Religion in foreign policy?: How to get it right

[rug]

Published: August 13 at 11:08 am
By Susan Hayward
­Susan Hayward is a senior program officer in the Religion and Peacemaking Center of Innovation at the U.S. Institute of Peace. The views expressed here are her own.

Secretary of State John Kerry announced recently the creation of a new Office of Faith-Based Community Initiatives, illustrating the U.S. government’s recognition that engagement with religious representatives, institutions, and organizations is crucial for fostering security, democracy, and development overseas.

This is a major step forward for U.S. diplomacy, which has long been wary of working with the religious world, or unsure how to do it right. Diplomats’ guardedness is not without reason, given the complex dynamics within faith communities. Working with this sector poses particular challenges and occasional unintended negative consequences. History has shown that not all religious engagement is good religious engagement. But the State Department’s new office sends an important signal that this kind of cooperation is no longer optional — it is essential.

At the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), we have researched how religion drives both conflict and peace, and we’ve engaged the religious sector in conflict zones for nearly two decades. From Colombia to Nigeria to Iraq to Burma, we have supported efforts by religious groups and leaders to mobilize communities against violence, spur reconciliation, heal trauma, challenge extremist religious narratives and push for policies that drive sustainable peace.

Through the course of our work on religion, we have identified key lessons which may help the new office make the most of its mandate while avoiding potential pitfalls.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/08/13/religion-in-foreign-policy-how-to-get-it-right/

http://www.usip.org/

[LostOne4Ever]

1. How to get it right?

Simple, keep Religion out of Foreign policy altogether.

[rug]

2. That's hard to do when some strategic countries have religion in their name.

[LostOne4Ever]

4. I don't see how that should affect us.

They are religious, that does not mean we have to be. We can still interact with them secularly.

[cleanhippie]

6. Notice how quiet they become when you hit them with facts.

[rug]

9. I'm usually not online at 3:30 in the morning. Are you?

I would have logged in sooner but I went straight to court. I'll try to do better next time. It so upsets me to displease you.

[cbayer]

11. I also had to go to court this morning, and it was a total disaster.

I am writing a piece in collaboration with my step-daugher about my experiences in the legal system.

We are going to put it out there and see if anyone will pick it up.

She got her Masters in Journalism last year from Columbia and is getting some things picked up by some major news sources.

But I've got to tell you, rug, the legal system in this country is so incredibly flawed and favors those with money over those without to such a degree that it is a true disgrace.

My little story may not make a difference, but I am going to put it out there anyway.

I'll let you know. If you are interested in reading my draft or the final version when we complete it, which you may not be, let me know.

But I understand how some people sucked into the system become completely outraged.

[rug]

12. The legal system is a fertile breeding ground for cynicism.

Yes, I'd really like to see it. One of the most misunderstood and most abused areas of the law is the intersection of courts and mental illness.

[cbayer]

13. Cynicism is much too mild a word for what I am experiencing.

Rage is closer.

The case is not about MI. That I can deal with.

It's about me and justice and the little guy (pro per, here).

[rug]

14. Sorry to hear it.

Let me know if I can help.

[LostOne4Ever]

17. My apologies

I post erratically and at weird times.

Entirely my fault.

[rug]

18. You don't have a thing to apologize for.

You make a good point regardless of the time.

I think we're talking about two different things anyway. The government certainly should not export religion, or make policy decisions based on religion, but the reality is it has to understand and deal with those governments that do.

[LostOne4Ever]

20. On that

I agree completely.

[LostOne4Ever]

21. Thank you for the support

It is greatly appreciated.

However, to be completely fair, I post at weird times and in a very selective and erratic manner.

[rug]

8. When you have the Islamic Republic of Iran at the center of U.S. foreign policy,

explicitly making decisions based on Sharia, you'd be foolish not to deal with the religious component.

[LostOne4Ever]

19. Well the way I see it

While they make decisions based on Sharia I don't think we need to ourselves. Let me bring up the example I used below. We try to trade some of our pork for lemons from Iran.

They say "sorry we are islamic we feel pork is unclean." That is a religious reason they used to justify a position. We go "okay how about sugar?" This proposition is in no way influenced by religion on our behalf, but rather a reaction to our trade partner declining the pork offer.

Dealing with a country on terms like this is also a far different thing than offering material support to non-governmental religious institution within the country which is what I understand the article to be about and I cover in more detail in my response to Cbayer.

[cbayer]

3. It would be foolish to leave it out of policy when dealing

with foreign nations that have serious issues around religion or are theocracies.

Wouldn't it?

[LostOne4Ever]

5. Again, I don't see how that should affect us.

We can still interact with them as we would anyone else. We are not going to start giving preferential treatment to a Muslim Theocracy over what we give to a Hindu Theocracy are we?

Why would it even come up? A trade deal with a Zoroastrian theocracy would not bring up religion. They want to sell us Lemons and we want to sell them sugar. Why would religion come up?

Even in something like the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, why would WE need to be religious? In fact, being secular and totally neutral to their conflicting religious claims would be an asset.

How do we need religion itslef in our foreign policy?

[cleanhippie]

7. Notice how quiet they become when you hit them with facts.

[Bad Thoughts]

15. Funny, those aren't facts

What LostOne4Ever offers is a list of compelling hypothetical questions that ought to inform any discussion on the issues, but they are not facts. In order to be so, they would have to reference specific instances in which religious issues affected foreign policy and compare the results to times when religious issues were ignored. For instance, LostOne4Ever could have referred to the claim to al-Aqsa: the attempt to establish international authority over the mosque relies almost entirely on arguments for its religious importance.

[cbayer]

10. But it most definitely effects us. From the article:

engagement with religious representatives, institutions, and organizations is crucial for fostering security, democracy, and development overseas.

This is a major step forward for U.S. diplomacy, which has long been wary of working with the religious world, or unsure how to do it right.

It would be like trying to work with the Chinese without learning about or having personnel who speak Chinese. Or sending a contingent of all white men to work with black girls and women. Or any other number of scenarios.

While we have a government built around the 1st amendment, that is not true for many of the governments that we work with. Having a division that has expertise in the areas of what that means and how it may profoundly impact on talks or negotiations makes perfect sense. To not have it cripples us in some ways.

It's not just about trade and it's not about "us" being religious. It's about having the knowledge and experience on board to do the job better.

I don't see any infringement on 1st amendment issues here.

[LostOne4Ever]

16. I don't see it so much as a first amendment issue

As poisoning the well. Introducing a bias that will only come back to haunt us later.

My problem with the Chinese language analogy is that knowing each other's language is vital to communicating. To equate it back to one of the analogies I used earlier, without communication we can't come to agreement about how much sugar to trade for how many lemons. Similarly, lets say we want to trade pork for lemons from an islamic country. They can simply say "Sorry, we are muslim, we don't eat pork."

Your other analogy works better, but (and I may be thinking in a naive manner here) I don't see why white men can't work with black girls and women. I would think they will need knowledge of the culture, but I don't see why they couldn't do it if needed.

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]cbayer[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]It's not just about trade and it's not about "us" being religious. It's about having the knowledge and experience on board to do the job better.


Then maybe our disagreement is a semantic one. I don't see having knowledge of a religion as being the same as putting religion into foreign policy. More my issue is this:


[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/08/13/religion-in-foreign-policy-how-to-get-it-right/[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"] From Colombia to Nigeria to Iraq to Burma, we have supported efforts by religious groups and leaders to mobilize communities against violence, spur reconciliation, heal trauma, challenge extremist religious narratives and push for policies that drive sustainable peace.

I don't see why we need to work with religious entities as opposed to secular ones or working directly with the people of those countries. I see funding religious organizations only causing more problems than it solves. Resentment when we inevitably give one group a more favorable deal, issues when they try whatever program we are collaborating on to promote their religion, etc.

Going back to the story:

[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left:1em; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius:0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]History has shown that religious engagement by foreign governments has tended to target the same small clique of individuals and organizations in a particular country. This leads to backlash from those marginalized, and from lay people who are tired of their religious leaders traveling the world to conferences at the expense of time and attention paid to local issues. So broad engagement with a variety of religious interests will be important.

But then it starts talking about a need to engage with female and young religious leader...which will in my mind cause issues with the older patriarchal institutions we used to work with. I think that when patriarchal religious organizations lose funding to these deserving and more liberal institutions it will breed resentment. Personally, I would rather avoid any of our tax dollars going to any of these patriarchal groups altogether, but if we are to work with religious organizations we have to be fair (as possible) and not play favorites.

I think working with secular groups would provide better results with less strings attached and resentment. I think this involvement with religion will only poison things and make them worse...not better.

[cbayer]

22. Why would religion be any different than learning about other aspects of a culture

and implementing that knowledge strategically?

How can one work with a country or culture which is steeped in religion and not address it?

Is religion in general so repulsive to some that you would advocated ignoring it altogether? That does seem very naive.

Have you seen "Half the Sky"? If not, I highly recommend it. If so, I would love to discuss it with you.

One of the problem is the lack of secular groups proving the hand on, boots on the ground assistance in some areas of the world.

That's true even in this country. When I returned to New Orleans following Katrina, the vast majority of the work was being don by religious organizations. And they weren't poisoning anything (I find that statement on your part highly offensive, by the way).

[LostOne4Ever]

23. I meant no offense, and sincerely apologize if one was taken.

I should have put more thought into my word choice. Sorry again. I meant that when those two agencies (religious organizations and government) align they tend to have a negative impact on one another.

I don't see learning about religion as putting religion into foreign policy. For example there is a difference between a historian learning about an ancient religion and using that as a way to better understand an ancient people that he is studying, and a religious historian interpreting the same people through the lens of his religion. One is a secular approach and the other is not.

How would giving more money to religious groups help the problem of a lack of secular groups? My thought process is that by giving to secular groups that would in and of itself encourage more secular groups to form and provide more help for the community without the risk of alienating one group or another because of the sect.

Sorry I have yet to see it though I do have it written down. I am a bit of a procrastinator

[cbayer]

24. I am a strong supporter of our 1st amendment in regards to separation issues,

and agree with you (and the founding fathers) that mixing church and state is highly likely to have a negative result.

But, there is no separation in so many other countries. In fact, in places that are having the most trouble, the religious control in government is a keystone of the problem.

I think that if we ignore that or were unprepared to address it or didn't have the knowledge base to understand what that meant, we do so at our own peril.

It doesn't mean that we are inserting religion into our government. It means that we have expertise on religion in our tool box and can use that expertise to more effectively understand and address diplomatic issues.

Having that does not mean that we have substituted our secular approach for a religious one, imo.

I would love to see more secular groups providing services and assistance both here and abroad, but we are not there yet. So, in the meantime, I think we have to support groups that are doing work we support, be they religious or not.

In my travels, I have seen secular and religious groups working together very effectively. They often hold each other in very high esteem, recognizing that each comes to the table with different resources and skill sets.

The wish to eliminate religion is pie in the sky thinking. It's not going to happen.

[Bad Thoughts]

25. Granted, why does there need to be a special office?

First, foreign service officers are trained to be aware of the political, social, and cultural landscape into which they are inserted. That would include religion as an institution, set of practices and beliefs. They are trained to project the American governmental and constitutional position toward religion, which is hands off and non-sectarian.

Second, most nations are more or less representative of all groups within their borders, including religious groups. Obviously, there are special situations when that is not that case (Sudan). Nonetheless, those cases are special.

There are already ways religion is figured into foreign policy. If special situations arise, then they can adapt. There's no reason for a permanent office at this time.

[cbayer]

26. Well, John Kerry, who I presume knows a whole lot more about this than I do,

apparently saw that there was a need.

[cbayer]

27. Article on this from Voice of America: New State Department Religion Office Provokes Concern

http://www.voanews.com/content/new-state-department-religion-office-provokes-concerns/1731041.html

[rug]

28. That's a very good point.

But the involvement of faith groups in the making of American foreign policy worries George Washington University professor Melani McAlister.

“You end up with certain organizations having more influence on foreign policy,” she said, “precisely because they say, ‘We need to talk to religious organizations and who better than us to help you figure out how to do that.’”

She said to engage one religious group or another would inevitably be political. And the State Department’s terrorist classification of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah was an example of how some factions will be off limits, she said.

“And so there are a lot of ways in which religion is being adjudicated as much as it’s being engaged,” said McAlister.

In diplomacy, who you talk to is as important as what you say.

[cbayer]

29. It looks like a number of issues need to be addressed and resolved in the

implementation of this program.

Although I support it conceptually, it has to be done very thoughtfully.