Sociology

Nearly all the worlds violent hotspots are countries plagued ostensibly plagued with long-standing religious conflicts.  Whether these conflicts take the forms of civil wars, ethnocentrism, or acts of terrorism, international and the local media have always highlighted the religious undertones.  Currently, the war taking place in Afghanistan is described as a struggle between the civil Afghan government and the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban militants.  The domestic strife in Pakistan is also regarded as clashes between moderate Muslims and the Taliban.  Only recently, the massacre of more than 500 Christians was blamed on the largely Muslim Fulani tribe.  (Abubakar) This too is regarded as the commencement of another violent conflict rooted in religious differences.

The governments involved in such conflicts, be they active participants or neutral intermediaries, have also based their judgment and actions on the premise that such conflicts are caused by religious biases.   Governments who are themselves the targets of violent attacks consider these to be merely a peace and order problem.  They are wont to employ the police and the military to quell the insurgents through armed means.  Neutral institutions and governments, on the other hand, express their pleas for sobriety and peace amidst the continuing bloodbath.  However, these naturally fell on the deaf ears of the conflicts protagonists.   The United Nations, for example, would expectedly convey their criticisms against acts of terrorism but it would not present an analysis of the problem for fear that the truth may be in favor of one of the participants in the conflict.

All major religions, especially Christianity and Islam preach peace and human compassion that transcends religious differences.   Islams sacred book, the Holy Quran, explicitly states that the taking of one innocent life is like taking all of Mankind... and the saving of one life is like saving all of Mankind. (533)   If people strictly follow the correct interpretations of their respective faiths, it will be impossible for violent religion-based conflicts to occur.  However, these do take place in many parts of the world.  This just proves that it is not religion at all that prompts men to take up arms and fight.  The full-blown wars and recurring acts of large-scale violence are not caused by peoples varying religious beliefs. History has proven that so-called religious wars are actually driven by peoples desires to achieve something material.  Because of this, such conflicts cannot be resolved by mere calls for peace.  Concrete solutions must be reached and this can only be done if the genuine causes of the problems are appreciated.  Religion is not actually the basis. It is just more evident.  Behind this, however, are the more concrete problems of exploitation and oppression of a group of people for the benefit of another group of people, oftentimes the few who hold political power.  Therefore, these types of violent contradictions can only be resolved by the achievement of national or social liberation of the oppressed and exploited, regardless of their religion.  Unless these are granted, there will always be cause for wars to take place in whatever part of the world.

One of the most infamous wars were religious strife was very much highlighted was the Bosnian war that occurred in 1992 to 1995.  Genocidal acts did occur between the predominantly Christian Serbs and the largely Muslim Bosnians.  At the onset of the war, the Serbs attacked Bosnian populations and committed various atrocities on women and children.  Retaliations were consequently made by the Bosnians and the conflict became a full-scale war.  Because the belligerents could be categorized according to the religious beliefs, it was convenient to conclude that the war was ignited by differences in religion.  In fact, the international mass media often refer the Bosnians not by their ethnicity or nationality but by their religion, oftentimes calling them Muslim Bosnians.  The Serbs, however, were hardly referred to as Christian Serbs, providing an impression of religious biases that even mass media reek with.  It was a convenient way to lessen the impact of the truth that came out after the war that most of the horrendous war crimes were committed by the Serbs.

The Bosnian war was never religious from the beginning to the end.  It may be more accurate to consider it as a violent result of the worst forms of ethnocentrism or ultra-nationalism.  With the fall of Soviet Union as a socialist country, the ruling communists in Yugoslavia also became very weak, especially in the second half of the eighties.  As they weakened, the leaders of various ethnic groups emerged and rallied their peoples for the establishment of separate republics.  When Yugoslavia finally broke up into separate republics, the ultra-nationalists who had taken over the governments in these new countries began to move to make their respective nations bigger.  Serbia attacked eastern Bosnia, hitting the Muslim population particularly. The purpose of the attack was to divide the Bosnians and to make them incapable of defending their fledgling country from the Serbs.  Christian Bosnians, naturally, did not take the side of their Muslim countrymen.  However, the ultra-nationalists did use religion in their demagoguery.  Whipping up stories of alleged atrocities committed by Muslims on Christians was an effective pretext for aggression on Bosnia.  Projecting the war as a punitive act against the Muslims was advantageous to Serbia because it was able to acquire combat support from other Christian Slavs even outside the former Yugoslavia.  (Thomas p.13)   On the other hand, there were reports that the Bosnians received manpower support from other predominantly Muslim countries, such as Iran.  However, this was never proven.  If, in fact, there was any, such support never really changed the outcome of the war as hundreds of thousands of Muslims still became victims of massacres, tortures, and mass rapes committed by the Serbians.

Aside from the atrocities that the Bosnian war became so renowned for, the massacres of Muslims by Christians and the just as violent, although in much lesser-scale, retaliations by the Muslims made the war seem religious in nature.  In truth, it was mere greed for larger raw material base by the ultra-nationalist leaders, particularly in Serbia.  By misrepresenting the aggression against Bosnia as a new form of Christian crusade, they were able to cloak their genuine objective for waging the war.  They only wanted to increase the land area of their newly established country in order to achieve a bigger raw material base for their economy.  Since a colonial war would mar its image in the community of nations too soon, it altered the image of the war and projected religion as the cause.

It is obvious that the major protagonists in so-called religious-based conflicts actually have reasons and objectives that are not in any way related to religion.  However, what is more disconcerting was how third parties in such disputes actually grasped the excuses made by the contending parties.  Oftentimes, it was not out of sheer ignorance of the issues involved.  Instead, it was deemed as the more expedient way in order to avoid being compelled to make a categorical stand in the conflict.  Therefore, third parties were able to project a neutral stance.  However, such position did not mean that they only want to distance themselves from violent disputes allegedly brought about by religious differences.  The third parties too, except the UN as an establishment by itself, have vested interests which dictate the manner they handle geopolitical concerns.  The United States, for example, has the tendency to express concern over potential hotspots without doing anything concrete to prevent bloodshed.  However, when things do get out of hand, it conveniently justifies military intervention to ensure peace and stability in the contested region as it lives up to the label of being the worlds policeman.

In fact, the US has been a factor that contributed to the growth of forces that instigated wars under the pretext of religion.  The Al Qaeda and the Taliban were forces that the US sponsored during the Afghan insurgency against Soviet occupation from 1979 until 1989.  These two Islamic fundamentalist militant organizations were once mujahedeen, which sought to liberate the Afghanistan from the Soviet.  The US actively supported the insurgency through covert means primarily by the Central Intelligence Agency.  In fact, the US already saw the possibility of a Soviet invasion in Afghanistan.  However, it considered it as an opportunity to recover from the shame that it got from the debacle in Vietnam.  It wanted to create a scenario where Soviet troops are trapped in the midst of a popular guerrilla struggle much as the US did in Vietnam.  (Le Nouvel Observateur)  The US was already aware of the fundamentalist tendencies of the mujahedeen.  It already saw the possibility that they could turn their guns on the US itself as soon as the Soviets pull-out from Afghanistan.  However, it was the era of the Cold War, a time when US foreign policy was very much pre-occupied in containing the Soviet threat.  Therefore, they never ceased to support the mujahedeen against the Soviet army.   The irony now is that the US armed forces are currently fighting it out with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

With the terrorist attacks in September 11, 2001 in the US as the pretext, the direct intervention of oil and gas-rich countries by US forces was provided with a justification.  The invasion of Iraq mainly by US forces and the arrival of American troops in Afghanistan continue to be seen by many as a violation on the rights of sovereign nations.  However, inside and outside the occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, patriotic calls for the liberation of the respective countries were not enough.  The slogans are not just as political as resist foreign intervention but death to the infidels which is obviously more connotative of religious biases.

The tendency to rally people of the same religious belief to a struggle against a perceived enemy of the faith is expected from the fundamentalists.  This is because every sphere in a nations life is seen from the religious point of view.  Religion is the main factor that influences policies in the economy, culture, politics, and foreign policy.  Therefore, for the Islamic fundamentalist in Afghanistan, the presence of US troops directly operating against the Taliban is not just an infringement of a nations sovereignty.  It is interpreted as an act of the devil or of the enemy of the faith.  While the Taliban wishes to establish an Islamic republic with laws that follow strictly the Shariah, any force opposing this is considered as anti-Islam.  Therefore, what is actually a political or geopolitical issue becomes marred with religious connotations.  For the Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalist groups, using religion as the rallying cry is also more convenient than just appealing to the Afghan peoples patriotic sentiments.  Muslims are probably the most religiously devout people in the world.  They may not care much about their country but they will surely fight to death when it comes to defending their faith.

In the light of all these pseudo-religious wars being waged, the Roman Catholic hierarchy has been calling for peaceful dialogues of all those involved in the disputes.  There were instances when the acts of terrorism were too horrific to ignore that the Vatican had to express outrage.  However, the line most often held by the Roman Catholic Church was to seek dialogues that could hopefully result into peace among the different faiths.  Again this shows that the Church also sees the problems in a religious point of view.  Obviously, the calls of the Pope himself only fell on deaf ears.  The Muslims in the Middle East and Central Asia may listen from someone as highly respected as the Pope but they cannot be expected to heed to his calls when they feel that both their respective countries and faith are threatened by foreign infidels.   Generally, all calls for sobriety and peaceful dialogues will not be respected when the material bases for launching wars are justified.  However, when religious sentiments are added to such bases, all those calls and pleas will just turn out to be wishful thinking.

For the victims of violence or for peoples who have seen their country invaded by foreign troops, a call for sobriety or for negotiations may just be an encouragement of passivity or of subservience.  No religious teachings on peace and human compassion, especially towards enemies can stop them from resisting.  They may even struggle more militantly, often to the point of employing armed means.  In fact, they may interpret such religious teachings in the manner that will best serve their interests.  They will cite passages from the Bible, if they are Christians, or the Quran, if they are Muslims to justify the use of violence.  Again, this proves that religion is not the material basis of conflicts but the concrete issues of exploitation and oppression, whether from domestic powers or from foreign interventionists or invaders.  The material conditions that prompt wars, whether internal or international, are based on economic and political interests.  Even third parties, who project neutrality as they try to mediate between antagonistic nations or groups, also have their national interests in mind as they ostensibly work to end the conflict.

If conflicts like the one being perpetuated by the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan or by the Fulani tribe in Nigeria must be addressed, third party states must see the problem beyond the religious faade.  Being stuck with the notion that the bloodshed in those areas is religious in nature will either limit the options for solutions or result into wrong and more disastrous measures.  Religious and cultural differences are superficial.  What lies behind these are the instinctive tendencies of a people to free themselves from what they perceive as unequal conditions in the economy and politics.  Religion, after all, is just part of culture, which is the expression or the representation of ideas formed under a specific economic and political condition.  In order to comprehend better the root causes of such conflicts, social analysts and policy-makers may start by the more visible cultural and ideological differences but they should go deeper and discover the material bases behind these.

As history has shown, wars have always been prompted by economic and political interests.  Wars of aggression waged by one country to another are based on the aggressors interest to gain sources for raw materials to feed its economy.  Civil wars and revolutions are launched by the masses to wrest political power from regimes that has rendered them exploitation and oppression.  A religious faction or an ideological group such as the communist party may lead these revolutions but that does not mean that the masses absolutely believed in the leaderships.  It is not the leadership that prompted them to fight in a war.  It is their political and economic interests that encouraged them to do so.  The peasants in China and Vietnam did not join revolutions because they were communists themselves.  They only wanted to have their own land to till, which the revolution promised.  The rural folk of Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan are not as devout as the imams and the leaders of the Taliban.  The sight of foreign troops occupying their Pashtu homeland, which they have yet to establish, have fueled their patriotic sentiments that urge them to support the Taliban fighters.

Only with a perspective that is free from religious biases, from national interest, or from the influence of big businesses, can third party peacemakers comprehend conflicts like the one raging now in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Concrete and workable solutions can be achieved only with such vantage point.  The lesson gained from the Northern Ireland experience should be grasped.  There was an overwhelming impression that it was a conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants.  However, it was actually a struggle for self-determination by the Northern Irish.  When political rights and a greater degree of freedoms were granted by the British, the Irish Republican Army ceased launching armed attacks and Northern Ireland finally won peace.

Therefore, the solutions to such pseudo-religious conflicts and wars are social or national liberation.  This can lead into the birth of new nations or the fall of oppressive regimes but this will bring in also the new era of peace.  The role of the third party states is merely to watch over the warring parties and see to it that human rights are respected and violations of the International Humanitarian Law are prevented.  They should not directly influence the contenders politically nor should they intervene militarily.  They should just let social change in these areas of conflict take its natural course.  These are sovereign nations, after all, whose right to determine their own development and growth cannot be infringed by any other nation, even if it is as powerful as the US.