living religious practices at times help people, outside the particular religious community, to build a life of dignity and simultaneously expand the area of peace. This paper uses cases drawn from India and the US that were reported in print and online media. We primarily draw upon the examples of Sikhism and Islam to highlight the connections between religions and peace, though we selectively refer to Hinduism and Christianity as dominant religions in each country. We show that both groups have emphasised religious identity in public spaces amidst conflicts and have simultaneously reached beyond their religious boundaries to forge relationships with other communities through education and practical help. Reflecting on social actions inspired by religions enables us to analyse some of the underlying dimensions of religions that are important for building and sustaining peace.

KEYWORDS

Lived-religion, terrain of peace, Sikhs, Muslims, India, US

INTRODUCTION

The core ideas of every religion include lessons about doing right by others, taking care of the vulnerable, and acting in ethical ways in everyday life (Lauren, 2011). Religions talk about communities, responsibilities and moral frameworks to guide socially just action (e.g., Budde, 2020; Katzenstein, 1995, Gurbuz & Purkayastha, 2010: 166-178, Macy, 1985). Yet we also know that history is replete with accounts of long and bitter conflicts and battles in the name of religion, such as the wars between Christian and Islamic empires, conflicts between members of the ‘same’ religious groups including Catholics and Protestants, Shia and Sunni, between Hindu sects and caste groups, and among Buddhist groups, including many conflicts that are underway now as selected ‘religious’ ideologies are deployed in the cause of strident nationalisms. This history of religions forms the background for this paper. As sociologists from different countries, our interest is on social actions, that is, how religious groups resist and traverse the socio-political boundaries that disrupt and fragment terrains of peace. Our understanding of peace goes well beyond notions of conflict resolution (or the practices to ensure peace after conflicts). We envision actions that build peaceful terrains in which people have a better opportunity to build secure lives that are free from fear and severe threats to survival¹ (Purkayastha, 2017: 167-191). Earlier we wrote about everyday living of religions² emphasising on what people do in their everyday lives on the basis of their understanding of religion (also see Ammerman, 2014: 189-207). This perspective on lived religions leads us to focus on social actions by groups who deploy their religious identities in public spheres to address social injustice. We draw upon cases of Sikhs and Muslims in India and the US. We show that repeated experiences of hate crimes and government-facilitated violence have led the Sikhs and Muslims to emphasise their religious identities in public spaces in order to simultaneously reach beyond these boundaries and help other groups in need. Our discussion of lived religions of Sikhs and Muslims, both minority groups in the US and India, includes their interactions with the majority groups in each place, i.e., Christians in the US and Hindus in India, as well as the majority religious group among Indian-origin people—Hindu Indians—in the US. Overall, we highlight the social activities of the Sikhs and the Muslims that expand the area of peace by creating conditions in which a larger number of people are enabled to create a secure life.

VIOLENCE AND PEACE

The traditional literature on peace is focused mostly on peaceful conflict resolution. Earlier scholars used ‘at least 25 people are affected negatively’ as a measure to identify intra or interstate conflict and show a trend towards escalating intra-state conflict³ (Gleditsch, Wallerstein, Erikkson, Sollenberg & Strand, 2002). Other scholars, such as Keegan (1994), pointed out that as the mass production of weapons increased dramatically in the twentieth century and the sophisticated weaponry has vastly increased, both the geographic range of the effects of conflicts and the number of people are negatively affected. These insights indicate that discussions of peace have to consider more than conflict resolution action, even though those are important (Power, 2011; TRC, 1999). Discussions of violence and conflict, and imaginaries of peace, also emerged through feminist and anti-racist scholarship that identified many levels of violence from private spheres of home to public spheres (e.g., Baber, 2004: 701-718; John, 2006: 137-162; Kannabiran, 2018; Levin, 2019; Purkayastha & Ratcliff, 2014; Morgen, Sutton & Novokov, 2008; Teltumbde, 2005), and the need to examine the structural and cultural processes that enable such violence.⁴

Pandey points out that routine violence associated with modern states, is not episodic in nature; it is almost continual, so much a part of our everyday lives that we often no longer recognise it as violence.

For the purposes of this paper, we use Gyanendra Pandey’s formulation of routine violence and its intersections with the types of violence discussed by feminist and anti-racist scholars (listed above) for delineating our understanding of peace. According to Pandey (2006), routine violence occurs at international, national and community levels; often states and other large entities are involved in routine violence, so it is made invisible because it is presented as ‘normal’ ways of organising modern nation states and international relations.⁵ Pandey points out that routine violence associated with modern states, is not episodic in nature; it is almost continual, so much a part of our everyday lives that we often no longer recognise it as violence.

Any discussion of peace, then, has to account for this multilevel and almost continual violence, and not merely as episodes of inter and intra-state conflicts. Consequently, peace is about mitigating or arresting contemporary routinised violence, without losing sight of the need to address violent legacies of colonialisms, the roles of post-colonial states and global regimes in building political-economies of violence (e.g., Edmonson, 2020; Morgen et al., 2008; Sen, 2007). We draw on the building blocks of peace discussed by Lederach (2005), Reychler (2006: 1-15), Sen (1999, 2007) and Barnett (2008). Reychler, whose work closely aligned with the work of Johan Galtung (1969, 1985), pointed out that governments, international organisations, organised groups and ordinary people have to be involved in peace building efforts. Barnett (2008) and Sen (1999) have argued that peace is a precursor to freedom, which is dependent on the mitigation of insecurities related to food, shelter, health, and environment. Sen’s (2007) has drawn upon the corpus of Rabindranath Tagore’s work on peace also emphasises the violence inherent in maintaining identities with rigid boundaries (for a brief summary of Tagore on human rights and peace, see Purkayastha, 2009). We use these discussions and our earlier work on building a terrain of peace (Purkayastha, 2008: 393-411), often through little steps taken by individuals in their everyday lives (Purkayastha, 2005: 63-79), and the journeys of diverse groups via different roads towards human security and peace (Purkayastha, 2002: 267-292). Combined, these approaches emphasise that protesting the spread of ‘routine-violence’ by states and armed groups, acting to expand the arenas of nonviolence and peace by helping, sheltering, supporting people who struggle to build secure lives are critical building blocks of terrains of peace. Thus peace is predicated upon maintaining relationships between diverse groups rather than rigidly emphasising the boundaries of nationalist-identities, religious or other identities that distance and divide people. Thus, peace is understood as a dynamic condition that reflects social relations, which are, in turn, reflective of institutional arrangements and human interaction.

Consequently, we examine historically grounded, religiously identified social actions that contribute to building a terrain—a spatial-temporal landscape—of peace. Much has been written about mostly secular efforts, that is, peace-making efforts which emphasise non-religious institutions and actors in building peace;⁶ we examine religion-identified social action. Overall, we argue that it is important to consider the role of boundaries, both to emphasise how boundaries are evoked to foster divisions and, as we argue here, to showcase how boundaries can be used to build peace.

METHODS

We rely on the cases of Sikhs and Muslims in India and the US, along with references to Christianity and Hinduism, the dominant religions in each country.⁷ The data are drawn from English language print and online media and prior published scholarship.⁸ We do not focus on every aspect of religion, nor do we focus primarily on religious ideologies or texts or the organisation of religions. We use a lived religion approach which does not focus on activities in religious institutions, i.e., Sikh gurudwaras, Muslim mosques, Hindu temples or Christian churches, instead we emphasise people’s everyday practices that they think of as doing religion (Ammerman, 2014; Narayan & Purkayastha, 2009). While this is a less-used approach within the study of religion, it remains, nonetheless, key to unlocking how religion and peace are linked. For the data, we looked for accounts that illustrate boundaries. By boundaries, we mean the socially constructed cultural and structural differences that act in powerful ways to build and maintain social hierarchies. As groups seek power, they use rhetoric and action to weaponise differences among groups, as superior or inferior, to construct and sustain hierarchies (Pascale, 2019). In both India and the US, as in other countries, selected aspects of the dominant religions are evoked in the service of racist/gendered/classed nationalisms. Consequently, we present data on peace building that highlight range of social actions that dismantle or mitigate these hierarchies. Despite the expectations of modernisation theorists that secularism is the only way to build peaceful societies (see Bhargava, 1998 for critiques), in this paper we show that religions can contribute significantly to building terrains of peace through social-hierarchy-breaching actions.

SECULARISM IN INDIA AND THE US

While India and the US are both secular democracies, there are some fundamental differences in their structures of secularism that are important for understanding the cases we discuss next. The US Constitution guarantees freedom of worship and belief, but in practice the secular template is based on Christian meanings and practices. For instance, people are assumed to be members of congregations who worship on Sundays, the Bible is widely understood as an important symbol for affirming truth in non-religious settings, Christian holidays are guaranteed, along with other Christian practices. While some temples, mosques and gurudwaras have been built in the US, especially over the last four decades, there are ongoing fights for recognition of these religions and their practitioners’ ability to exist in America as equals of Christians (Joshi & Purkayastha, 2018). People continue to struggle to establish places of worship, set up religious institutions that are not structured like churches and congregations, seek positive affirmation of religiously identified attire or symbols, ask for meals that reflect their religious beliefs, carry out the rituals of death including building their own cemeteries (see Joshi, 2006, 2020). At the same time, religions have been racialised in ways that directly affect the lives of Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus negatively (Narayan & Purkayastha, 2009). The post 9/11 period in the US ushered in another period of explicit actions, especially against Sikhs and Muslims, so that they—and to some extent some Hindus—found themselves subject to extra scrutiny, constant vilification (including by some church leaders), hate actions and state’s surveillance (e.g., Selod, 2015: 77-95; Gumbel, 2018; Levin, 2019; see also Narayan & Purkayastha, 2009).

India’s secularism was conceptualised differently (see Bhargava, 1998). The original Constitution guaranteed the right of religious groups to follow their own laws in personal affairs such as matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance. Along with these personal laws, guaranteed holidays of most religions, landscapes replete with a variety of places of worship and understanding that religio-cultural celebrations would spill onto public streets, were symbols of India’s multi-religious polity (Narayan & Purkayastha, 2009). However, in recent years, and with especial intensity in the twentieth century, this conceptualisation of secularism is being challenged by the forces of Hindutva, a political movement that uses masculinist authoritarian symbolism and violent practice, selected from Hinduism’s vast and diverse repertoire of ideologies, traditions and practices, to capture and assert power to marginalise religious, caste, regional-cultural, and political groups. Hindutva proponents argue that US-style secularism should be the template for India, so that minority religions have to follow the practices of the dominant majority’s religion. There are new restrictions that include shrinking the number of religious holidays for all, on what people can eat, together with extra scrutiny on eating beef, restrictions on Muslim calls to prayers over loud speakers, and proselytising by Christian missionaries. Since the 1980s, Hindutva forces have been building strength, using business and communication models to politically re-educate a large swath of the Hindus in different parts of India and the diasporas about ‘the’ Hindu way of life, cow worship, vegetarianism, belief in invented histories of Hindu superiority and Muslim foreign-ness and inferiority, to restructure Indian secularism (Narayan & Purkayastha, 2009; Smith & Narayan, 2019). Along with active racialisation of Muslims, the continuing marginalisation of Dalits and Christians has served the agenda of building a Hindu-rashtra (Bacchetta 1999; Teltumbde, 2005). Despite these different contexts and dissimilarities in the events that led up to their heightened marginalisation, both Muslims and Sikhs, in India and the US, have been subject to severe surveillance, targeted through hate crimes and state-enabled routine violence in both countries, again.⁹

NEGOTIATING ROUTINE VIOLENCE AS RELIGIOUS MINORITIES

Muslims and Sikhs in Post-9/11 America

As the Saudi terrorist planes hit the twin towers in New York City on 11 September 2001, an intense atmosphere of mistrust was generated against Muslims in general, and soon, against Sikhs.¹⁰ The first vigilante killing, later deemed a hate crime, was the killing of a turbaned Sikh man—Balbir Singh Sondhi. Crimes against Muslim also increased from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001 (Levin, 2019; also see Dwyer & Wakin, 2001 and Otterman, 2012 on a case of racialised surveillance). As a series of attacks by individuals and groups spread across the US, Muslims and Sikhs experiencing violence became routinised. In addition to the attacks, a series of new laws and policies promoting hyper-vigilance restricted what is acceptable or suspicious in American public spheres; many of the symbols of surveillance target normal attire, such as hijabs,¹¹ turbans, other religious symbols, including long hair or beards of Sikh males, and Muslim ‘sounding’ names (Otterman, 2012). As Gumbel quotes a Sikh leader’s description of Sikh-experiences: ‘The violence is always there’. The list produced by different Sikh organisations show that elderly men have been killed as they were walking in their neighbourhoods and parks, young Sikh (male) doctors have been attacked. Gurudwaras have been targeted by hate mongers; for instance, in 2012, a white man shot seven Sikhs in a gurudwara in Oak Creek Wisconsin. Mosques have been targeted as well; Council on American/Islamic Relations (CAIR) noted there were over 500 incidents against mosques in 2019 alone (Weill, 2019). Overall the effort to punish vigilantes and change everyday racism structures is inadequate (e.g. Selod, 2015; https://muslimadvocates.org/; Kurien, 2018: 81–98, 2004: 362–385, 2005: 148–172; https://saldef.org/; http://www.sikhadvocates.org/).

Role of Sunday Schools in Peace Education in Karachi, Pakistan

Munir Lalani, Sarfaroz Niyozov & Aster Asif Sardar

ABSTRACT

Peace education (PE) initiatives and projects have been given tremendous value globally as a strategy for addressing many societal issues: combating injustice, reducing violence and aggression, curbing extremism, promoting tolerance, social cohesion, pluralism and human rights.

In Pakistan, civil society and non-government organisations, including primarily faith-based organisations, have played an essential role in the above aspirations. Given that religion is viewed as a vital factor affecting the lives of most of the Pakistanis, almost all PE initiatives, including educational, take into consideration the pivotal role of religion in the society.

A case study approach has been used in this research project to explore and explain the role of Christian Sunday Schools in promoting peace education in Karachi. These Sunday Schools have played an important role in imparting religious education to the Christian community co-existing with the Muslim majority and other minorities in Pakistan. There is a dearth of research examining the role of these non-Muslim denominational schools in promoting peace values along with the Biblical lessons. This paper addresses this gap.

The data was collected and triangulated by the semi-structured interviews with two Sunday School teachers and five students from junior and senior classes, and classroom observations. Our analysis provides insights into the achievements, challenges and possibilities of the Sunday Schools in disseminating values of peace and harmony through content and pedagogical approaches.

KEYWORDS

Peace education, Sunday Schools, Christians, Karachi, children

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Located in the northwest of South Asia, Pakistan is a country with varied landscapes and natural resources. It is the cradle of the ancient Indus Valley and Gandhara civilisations. Being referred sometimes as ‘Heart of Asia’, Pakistan is the only Muslim country with declared nuclear weapons. It has played an important role in world politics, including helping USA in the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, and in US war against terrorism. Pakistan’s army has played an important role in the peace-keeping missions of United Nations in several countries including Somalia, Ivory Coast, Congo, Bosnia and Western Sahara (Hilali, 2017; Niyozov & Lalani, 2019: 237-260).

During the Soviet Union’s Afghan War (1979-1988) and the period following that, notions of extremism, militancy, intolerance and hatred were deliberately and systematically planted in the minds of Pakistani youths and adults through jihad-oriented education and religious instruction (Niyozov & Lalani, 2019; Talbani, 1996: 66-82). After Soviet withdrawal, this hate discourse turned against the USA and West, secular and progressive people, as well as the religious minorities within Pakistan. The results were internal religious and ethnic strife, the well-known 9/11 attacks, followed by the continued global war on terrorism. Consequently, as the war against terrorism continues, the international community has realised the importance of peace education as part of the broader strategy of combating the ideologies that fuel violence and terrorism (Abu-Nimer & Kadayifci, 2011; 1136-1159; Ahmed & Zahoor, 2020; Halai & Durrani, 2018: 535-552).

To these ends, different PE initiatives have been taken in Pakistan through internal and external, separate and collaborative efforts. A pitiful realisation has been that schools with their fixed curriculum (mainly oriented towards academic rationalist design), teacher-centred pedagogies, limited resources and closed cultures cannot fulfil the growing need of peace education. Similarly, a uniform programme of PE can also not address the needs of all Pakistani citizens who differ along class, culture, creed, ethnicity and language lines. Multiple sustainable and successful peace education programmes with common and particular elements will need to be structured and tailored as per the contextual needs.

CONTEXT OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOLS

Religion played the central role in the creation of Pakistan and is important in the lives of most of the Pakistanis. About 97% of Pakistan’s population comprises Muslims, divided into the Sunni and Shia and their various sub-sects. Along with the Muslim majority, co-exist minority groups of Christians, Hindus, Buddhist, Zoroastrians, Sikhs and others. Christianity is the second largest religion in Pakistan. While most of the Christians had settled in Punjab province, their population is now spread all over the country (Ahmed & Zahoor, 2020). Christians also differ denominationally (e.g., Catholics, Protestants) and ethnically (e.g., Punjabis, Goans and those of mixed Anglo-Indian origin) (Brasher, 2020: 84-100).

Religion played the central role in the creation of Pakistan and is important in the lives of most of the Pakistanis. About 97% of Pakistan’s population comprises Muslims, divided into the Sunni and Shia and their various sub-sects. Along with the Muslim majority, co-exist minority groups of Christians, Hindus, Buddhist, Zoroastrians, Sikhs and others. Christianity is the second largest religion in Pakistan.

There are about 6,000 Sunday Schools in Karachi that vary in their infrastructure, depending on the locality. Not being quantitative, this research does not intend to provide a generalised picture of the impact of all 6,000 Karachi-based Sunday Schools on the lives of the Christian Karachiites. Rather, our focus is to provide qualitative insights from the perspectives of the schools’ teachers and students on PE.

In our study, the participants (teachers and students) hailed from two Protestant Sunday Schools, which have almost similar structures and all the teachers are Punjabi Christians. Most of the teachers in these two schools are young and are currently undertaking graduate studies while being in service. A few have completed their master’s degrees. All the teachers are rendering voluntary service. The foremost criterion taken into consideration in their recruitment is the teachers’ devotion and commitment to serve their community.

The Church has provided overhead projectors to the Sunday Schools. Other audio-visual aids available include flash cards, Children’s Bibles, chart papers, story books, CDs, DVDs and Chalk boards. From time to time, the Church arranges professional development programmes to help the teachers familiarise with the latest techniques of teaching and current trends of education. The main focus is on how to help the children grow in their knowledge of the scripture, in service to the Kingdom of God and in their love for one another. This is in alignment with the mission and vision of the Sunday School system, which aspires to increase faith and grow relationship with God, by helping children to experience love and to help them follow the path of Jesus.

CHRISTIANITY AND PAKISTAN

The roots of Christianity in the land comprising Pakistan go back to the first century CE. As the tradition asserts, Apostle St Thomas preached Christianity in the Taxila region. During the Mughal Empire (fifteenth to eighteenth centuries), Jesuit missionaries carried out evangelisation. Most of the Mughal emperors did not interfere in their missionary work and Emperor Jehangir even offered gifts to the churches in Lahore and Agra. Evangelisation was neither the overt policy of the British nor was it the motive for colonisation. Yet the spread of Christianity among the masses began in the British rule, mainly due to the missionary activities during that era (Gabriel, 2007).

The support of Christian leaders and organisations for Pakistan was because of their belief of getting a country which would assure them an environment of peace, co-existence, freedom and equality. On the eve of Pakistan’s independence on 14 August 1947, its founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah attended a special dominion service at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Karachi.

During the Pakistan movement in undivided India (1940-1947), Christian organisations such as All India Christian League, All India Christian Association, Punjab and All India Anglo-Indian Association voted in favour of Pakistan. Christian leaders such as Diwan Bahadur Singha and Chaudhry Chandu Lal played an important role in encouraging local Christians to vote for Pakistan. Singha even mentioned to the opponents of Pakistan that he would readily take bullet in the chest, but will not give up the cause for the creation of Pakistan. The support of Christian leaders and organisations for Pakistan was because of their belief of getting a country which would assure them an environment of peace, co-existence, freedom and equality. On the eve of Pakistan’s independence on 14 August 1947, its founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah attended a special dominion service at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Karachi (Ali Shah, 2016; Malik, 2020: 68-83).

In his address at the first Constituent Assembly, Jinnah explicitly mentioned that regardless of creed, all the people living in Pakistan would have equal status and complete freedom. However, over time, these ideals were gradually shattered. A famous ‘objective resolution’ was passed in 1949 by the Constituent Assembly, which reversed the secular vision of Jinnah by perpetuating differences between the Muslim and the non-Muslim citizens of Pakistan.

During Bhutto’s government (1973-1977), Christian educational institutions were nationalised and a new Constitution was enforced, which deprived the minorities of the right to opt for the position of the President and Prime Minister. Moreover, the discrimination was further strengthened by the Islamisation policies during Zia-ul-Haq’s dictatorship regime (1977-1988). However, even under subsequent civilian governments, the proportion of Christian representation in the National Assembly drastically declined (Ahmed, 2016: 73-85; Brasher, 2020; Gabriel, 2007, Halai & Durrani, 2018). Notably, despite many cases of discrimination and violence, Pakistani Christians predominantly identify themselves as patriotic citizens (Brasher, 2020). The Christian civil society institutions and individuals have played an important role in different developmental spheres in Pakistan, particularly in education and healthcare sectors (Rasiah, 2020: 62-73). While the global, especially western, media project Pakistan as a source of religiously-bred intolerance and terror, the country has also been a major victim of conflict and aggression since its independence on 14 August 1947. The Partition of India resulted in bloodshed and sufferings, as the refugees crossed borders for migration. Peace promoting narratives and speeches by Jinnah could not unite the people on a common platform, for many people believed their nationalism was rooted in their provincial, ethnic, cultural and sectarian loyalties. Ethnic rivalries, conflicts and mistrust were among the reasons that led to the secession of East Pakistan and the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971 (Niyozov & Lalani, 2019).

While the global, especially western, media project Pakistan as a source of religiously-bred intolerance and terror, the country has also been a major victim of conflict and aggression since its independence on 14 August 1947.

During the 1960s, opponents of the then President Ayub Khan criticised his modern and liberal policies. To defame Ayub Khan and antagonise the masses, his political rivals presented an exaggerated number of 300,000 Muslims in Pakistan having been converted to Christianity. These exaggerations and political propaganda reinforced extremism and conservative religious groups (Malik, 2020). After Ayub Khan, noticing the rise of Islamist forces, Bhutto opportunistically initiated Islamisation in the state policy to secure his political power. Zia ul-Haq continued Islamisation with more vigour and rigour, supporting conservative and extremist forces, which under the banner of Islam tried to impose their exclusivist interpretations of religion on both Muslims and Non-Muslims (Ahmed & Zahoor, 2020; Gabriel, 2007; Halai & Durrani, 2018).

Promoting Cultures of Peace: Reflections on Soka Gakkai International (SGI) Buddhism’s Contributions to Peacebuilding

Alex Otieno

ABSTRACT

This paper arises out of and reports on an ongoing exploration of and reflections on the contributions of Soka Gakkai International (SGI) to peacebuilding discursive practice. Focus is on existing literature, engagements with activities of its constituent organisations and their chapters (SGI-USA and SGI-Kenya), SGI sponsored organisations (Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning and Dialogue, Toda Peace Institute, Soka University of America and SGI Office for UN Affairs), annual peace proposals and dialogues of SGI president Daisaku Ikeda and information from the archives of SGI Quarterly. By drawing on a lived experience approach, the paper discusses the SGI’s Buddhist inspired activities promoting ‘culture of peace’ and peacebuilding through internal transformation, dialogue and global citizenship as a case of Buddhist new religious movement with potential to serve as a resource for inquiry and reflection on religious peacebuilding discursive practice as a contribution to cultivating cultures of peace.

KEYWORDS

Soka Gakkai International, peacebuilding discursive practice, dialogue, global citizenship, inner transformation, lived experience, interpretive phenomenological analysis

INTRODUCTION

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes the freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

— Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18

The ideal of cosmopolitanism encourages us to feel at home in the whole world and to understand that we are all related and interconnected. Narrow conceptions of the homeland are exclusionary and tend to foster violence.

— Fiala (2018: 150)

The narrative presented in this paper results from and is part of an ongoing exploration of activities of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a community-based Buddhist organisation with 12 million members in 192 countries and territories, as a case of religiously inspired peacebuilding. It is informed by and draws on almost 30 years of participation in and observations of SGI Buddhist activities that form part of my engaged scholarship of cultures of peace (Boyer, 1996; Ndura-Ouédraogo, Elavie & Amster, 2009) through lived experience perspective of transformative peace pedagogy (Gadamer, 1977; Van Manen, 2015). I share examples of the potential of using these activities in teaching about religiously inspired peacebuilding as a resource for responding to the dominance of narratives of religious conflict. My ongoing research explores the ways in which SGI’s peacebuilding within the broader discourse of promoting cultures of peace through inner transformation of individuals, engaging in dialogue and fostering global citizenship. This paper combines the call for critical-constructive reflection (for more information see Makransky, 2008: 113-153) with understandings of reflexivity (Archer, 2003, 2007), social imaginaries and identity (Appiah, 2005; Connolly, 1991; Sen, 2009) to capture the ways SGI Buddhist peacebuilding can be useful as academic knowledge for engaging in contemporary considerations of religion, conflict and society. In doing so, I contribute to ongoing efforts to generate new narratives that support peacebuilding discursive practices for engaged scholarship and transformative pedagogy and the mobilisation of language and ideas as interconnected strands. Through this inquiry, the paper contributes to discourse on existing historical, hegemonic structures that reproduce social and ecological conflict. The SGI’s peacebuilding praxis is offered as a resource for cultivating practices and understandings for envisioning and enhancing possible peaceful futures while acknowledging the need for transformations that would render injustices visible and shift the dominant cultural narrative from violence to peace.

OVERVIEW AND CONTEXT OF ONGOING EXPLORATION OF SGI PEACEBUILDING

In October 2019, I gave a lecture to students taking the ‘Exploring Religions’ course at my university in which I discussed SGI-USA’s Culture of Peace Resource Centers alongside SGI activities in Cambodia and Kenya as illustrative examples of the ways in which SGI members are engaging in peacebuilding discursive practice. Because this was my third such lecturer in as many years to students taking this course, I had decided to draw on my involvement with SGI Nichiren Buddhism in Kenya and the USA and to focus on SGI’s peacebuilding activities. Surprisingly, this decision led me to revisit, rethink and reframe and reclaim SGIs involvement in building cultures and structures of peace in everyday life as an alternative to the dominant narrative of religious conflict as a contemporary global social problem. This engagement allowed me to consider Buddhist peacebuilding within the context of global peace discourse formation (Lewis, 2017: 21-41) and the local turn in peacebuilding (Kappler, 2015: 875-889).

My engaged scholarship (MacKinnon, 2010: 193-205) of SGI Buddhism and its contribution to peacebuilding led me to immerse myself in SGI Quarterly’s digital archives, Daisaku Ikeda’s annual peace proposals (2000-2020), SGI-USA’s online archive of exhibitions and distinguished speaker series for the Peace Resource Center as well as multiple academic writings on SGI. I read many inspiring essays including a dialogue on women’s role in international conflict focusing on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 of 2000 (Hans, Reardon & Chowdhury, 2017: 8-12) and an interfaith dialogue project involving Muslim, Christian and Buddhist youth in London (Novis, 2014: 21). I also revisited two films: A Quiet Revolution (2002)—collaboratively produced by the Earth Council, UNDP and UNEP and supported by SGI—featuring case studies of individual contributions to environmental problems in India, Slovakia and Kenya and A Path to Dignity: The Power of Human Rights Education (2012)—produced by SGI collaboratively with Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)—focusing on fostering human rights through education among schoolchildren in India, police officers in Australia and victims of domestic violence in Turkey. These revisits, which are ongoing, led me to rethink and reframe individual action, conflict, human rights, human dignity and ethics. It took me back to the early 1990s when I first encountered the SGI, delved into the literature on the SGI and subsequently converted to Buddhism (I was raised Anglican) and allowed me to problematise the role of religion in conflict/peace and society.

A month after arriving in the US from Kenya, I encountered scholarly and popular accounts of the SGI from multiple perspectives (Martin, 1989: 349-373; Metraux 1996; Straus, 1995: 199-211; Watanabe, 1996). I also found critical discourses regarding the SGI’s frenetic proselytising and power dynamics in Japan and the US (Watanabe, 1996). In the years that followed, I gained additional perspectives and sought new insights from a range of authors (Hammond & Machacek, 1999; McLaughlin, 2003: 161-179; 2019; Seager, 2006; Strand, 2014). My new understanding included views on the global spread of the Soka Gakkai (Machacek & Wilson, 2000), SGI’s expansion, activities and structure in specific countries (Bowen, 2011: 113-118; Metraux, 2013: 423-432; Metraux, 1996), soka (value creation) pedagogy (Ikeda, 1996; 2004; 2010a; 2010b; 2014: 14-15; Makiguchi & Bethel, 1989) and promotion of cultural activities for peace (McLaughlin, 2019). Additionally, I read views on SGI president Daisaku Ikeda’s activities (Bethel, 1973), including analyses of 20 of his annual peace proposals (Urbain, 2014). These activities were useful for my explorations and reflections on SGI. For example, work that took issue with SGI members’ focusing on material issues (including cars) under the Buddhist notion of ‘earthly desires are enlightenment’ have been useful in my revisiting how my lived experiences fit with the SGI’s promotion of inner transformation, dialogue and global citizenship as pathways to peace cultures.

I opened the aforementioned lecture by discussing the role of gongyo—morning and evening prayers based on the SGI liturgy involving recitation of Hoben and Juryo chapters of the Lotus Sutra and chanting of Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō (devotion to the Mystic law of Lotus Sutra) to the Gohonzon (a mandala inscribed by Nichiren Daishonin). The essence of this approach to Buddhism is the belief that every person has the capacity to ‘overcome any problem or difficulty that we may encounter in life’ and activate transformation of suffering based on an understanding that one’s life is inherently endowed with a Buddha nature based on the teachings of Nichiren—the thirteenth-century Japanese Mahayana Buddhist scholar and monk who established the school that focuses on the Lotus Sutra as the path to understanding one’s mind as inherently ‘the Buddha’ (Daishonin, 2004: 212) and the Bodhisattva vow of happiness for all humanity (keda, 2009). I highlighted stories from Cambodia (Metraux, 2009: 71-90) to illustrate variation in forms of conversation and the range of Buddhist activism and experiences of individual empowerment in the US (Dockett, 2004: 173-196).

At the end of my formal presentation, students asked me questions about my views on religion and conflict, and how I became a Buddhist. I remember responding by highlighting the following: almost 30 years ago, I read Ikeda’s Unlocking the Mysteries of Life and Death (1988) and Choose Life—A Dialogue (1976) while studying at the University of Nairobi. I did this because a friend taking a religious studies course had indicated that my views on life reminded him of perspectives he had learned from SGI publications that were serving as references for his term paper on Buddhism. Studying Buddhism, attending several SGI meetings in Nairobi where I met real Kenyan Buddhists, some of whom shared their experiences practising Buddhism. After these initial encounters, Buddhist ideas, meetings and eventually rituals became part of my everyday life. I shared stories about participating in, leading and hosting SGI activities in Kenya and USA in the 1990s, noting that these experiences have informed my transdisciplinary approach to peace education. I highlighted the relevance of Buddhism’s expansive approach to explorations and inquiry about religion, peace and conflict. Specifically, I identified its relevance to cosmopolitanism and Nussbaum’s (1996) views on cosmopolitan education, especially her observation regarding the potential of cosmopolitanism enhancing one’s capacity to ‘learn to recognize humanity wherever they encounter it, undeterred by traits that are strange to them’, fostering eagerness for understanding ‘humanity in all its strange guises’ and recognising humanity’s shared ‘common aims, aspirations, and values’ and grasping their varied instantiations in ‘the many cultures and their histories’ (p.9).

The questions led me to reflect on issues of inclusion, belonging and becoming in religious communities and how my Buddhist practice has impacted my relations with my Christian family. These considerations of inclusivity, belonging and becoming are part of the ongoing and sustained engagement informing this paper and my broader engagement with Buddhism, peace and conflict studies. Preparing for and delivering the aforementioned guest lecture on SGI Buddhism highlighted Nixon’s (2015: 14) observation that ‘academic identity cannot usefully be divorced from the plurality of identities that make up the self’. Revisiting the experience led me to approach this paper from a lived experience perspective (Van Manen, 2015), including a focus on texts (Gadamer, 1977). I have also considered Premaratna’s (2019: 3) assertion that ‘theory and practice of peacebuilding are largely dominated by approaches that stress institution building, democratic procedures, abstract rights, and neoliberal development’. Through writing, I offer emerging views from the reflection in the sections that follow. The balance of this paper offers illustrative examples of SGI’s peacebuilding activities, including a brief overview of the founding of Soka Gakkai and the SGI, followed by a reflection on dialogue and culture of peace, a consideration of global citizenship and peacebuilding, a consideration of grassroots peacebuilding followed by a conclusion.

SGI’S PEACEBUILDING ACTIVITIES

The opening paragraph of the published dialogue between Clements and Ikeda (2019) describes peacebuilding as a challenging step-by-step process motivated by a commitment to mutual ‘happiness for self and others’ through an ongoing process ‘of open-minded communication and exchange’ predicated on recognition of our ‘incomparable mutual worth and dignity as living beings’, as ‘individuals and members of global society’ (p.1). This openness comes through in Choose Peace: A Dialogue Between Johan Galtung and Daisaku Ikeda (1995), in interfaith dialogue (Tehrenian & Ikeda, 2003) and other dialogues with his contemporaries including Nelson Mandela (Paupp, 2012) that together highlight Ikeda’s belief in the power of dialogue in cultivating cultures of peace.

Engaged Buddhism ≠ Buddhist Nationalism

Charges of Genocide towards Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar

Daniel Rhodes

ABSTRACT

In 1991, under the weight of a brutal military dictatorship in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work utilising non-violence methods defined in the West as Engaged Buddhism. Eighteen years later, in December 2019, Aung San Suu Kyi appeared before the United Nations International Court of Justice answering for charges of genocide of the Rohingya Muslim population by the country’s Buddhist majority. How did this once revered peace activist, considered the paragon of Engaged Buddhism and non-violent action, go from Nobel Peace Prize winner to defending genocide in her country? And how does the religious tradition of Buddhism for the Burmese, with the tenents of Mettā (loving-kindness), Ahiṃsā (non-violence), and Karuṇā (compassion), utilised in the struggle for freedom and social justice for the people of Myanmar become contorted to promote nationalism and justify the engaging of genocide towards another group of people? While Aung San Suu Kyi is questioned on her role of complacency with ethnic cleansing, Ashin Wirathu (also known as the ‘Buddhist bin Laden’), the leader of the Buddhist movement against the Rohingya Muslim is being sought out by the Myanmar government for his inflammatory rhetoric denigrating Muslims and encouraging Buddhists to attack the Rohingya population. In this paper, we will delve into the complexities of a how nationalism and Buddhism would fuse into a deadly combination in Myanmar, leading to a religious and ethnic clash. The article also explores as to how the values and ethics of Engaged Buddhism are not consistent with a nationalistic movement that exploits Buddhist teachings to justify genocidal behaviour.

KEYWORDS

Engaged Buddhism, Aung San Suu Kyi, Rohingya Muslim, ethnic cleansing, Myanmar

INTRODUCTION

It was in December 2014, when I knocked on the door of the Burmese Buddhist Temple in Jamestown, NC, inconspicuously located in a house on the edge of a neighbourhood. The monk came to the door, cracking it and looking at me apprehensively, he seemed unsure with my presence. Understanding his English was probably limited, I introduced myself and explained who I was and why I was visiting. A colleague and I were preparing to teach a January short-term class, Engaged Buddhism in the Community, and we wanted to schedule visits with local Buddhist temples and centres; especially ones that serve immigrant and refugee populations. With trepidation he invited me in. Over the years, I had visited many Buddhist temples serving immigrant communities located in similarly renovated homes and usually receive a generally warm reception, so I was perplexed by his hesitance.

I have worked with immigrant and refugee populations for over twenty years, specifically with Vietnamese Buddhists, and through this work, I developed strong connections in the area with a Vietnamese Buddhist temple, Chùa An Lạc (‘Chùa is Vietnamese for Temple or Pagoda, and An Lạc is the formal name of the Temple, which loosely means peace and tranquility, or happiness. An Lạc is a term taking from one of the Buddhist scriptures, or what is called Sūtra’; see Rhodes, 2016: 8). Although working primarily with one immigrant population, my years of connecting with different groups had introduced me to several Buddhist communities located in the area that served immigrant and refugee populations associated with specific Buddhist temples. Guilford County has been a refugee resettlement area for close to 30 years, bringing a plethora of diverse populations to the area and enhancing the community. As Raleigh Bailey, former director of the Center for New North Carolinians, notes, ‘In the early 1990s, North Carolina began to witness a dramatic influx of immigrants. The foreign-born population increased by 273.6 per cent between 1990 and 2000, growing from 115,077 to 430,000 residents.’ This resulting because of a ‘(1) a robust labor market’ and, ‘(2) a federally funded programme that settled refugees in selected parts of the state’ (Bailey, 2005: 57).

These Buddhist temples generally begin in homes located in neighbourhoods. Currently, there are seven Buddhist temples in Guilford County; the original, Wat Greensboro, serving Thai, Cambodian and Laotian communities, three Vietnamese Buddhist temples, two Laotian Buddhist Temples and this Burmese Buddhist temple. Often, one will not even recognise these temples. Except for a couple of Buddhist statues cropping up in the yard and a few people converging one day a week for service or during specific times of years honouring either cultural events or Buddhist festivals, there is little way to distinguish these temples from single family homes. Since Buddhist monks often live in Buddhist temples, communities will purchase homes that can be renovated into a ‘temple’ but still fall within the guidelines for a neighbourhood property instead of a designated church. This type of creative renovation of private property serves the purpose for both the monk and the community. All of the Buddhist communities I have worked with in the area serving immigrant populations are located in houses, some of them, such as the Vietnamese temple Chùa An Lạc, eventually are able to obtain some of the property around the original house, expanding their network and ability to serve the community with various services.

I already connected with Chùa An Lạc, and Greensboro Wat about our class visiting their places, but had yet to make connections with this Burmese temple to see if they were willing to host an information session with our students. Since it was mid-December and chilly outside, I was wearing a jacket and scarf. After inviting me in we ventured into the kitchen where the monk proceeded to make us some tea and motioned for me to sit down at the kitchen table. Removing my jacket and scarf he points to my scarf, indicating it was the first thing he noticed when I knocked on the door and his concern. My scarf was a Kafiya, primarily worn by Palestinians and one I had obtained on my visits to Ramallah. I wear it as a way to show solidarity with Palestinians, and as a way to open dialogue about the Palestinian issue when people ask me about the scarf.

I usually wear my Kafiya during the winter and in my cultural insensitivity it did not occur to me what image it would project while visiting a Burmese temple that I had never been to before. The monk disclosed that he was somewhat unsettled at first by an unannounced person appearing at the door wearing a Kafiya, unsure what my intentions were. This was a year after my visit to Myanmar and tensions continued between the Rohingya Muslims and dominant Buddhist Burmese. For the monk, the Kafiya was a symbol of Muslim solidarity and there was concern that I was there to confront him on this conflict. Once he was aware of my intentions, he was at ease and we began to discuss our plans for the class and if he were willing for us to bring students to visit the temple and meet with him. After getting past this initial apprehension, he became very open and we spoke of my travels to Myanmar. This interaction, however, struck me on the complexities and nuances of this conflict. Not only this conflict, but other protracted conflicts that are greatly misunderstood in the US. The impact such conflicts have on different immigrant and refugee communities as they relocate to Western countries is palpable.

Although many Burmese communities immigrated to the US to escape the military dictatorship, there is still pride in their culture and identity, which is strongly rooted in Buddhism. The ongoing conflict between the dominant Buddhism Burmese and the Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine State of Myanmar is complex and lengthy. Even though Buddhism has very specific rules of compassion (Karuṇā) and nonviolence (Ahiṃsā), this has not prevented the protracted conflict to denigrate into violent action, often encouraged by Buddhist monks. Beyond the specifically regional dispute between the Rohingya Muslims and Burmese Buddhist, images of Muslims being portrayed as purveyors of terrorist activities by the West has permeated the global psyche. For some Burmese,

. . . (given) the way that Islam has been demonized. Opportunistic political entrepreneurs, including Buddhist monks, have explicitly associated the Rohingya with transnational jihadists. The ‘global war on terror’ discourse that has cast suspicion and derision on Muslims world-wide has been redeployed in Myanmar to depict the Rohingya as a conduit for the incursion of a massive Islamic horde (Prasse-Freeman, 2017: 2).

After the initial suspicion we ultimately had a pleasant conversation and he enthusiastically agreed to have our students come to the temple, meet with him and learn more about Buddhism from a Burmese perspective, and what the temple offers to the Burmese community in the area. I did not press him on his views of the situation in Myanmar or the conflict and subsequent violence that has led to accusations from the global community of ethnic cleansing and genocide perpetrated on the Rohingya Muslims by the Burmese military and Buddhists in the area, and to this day ‘there still is a simmering tension between the Rakhine Buddhists and the Rohingya Muslims’ (Kipgen, 2019: 64). The exchange, however, had me reflect more on my ideas of Engaged Buddhism in general and how some areas in Southeast Asia have adopted a hyper nationalistic stance with Buddhist traditions becoming a central component of this nationalism, even at the expense of other cultural and ethnic groups.

ENGAGED BUDDHISM & WESTERN VIEWS

For Westerners, such as myself, who gravitated towards Buddhism in the late 80s and early 90s, the ideas of Engaged Buddhism were starting to become vogue in Western countries. Public Buddhist figures such as Thích Nhất Hạnh had a long history of human rights work during the Vietnam War and advocating for the rights of Vietnamese refugees after the US exited Vietnam in 1975. Thích Nhất Hạnh is the person who coined the term ‘Engaged Buddhism’ and introduced its concepts to the West (Queen & King, 1996: 2). For Thích Nhất Hạnh, the ‘engaged’ part of Engaged Buddhist evolved out of the misconception that ‘Buddhism has been seen as passive, otherworldly, or escapist’ (Kotler, 1996: 65). The image of the solitary monk, sitting alone, quietly, working towards enlightenment and eschewing the problems of the world did not reflect the struggles that monastics were experiencing in countries in the Global South. Engaged Buddhism was the ‘struggle of Third World Buddhists’ (Jones, 2003: 26).

For the monastics and lay Buddhists working to ameliorate the suffering (Duḥkha) they were experiencing in their countries they needed a language to communicate to the rest of the world how their religious practice informed the human rights work they were doing. During the Vietnam War, Thích Nhất Hạnh formed the School of Youth for Social Services in 1964, ‘which trained social workers to rebuild bombed villages’ (Fields, 1992: 357). For Thích Nhất Hạnh, the monastics and lay people he worked with, the human rights and social justice work they were doing was just an essential part of their Buddhist practice. It was challenging, however, to communicate this work to a global community that had misconceptions of what Buddhism really was, so this evolved into Thích Nhất Hạnh’s ideas of ‘Engaged Buddhism’ and its philosophy of human rights. As Harvey (2000) notes, ‘It is true that Buddhism does not usually talk in terms of “rights”, which is a term that arose from the Western philosophical tradition. That does not mean, however, that Buddhists cannot agree with the substance of what is expressed in ‘human rights’ language.’ (p.119)

For those of us in the West who engage in human rights and social justice work, we love to utilise terms such as ‘Engaged Buddhism’, which, in reality, is duplicitous. ‘(I)n contemporary Asia (Buddhism) means energetic engagement with social and political issues and crises at least as much as it means monastic or meditative withdrawal’ (Queen & King, 1996: ix). The term Engaged Buddhism was just an acknowledgement of those who identify as Buddhist in Asia as engaging in human rights and social justice work. Pretty much every religious tradition has these movements, or leaders, but we generally do not use terms such as Engaged Christianity, Engaged Islam or Engaged Judaism. Attaching the word ‘engaged’ to Buddhism allowed these human rights activists to open up dialogue with Western human rights activists and educate the global community in the work they were doing, and the human rights issues their countries were facing. We see an example of this dialogue where Thích Nhất Hạnh and American Jesuit priest, Daniel Berrigan, developed a comradeship over their social justice work and anti-war activism, producing a book from their dialogues on engaged spiritual practice activities, The Raft is not the Shore; the title of the book referencing a Buddhist allegory.

The ideas of Engaged Buddhism dates back many years, even though the term itself is a relatively new concept. As noted, coined by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Engaged Buddhism is a detailed ideological construct with certain values and ethics. Thích Nhất Hạnh used the ideas of Engaged Buddhism and the School of Social Services for the Youth in Vietnam to ‘relieve the suffering caused by the war and to extend their work to all Vietnamese people regardless of political orientation’ (Hunt-Perry & Fine, 2000: 38). This group eventually developed a ritualist ceremony that consisted of 14 ‘vows’ or precepts for those who acknowledged they were to adhere to their ideas of Engaged Buddhism, calling this the Order of Interbeing. Much like those who decide to become a Buddhist by taking ‘refuge’ acknowledging and initial five precepts, and for more advanced practitioners in Mahayana Buddhism who decide to take the Bodhisattva’s vows, Thích Nhất Hạnh’s vows distinguished those who wanted to specifically identify with their form of Engaged Buddhism and acknowledge that for them, Buddhism is an engaged endeavour that integrates some of the Western ideas of social justice (Thích Nhất Hạnh, 1997).

Kaleidoscope

Common legacy lost?

The iconic Hagia Sophia of Istanbul, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is no longer a proud confluence of Christian and Islamic traditions. It has also lost its status as a museum which has held millions of visitors from across the globe in awe with its grand synergic exterior and interior architecture.

The majestic edifice was built as the main cathedral of Constantinople, then capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, in the sixth century. It was converted into a mosque in 1453 after the Ottoman conquest of the city, now known as Istanbul. The secular Turkish government of Kemal Ataturk made it a museum displaying shared cultural heritage.

Following a 15-year legal battle, the Council of State, Turkey’s top administrative court, granted a petitioner group’s plea that it should be used only as a mosque, according to the decree of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. President Recep Taiyyip Erdogan completed the process by handing it over from the ministry of culture to the directorate of religious affairs. It will now be used as a place of worship. A presidential spokesperson, however, has said that it will still be open for domestic and international tourists.

(Here is a detailed report with video: ‘Muslim prayers in Hagia Sophia for first time in 86 years’, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/turkey-muslim-prayers-hagia-sophia-time-86-years-200724063303261.html and an analytical piece: ‘Erdogan’s Hagia Sophia move is part of resource wars and geo-political ambitions’, https://enewsroom.in/hagia-sophia-ayasofya-turkey-erdogan-religious/)

Uighurs accuse, China denies

China has been vehemently denying accusations that it has been persecuting the minority Uighur Muslim population, concentrated in its Xinjiang province. Most recently, the United Kingdom has threatened in July 2020 that it may impose sanctions against China if it does not stop the minority abuse, about which ‘gross and egregious’ reports have been coming in. Apart from human rights organisations, reports about the community are emanating from the émigré Uighurs themselves, who are fleeing China at the first opportunity and spreading in various countries from Turkey to the USA. They claim that their kin, including children, are being held practically hostage in the Chinese province and sent to ‘re-education camps’ in batches. Some say that these re-education centres often double as labour camps. China denies the existence of such places altogether. According to the country’s authorities, the Uighurs enjoy equal rights as every other citizen. There have been disturbing reports though, that they are not allowed to practise their religious customs like fasting in the holy month.

(An explainer: ‘The Uighurs and the Chinese State: A Long History of Discord’, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-22278037)

Bamiyan replay

When the world’s two largest Buddha statues were blown up by the Taliban in Afghanistan in March 2001, it made international headlines. Nineteen years after, the horrific incident was repeated in Pakistan in July 2020. However, it did not get much space in the news world as it happened amid the corona virus crisis. According to media reports, a few labourers engaged by a contractor were digging up the earth for some construction work. What came out from beneath the ground was a life-size image of the Enlightened One. Not surprising, as the site of the discovery, a village in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the northwestern province of Pakistan, is close to the Takht-i-Bahi region, which was once a flourishing seat of Buddhism. Experts surmised that the statue belonged to the third century, almost the same time as that of the Bamiyan Buddhas.

What happened next is still under a cloud. According to some local people, a religious leader, hearing the news, had ordered the statue to be destroyed forthwith. According to others, the labourers hammered the idol to splinters on their own. Four people were arrested in connection with the incident on 19 July 2020 and charged under the ‘antiquities law’. But there is little hope that such actions will eliminate the chances of such incidents recurring.

(Read the report: ‘Four arrested over destruction of 1,700 year-old Buddha statue in Pakistan’, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pakistan-buddha-statue-destroy-suspect-arrests-a9626931.html)

Burdens of the day

The COVID-19 pandemic has put India under the longest lockdown, during which the studies of schoolchildren have been suffering a lot. Many of the schools are conducting classes online, but a large section of the pupils have problems of accessibility and connectivity. So, the authorities were thinking of reducing the school curriculum so that the young minds have to bear a little less burden of lessons. The actual moves towards reduction in curricula have raised some eyebrows though.

The Central Board of Secondary Education, which oversees the most extensive network of schools in the country as well as Indian schools abroad, has laid down a policy that the syllabus is to be cut down by about 30% for the academic year 2020-2021. Since it is difficult to eliminate topics from the science subjects, the axe has fallen substantially on the social sciences. Among the topics suggested to be taken out of the syllabi for classes IX and X are population, democratic rights, food security, forest and wildlife, democracy and diversity, gender, religion and caste, popular struggles and movements, etc. Again, from the class XI-XII Political Science course, secularism goes out along with federalism, citizenship, nationalism, social movements and other chapters.

Following its example, the school board of the southern state of Karnataka, famous for its information technology industry, has recommended the removal of chapters on Jesus and Prophet Mohammed, among others. Archbishop Peter Machado, who heads the Catholic Church in Karnataka, joined the group of religious and political leaders as well as academics protesting against such a policy.

(Read the articles: Will the recent modification of the CBSE syllabus for Stds. XI and XII affect the quality of education?’, https://www.thehindu.com/education/recent-modification-of-the-cbse-syllabus-for-stds-xi-and-xii-will-it-affect-the-quality-of-education/article32190202.ece and ‘Syllabus change: Archbishop upset over removal of Jesus, Mohammed’, http://mattersindia.com/2020/07/syllabus-change-archbishop-upset-over-removal-of-jesus-mohammed/)

Curated by Nilanjan Dutta

Book Review

Palestine and Israel: A Personal Encounter

By MAX CARTER

150 pp, Newberg, OR: Barclay Press, 2020 $16 (PB)

Reviewed by

DANIEL RHODES

Max Carter’s narrative of his individual experience in the region in his book, Palestine and Israel: A Personal Encounter, is a great starting point for anyone who wants to experience an authentic reflection on the struggles in the area and how it impacts an individual’s personal beliefs and relationships. Carter does not shy away from some of the more troubling aspects of what has happened to Palestinians in the area, but he illustrates it through the lens of his own personal narrative. The approach Carter takes allows the reader to gain some understanding of the complexities of the conflict without getting caught up in the minutiae of the agenda infused description that is often expounded by regional ‘experts’. Carter’s book is a short but concise reflection of his own personal experience in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, spanning over 30 years and numerous trips to the region.

After growing up in a devout Quaker family and coming of age during the Vietnam War, Max Carter followed his Quaker values and roots of nonviolence by applying for conscientious objector (CO) status as an alternative to fighting in Vietnam. Carter notes, ‘It was a combination of my Quaker upbringing, Christian commitment, and an encounter with a survivor of the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima’ that led him to apply as a CO in 1966 (p.9). Carter had to choose an alternative service for his CO status and was drawn to the Quaker Friends School in Ramallah, which he learned about from his great-aunt who taught there in the 1920s (p.10). Carter enrolled in college and completing his bachelor’s degree before travelling to Ramallah in 1970 to begin his alternative service as a CO. While in Ramallah, Carter spent two years teaching at the Quaker Friends School. In many ways, Carter was following the long tradition of Quaker engagement with the Palestinian cause, dating back to the formation of Israel as a country in 1948 (AFSC, 1970; Gallagher, 2007).

In the first part of the book, Carter reflects on his struggles to orient to a new environment and culture. Having come from rural farmland in Indiana to Ramallah in the Palestinian territories was a big transition for him. He quotes passages from his letters sent back home on the challenges he faced adjusting to a new culture and environment. In these letters, he also reflects on the relationships he developed with students and others, and on how his students at the Friends School were instrumental in teaching him about the plight of the Palestinian people. ‘Everyday conversations continued to be dominated by the realities of the military occupation, and anger still simmered over the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and subsequent war’ (p.22).

After completing his two-year obligation, Carter returned home to continue pursuing his studies, ‘When I left Palestine that summer, I had no thought about returning; I was happy to be heading into a new chapter in my life . . .’ (p.37). However, Palestine would be calling for Carter to return. While in the states, Carter continued to follow the events in the Palestinian area as they unfolded over the years. It was in 1979 that he and his wife, Jane Carter, ‘were asked by Friends United Meeting (FUM) to lead a work camp to the Friends Schools in Ramallah’ (p.46). While Carter left Palestine with no intention of returning, this request by FUM led to subsequent trips each summer after this. These trips leading small delegations of people to work at the Friends School and become acquainted with the plight of the Palestinian people became a staple in Carter’s life.

This book is a comprehensive tale of his travels to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) in the West Bank, especially working in Ramallah at the Quaker Friends School and leading groups to the area. As he notes, the ‘primary focus of this trip was work’ (p.47); however, travelling to see sites and meeting with people who were directly impacted by the occupation gave others the chance to experience the conflict. Carter details these many trips throughout the book. Because of his extensive connection with the area, he continues to note, ‘Through all our trips through the West Bank, we witnessed the first construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories in the wake of conservative Likud Party’s accession to power in the Israeli government’ (p.47).

Carter strikes an excellent balance in this book focusing on both the geopolitical issues that have impacted the area, especially effecting the Palestinians, and a personal narrative that helps to engage the reader in meaningful ways. This is not an easy task given the nature of the conflict and the controversy related to the US connection to Israel, especially militarily. However, I think this speaks to the strong connections and unique experiences he has developed in the region. Part of his role with these travels has been his ability to ‘witness’ what he has seen and experienced while in the OPT. This witnessing has come with much criticism from those who disagree with those who are exploring deeply the Palestinian narrative. He notes one of the common criticisms of his sharing is that ‘too much legitimacy had been given to the Palestinian side and that the Israeli narrative had not been argued sufficiently. In other words, I was supposed to have argued that only the Israeli position was valid’ (p.55). Carter’s work has, in effect, been all about balancing the narrative.

There is so much packed in this small text, and yet the reader will be wanting to know more. Carter does an excellent job in chronicling his experiences (mainly because you can tell he has kept copious notes of his travels over the years, so you feel you are reading a living document). A host of extraordinary individuals fly through the pages as ordinary experiences while he is there, only to find out if you take the time to look them up that these are well-known human rights and peace activists, such as Jean Zaru. Only this kind of familiarity with these individuals comes from someone who has such strong ties to the area and is committed to the cause of Palestinian human rights.

I struggle writing this review because I want to include all the details of people he has met, experiences he reflects on and the impact it has had on him, but ultimately, I encourage you to get the book for yourself and read it. This book is only the beginning of his experiences in Palestine and Israel; he notes at the end that more are forthcoming. For those of us who have read this book, we will have to wait to read more, but for now I would strongly encourage you to check out Max Carter’s Palestine and Israel: A Personal Encounter if you want an authentic and deeply felt experience of the Palestinian cause.

A few days before writing this review, on 30 July 2020, over 900 Jewish settlers accompanied by Israeli police stormed onto the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem (more commonly known as the Dome of the Rock) with the intent of performing Talmudic rituals. Al-Aqsa Mosque is one of the holiest sites in Islam and has been a contested area and source of much tension between Palestinians and Israelis. This site, right above the Western Wall, is considered the Temple Mount by Jewish people and was the location for two Jewish Temples in antiquity (Barghoti, 2020). This highly contentious incident has not gained much attention in the mainstream Western media but is very significant and creates potentially serious consequences for the ongoing conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. There has been an increase in violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the past few years (Daily Sabah, 2020) especially following the election of Donald Trump as President of the US and his antagonistic move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, securing recognition of Jerusalem as primarily Israeli territory. Trump’s support for Netanyahu’s plan to annex more Palestinian land has only encouraged this violence (Halbfinger & Rasgon, 2020). Many Israeli settlers view these controversial stances as tacit support by the current US administration for Israelis’ more aggressive tactics in Palestinian territory, including holy sites such as the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The history of the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict is lengthy and complex. Even for those of us who have travelled to the area and study the conflict struggle with the nuances surrounding the conflict. For Palestine/Israel watchers, it is difficult to wade through all the information that gets disseminated. There is no ‘beginning’ point in trying to study and understand the conflict; one just has to kind of ‘dive’ in, acknowledging that much of what you take in comes with an intention to promote a specific agenda. A lot of writings on the conflict bog the reader down in complex details of geopolitical legalese, or obfuscate geographical areas based on historically biblical passages and place people in binary camps of thought. Supporting Palestinian rights is often crafted as ‘pro’ Palestinian, which means you must be anti-Israel, which in turn means you are anti-Semitic, and vice versa. This narrative is engineered to end any open and substantial dialogue about the conflict and potential resolutions before they can even begin. I feel Carter’s book, in some small way, helps the reader untangle some of these issues. For those unfamiliar with the complexities of the conflict in the region, his book is a good start in ones on personal journey in learning more about what is happening in the area and hopefully, will be an excellent resource to open up more substantial dialogue for those who are willing to engage.

REFERENCES

American Friends Service Committee, Search for Peace in the Middle East, 1970

Barghoti, Aness Suheil, ‘Over 900 Jewish settlers storm Al-Aqsa complex: Settlers enter compound accompanied by Israeli police’, Anadula Agency, 30 July 2020, retrieved from https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/over-900-jewish-settlers-storm-al-aqsa-complex/1927229# on 15 July 2020

Carter, M L, Palestine and Israel: A Personal Encounter, Newberg, OR: Barclay Press, 2020

Daily Sabah, ‘More than 900 Jewish settlers storm Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque’, 30 July 2020, retrieved from: https://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-east/more-than-900-jewish-settlers-storm-jerusalems-al-aqsa-mosque on 3 August 2020

Daily Sabah, ‘Israeli settlers increase violent attacks in occupied Palestinian territories’, 17 March 2020, retrieved from https://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-east/israeli-settlers-increase-violent-attacks-in-occupied-palestinian-territories on 15 July 2020

Gallagher, N, Quakers in the Israel-Palestinian Conflict: The Dilemmas of NGO Humanitarian Activism, Cairo, Egypt: The American University in Cairo Press, 2007

Halbfinger, D M & Rasgon, A, ‘Netanyahu’s Annexation Plans Meet Surprise Opponent: Israeli Settlers’, The New York Times, 1 June 2020, retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/world/middleeast/israel-annex-netanyahu-westbank.html on 30 June 2020