Inter-religious Cooperation and Global Change:
From a Clash of Civilisations to a Dialogue of
Civilisations
Author: Dr Josef Boehle
University
of Birmingham, UK
In: Pacifica Review: Peace, Security and
Global Change, (Volume 14, Number 3, October 2002).
For the article abstract and for requesting the full
article:
Some
selected excerpts from this article:
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Inter-religious
Cooperation and Global Change
From a Clash of Civilisations to a Dialogue of Civilisations
Samuel
P. Huntington's article A Clash of
Civilizations in 1993 in the journal Foreign
Affairs started a vast and controversial discussion about the state of the world,
the possible clash of civilisations in the context of globalisation. In 1996
Huntington published a more extended and detailed version of his analysis in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking
of the World Order where he states:
“Blood,
language, religion, way of life, were what the Greeks had in common and what
distinguished them from the Persians and other non-Greeks. Of all the objective
elements which define civilizations, however, the most important usually is
religion, as the Athenians emphasized. To a very large degree, the major
civilizations in human history have been closely identified with the world’s
great religions and people who share ethnicity and language but differ in
religion may slaughter each other, as happened in Lebanon, the former
Yugoslavia, and the Subcontinent.”[1]
As
observed by Huntington and many other scholars, religions play a decisive role in
the forming of attitudes of individuals and societies towards the ‘other’.
Unfortunately
religions have contributed all too often in human history to the aggravation of
conflicts and wars. Throughout history we can observe brutal acts of
individuals in the name of religion and violent groups within religious
traditions. Furthermore, we have to make distinctions between diverse world
religions that have more or less violence in their histories.
At
the same time, we must acknowledge the many examples of caring for the ‘other’
which can be found in all religious traditions. To face the destructive and
divisive elements of religions and to foster the inspiring and peace-building
elements of religions, more strategic and effective ways of dialogue and cooperation
among religions themselves and between the world of politics and religions are
needed.
In
recent years inter-religious efforts have found prominent support among
religious leaders, senior politicians; they are increasingly being taken
seriously in the academic world.[2]
In
1994, former US President Jimmy Carter, in his foreword to Religion, The Missing Dimension of Statecraft, stressed the importance for such
dialogue and cooperation:
“Religious
representatives need to exercise their moral authority and mobilize the vast
human resources of their communities in the service of peacemaking.
The rest of us, in turn, must recognize the growing importance of religious
factors for peacemaking and develop ways, both
informal and formal, to cooperate with religious leaders and communities in
promoting peace with justice.”[3]
In
order to avoid major future wars, and being aware of the past terrible history
of war and violence of humankind, it is imperative to develop commitments in
all areas of life to building peace and to dissolving potential for conflict.
It is now imperative to build bridges of inter-cultural and inter-religious
understanding, dialogue and cooperation, wherever possible, to overcome the
social, economic, cultural and religious dynamics that increase the risk of
wars. It is imperative to create cultures of peace and justice. It is vital to
create the international structures needed to facilitate and co-ordinate
dialogue and co-operative efforts across civilisations, cultures and religions.
Kofi
Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, highlighted in 1999 the urgent
need for dialogue among civilisations and cultures in order to prevent major
conflicts and is very supportive of efforts for inter-cultural and
inter-religious peace-building.
In
a lecture on the 28 June 1999 in the Sheldonian
Theatre in Oxford on Dialogue of
Civilisations and the Need for a World Ethic Annan commented on Huntington’s prediction of a ‘Clash of
Civilisations’:
“All
sensible people must wish to avoid such a clash. Certainly most Muslim leaders
do. Last September one far sighted leader of a Muslim country, President
Mohammed Khatami of Iran, made a memorable speech on the subject to the United
Nations General Assembly. He said ‘the Islamic Revolution of the Iranian people
… calls for a dialogue among civilisations and cultures instead of a clash
between them’. At his suggestion, the assembly has since decided to proclaim
the year 2001 as the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilisations.”[4]
What
future inter-religious efforts should be made to overcome humankind’s terrible
history of wars, oppression and discrimination? What changes to the UN System
could help to overcome past destructive dynamics?
We
need an expanded UN System that is institutionally able to cooperate fully with
civil society, business, social, cultural and religious organisations. In
addition, we need a new and permanent inter-religious world forum that, whilst
co-operating with the UN System, remains independent from it.
A
new World Inter-religious Forum,
based on an inter-religious network and co-ordinated by a council, could
enhance the existing work of inter-religious organisations and support the best
insights, aspirations and programmes of the 100-year old international
inter-religious movement. Religious traditions, spiritual movements, indigenous
groups and inter-religious organisations could find the necessary global
organisational structure to foster permanent, effective and sustainable
inter-religious dialogue and cooperation, locally rooted and globally
connected.
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Excerpts from the
Concluding Chapter:
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Towards a World
Inter-religious Forum:
Developing an
Inter-religious World Body to Cooperate with the UN System
How
can we address the age-old conflicts between cultures and religions not only on
a personal basis, but also on an international institutional level? How should
we develop inter-religious organisations that are locally rooted and have an
effective global presence?
For
more than 100 years, there have been efforts to create inter-religious dialogue
and understanding on an international scale.
Organised
international inter-religious activities began with the World’s Parliament of
Religions in Chicago, 1893, followed in 1900 by the founding of the first
permanent international inter-religious organisation, today’s International
Association for Religious Freedom (IARF). Then came the World Congress of
Faiths (WCF) in 1936, the World Fellowship of Religions in 1950 in India, the
Temple of Understanding (ToU) in 1960, the World
Conference on Religions and Peace (WCRP) in 1970, the Council for a Parliament
of the World’s Religions in 1988 (CPWR), the International Interfaith Centre
(IIC) in 1993, the United Religions Initiative (URI) in 1996, the Interfaith Center of New York in 1997, the World Faiths Development
Dialogue (WFDD) in 1998, and the Millennium World Peace Summit in 2000, to name
the more prominent or permanent ones. The amount of inter-religious activity at
local, national and international levels rapidly increased through the 20th
century.
In
particular, the International Association for Religious Freedom, the Temple of
Understanding, the World Conference on Religions and Peace, the Interfaith Center of New York and the Millennium World Peace Summit
have cooperated successfully with the UN System. The IARF, ToU
and WCRP have consultative status at the UN.
As soon as the
first global organisations emerged in the political field, the League of
Nations and the United Nations, some of the pioneers and leaders of the
inter-religious movement thought about how to relate to these global political
bodies. How to relate to global organisations and the challenges of
globalisation is still a key question for today’s international inter-religious
movement.
Today
there is an emerging movement for
global inter-religious understanding and cooperation on the critical issues of
our time. To achieve lasting global change, innovative partnerships across traditional boundaries are needed. In this
context alliance-building among key partners is crucial to achieve
innovative and transformative cooperation on a local and global level: We need
alliances among
- religious
communities
- transnational
civil society (including inter-national inter-religious organisations)
- the UN System and
other international agencies.
New
structures (networks, fora, councils) are needed to facilitate and sustain such
ongoing cooperation. Numerous inter-religious seminars, major conferences and
conference series have been held all around the world for over a century. There
is still a great need for research into the immense amount of inter-religious
activity that has taken place in Asia (especially India and Japan) to produce a
fuller historical account of inter-religious developments. In addition to the
work of inter-religious organisations the efforts of particular faith
communities to open dialogues with other faiths and to change their
centuries-old attitudes of exclusion must be recognised.
The
existing multitude of different inter-religious initiatives, organisations and
programmes brings its own advantages and challenges. The advantage is a
diversity of approaches with different priorities and diverse leaderships.
Nevertheless, as we rapidly grow towards a more and more interconnected world
community, it is necessary to undertake coordinated efforts to effectively
address together the great suffering, injustices and inequalities amongst our
fellow brothers and sisters. Wars, hunger, poverty, epidemic diseases,
environmental destruction and exploitation, widespread lack of education and
adequate housing, innumerable forms of human injustice, exploitation and
oppression demand of all people of good-will to balance their personal
priorities with the necessity to overcome these evils. Only by joining forces,
by creating synergies, by sharing new insights and traditional wisdom, coming
from a diversity of civilisations and religions can the immense injustices and
dangers that threaten our life community on this planet be addressed
successfully.
This
argument should be even more obvious for inter-religious organisations and
religious communities that by nature of their ideals and principles want to
serve humanity. If it is the aim of inter-religious organisations and religious
communities to work for understanding, peace and justice, to work for dialogue
and respect of the ‘other’, then they have to put these ideals into effective
practice and seek cooperation with all people of good-will. Otherwise, they
will clearly be placing their own priorities above the well-being of humankind.
This would be in contradiction to many principles of their own organisations or
their respective faith communities.
Therefore, it
is high time to overcome age-old divisions and to seek together new forms of
effective, just and global cooperation and to establish the necessary
structural frameworks, institutions and processes to make such global
inter-religious cooperation possible and sustainable.
Conclusions
A multi-centred, permanent World Network,
Forum and Council for religious traditions, spiritual movements, indigenous
traditions and inter-religious organisations is
needed. This is the argument made here. Such a permanent, inter-religious
world body, respecting regional and local diversity, would have to be
multi-centred and include a diversity of organisational forms. It should be
based on a global inter-religious network, with permanent, co-ordinating centres
on every continent, with a global inter-religious coordination council, with a
general assembly or forum held every two years and regional assemblies in the
years between general assemblies. It should include humanitarian, research and
media institutions; it would need to be supported by local and national groups
and involve committed citizens as well as religious and spiritual leaders.
A World Inter-religious Forum, based on a
network and coordinated by a council, could also help a wide diversity of
programmes and initiatives to emerge in creative response to today’s great
problems and long-term challenges, such as poverty, lack of education, epidemic
diseases, war, the environmental crisis, conflict among religions, the root
causes of terrorism, unjust economic systems, etc. It would need to be
independent but have structural links to the UN System to be globally effective
and to be able to facilitate peace-building, dialogue encounters, information
exchanges and cooperative activities with the world of politics and economics.
One of the most difficult challenges would be the question of representation,
as it is not possible to find in the world of religions and spirituality clear
criteria for who represents the multitude of religious traditions and spiritual
paths. The representation in the forum and council should be based on the
participation in a global inter-religious network, with additional places for
large and clearly identifiable religious, spiritual or indigenous communities
and for outstanding and widely recognised moral and spiritual leaders.
Such
a network, forum and council would not be realised within a few years and would
not be able to perfectly represent all religious, spiritual and indigenous groups.
However, a development in this direction with a critical mass of initial
participants could be realised within 5 to 10 years if the will towards global
inter-religious cooperation can be further mobilised. To achieve this the support of the major inter-religious organisations,
of religious communities and of key religious and spiritual leaders is
crucial.
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No
duplicate organisation to the UN is proposed here in my argument, since the
world of religious traditions and communities is too different from the world
of nations and international law. The proposition here is to create an
inter-religious forum and network organisation that can pragmatically serve the
common good of humankind in cooperation with the UN System, enhancing the
prospects for a more just and peaceful world community.
The
nations of the world have made over the last 82 years (first through the League
of Nations and now through the United Nations) efforts to move towards a world
community, efforts with many setbacks, interrupted by World War II and
seriously limited by the Cold War period and today’s major economic
differences.
However,
even today the United Nations System is seen as rather helpless in the face of
global problems and in most cases the political and economic interests of
individual nation states determine the decisions or, sometimes, the absence of
decisions. In reality we cannot yet speak of a world community, rather of a
crises management system trying to address major world problems, most often
with too little power and resources, and often too late. Could a renewed United
Nations System, which is more democratic in its structures and significantly
expanded in order to cooperate with and empower NGOs and civil society
organisations, religious communities and movements, be more effective in
achieving the stated goal of the United Nations to save ‘succeeding generations
from the scourge of war’ and in addressing the great challenges of our time?
The answer is a clear yes. No isolated part of the emerging global community
can hope to solve today’s global problems on its own. The ethical and spiritual
resources of religious and spiritual traditions are needed to address
interconnected and global issues like justice, peace and sustainability.
One of the most difficult aspects of a transformation of the United Nations System is to change the organisation from a predominantly government-orientated global institution towards a much more open and inclusive institution. The necessary changes to the legal framework of the United Nations and, possibly, amendments to the UN Charter, clearly pose immense challenges which seem almost impossible to achieve given the strong self-interests of nation states.
Yet,
it is an absolute necessity to find an answer to one of the crucial
clarification processes of our time: how can we foster and facilitate today,
both, through existing and new international organisations and institutions a
more peaceful, just, and sustainable future of humankind? Are the existing national,
international and global institutions and organisations good enough and up to
the challenges of globalisation?
Anybody
who looks at today’s state of the world can come to only one conclusion:
humanity has failed bitterly in managing its own affairs, in creating
institutions that will safeguard a peaceful, just and fulfilling life for the
world’s citizens on the local, national and global level.
Global
change through creating new international institutions must be accompanied by a
substantial change within the UN System. This would create the capacity within
the UN System for meaningful institutional cooperation and alliance–building
with wider parts of the world community.
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Concluding Paragraph:
We
have touched on diverse issues in the argument presented here: inter-religious
cooperation, global change, global governance issues, participation of civil
society in the UN System and the creation of new international institutions and
frameworks.
Whilst
the complex details that are crucial for implementing any institutional change
have not been addressed here a vision for facing today’s global crises has been
presented.
Religious and spiritual individuals all over the world have together begun to reflect and to act on their global responsibilities, so that we can live in a more peaceful, just and sustainable world community. A better future is achievable by human beings united in their respect for diversity.
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Copyright 2002 - 2020 © Dr
Josef Boehle
School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion
University of Birmingham, UK
E-mail: j.boehle@bham.ac.uk