Credit: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Mar 6 2026 (IPS)

In recent months, the language surrounding the escalating confrontation between the United States, Israel, and Iran has taken on a tone that should trouble anyone concerned with global peace.

Across television studios, online sermons, and political commentary, some American preachers and commentators have begun describing the conflict not merely as geopolitics or national security, but as a “holy war.”

Reporting in outlets such as The Guardian, along with coverage in other international media, has noted the growing number of Christian nationalist and Evangelical voices framing the Middle Eastern conflict in explicitly theological terms.

Certain Evangelical preachers in the United States have long interpreted tensions involving Israel through apocalyptic or biblical narratives. In these interpretations, the confrontation with Iran is sometimes presented as part of a divinely ordained struggle between good and evil.

In sermons broadcast online and amplified through social media, the war is described as a moment in which believers must stand with Israel in a battle perceived as spiritually consequential – even leading to ‘the rapture’.

The rhetoric is not limited to pulpits. Some former military figures and commentators have echoed similar themes, invoking civilizational language that portrays the confrontation with Iran as part of a broader clash between Judeo-Christian civilization and an Islamic adversary.

When such language enters strategic discourse, it transforms political conflict into something far more dangerous: a war imbued with sacred meaning.

History shows that once wars are framed as sacred struggles, compromise becomes nearly impossible. Political conflicts can, at least in theory, be negotiated. Holy wars, by contrast, are perceived as battles for divine truth. In that framing, negotiation is betrayal.

This phenomenon is not unique to the current Middle Eastern crisis. Religious legitimization of war has surfaced repeatedly in contemporary conflicts. At the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, for example, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, framed the war in spiritual terms.

In sermons and public statements, he suggested the conflict represented a metaphysical struggle over the moral future of the Russian world. The language of spiritual warfare, cultural purification, and civilizational defence became intertwined with political justification for military action.

Such rhetoric matters. When religious authority sanctifies violence, it grants moral legitimacy to warfare and discourages dissent among believers. Faith communities that might otherwise advocate peace can become mobilized behind nationalistic or militaristic agendas.

We are therefore witnessing something deeply unsettling: the return of explicitly religious language to modern warfare. For decades after the Second World War, global diplomacy attempted—imperfectly but deliberately—to frame conflicts primarily in political and legal terms.

International institutions, treaties, and multilateral frameworks were designed to prevent precisely the kind of civilizational framing that once fueled centuries of bloodshed.

Yet the present moment suggests that these restraints are weakening. Wars are again being narrated as existential struggles between belief systems. Political leaders, clergy, and media personalities increasingly draw upon religious symbolism to rally support.

The danger is not simply rhetorical. When wars are sacralized, they risk becoming limitless conflicts, unconstrained by borders or diplomacy.

The Collapse of Multilateralism and the Silence of Faith Institutions

For years, I have written and spoken about the uneasy relationship between religion, global governance, and peacebuilding. In articles as well as in interviews and public lectures, I have repeatedly warned that governments and intergovernmental entities have failed to develop a coherent framework for engaging religions constructively in international affairs.

Faith-based organizations today are everywhere. They participate in humanitarian work, development programs, diplomacy initiatives, and interfaith dialogues. International institutions increasingly acknowledge the importance of religious actors in peacebuilding and development. Conferences, seminars, department programmes, global initiatives on “religion and …” or “faith and …” are not only commonplace, but proliferating.

Yet despite this apparent proliferation of engagement, the deeper structural problem remains unresolved: religious actors themselves remain profoundly fragmented, as are the political protagonists dealing with them.

Rather than forming robust alliances capable of confronting violence carried out in the name of religion, many faith organizations continue to operate within narrow institutional or theological boundaries. Interfaith initiatives exist, but they often remain symbolic—highly visible yet limited in their capacity to challenge political power or mobilize believers at scale.

I have argued that religious organizations too often underestimate their responsibility in shaping public narratives around conflict, and doing so together. When religion is invoked to legitimize violence, silence from religious leaders becomes complicity.

At the same time, the broader international system that might once have moderated such dynamics is itself under strain. The erosion of multilateralism has been one of the defining features of the past decade. International institutions that once served as mediators of global crises increasingly appear weakened or sidelined.

The United Nations Security Council remains gridlocked. International law is invoked selectively – if at all. Great-power competition has returned with renewed intensity. In such an environment, appeals to universal norms carry less weight.

Alongside this institutional weakening has come a worrying rise in authoritarianism worldwide. Governments across regions have adopted increasingly illiberal practices—restricting civil liberties, marginalizing minorities, and suppressing dissent. In many cases, religion is instrumentalized to reinforce nationalist narratives or legitimize political authority.

This combination—the decline of multilateral governance and the rise of politicized religion—creates a volatile global environment. Without strong international frameworks to mediate disputes, imperialist narratives and actions gain traction – as in Trump’s and Netanyahu’s war against Iran. Religion, ethnicity, and culture become tools through which political conflicts are interpreted and mobilized.

Faith-based organizations, despite their potential influence, have struggled to counter this trend effectively. Some remain focused on humanitarian services rather than confronting the ideological narratives that legitimize violence. Most hesitate to challenge political authorities with whom they maintain close relationships, and seek financial and/or political backing.

As a result, the global religious landscape today is marked by a paradox: religion is increasingly present in global discourse, yet its potential as a force for peace remains under-realized.

Islamophobia and the Seeds of a Wider Religious Conflict

Perhaps the most troubling dimension of the present moment is the resurgence of Islamophobia as a powerful political force in international discourse.

For more than two decades following the attacks of September 11, 2001, narratives portraying Islam as inherently linked to extremism became deeply embedded in political rhetoric and media representation across many Western societies.

Despite sustained efforts by scholars, religious leaders, and civil society actors to challenge these narratives, they continue to shape public perceptions.

In the context of the current confrontation with Iran, such narratives risk reinforcing the perception that the conflict is not merely geopolitical but civilizational. When Iran is framed not simply as a state actor but as a representative of a threatening Islamic force, the conflict becomes symbolically larger than any single nation.

The danger is clear: political wars are becoming interpreted as religious wars.

If such framing takes hold, the implications extend far beyond the Middle East. Conflicts that are perceived as religious struggles can mobilize believers across borders. They can radicalize communities, fuel sectarian polarization, and undermine the fragile coexistence of diverse religious populations.

History provides sobering examples. The European wars of religion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries devastated entire regions, entangling political power struggles with theological disputes. Once religious identity became intertwined with warfare, violence spread across kingdoms and empires.

Today’s globalized world is even more interconnected. Diaspora communities, digital media, and transnational networks allow narratives of conflict to circulate instantly across continents. A war perceived as targeting Islam could ignite tensions in communities thousands of miles away from the battlefield.

Similarly, religious nationalism in multiple regions—whether Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim—has been gaining strength in recent years. When one religiously framed conflict emerges, it can reinforce others. Narratives of civilizational struggle feed upon each other.

As the confrontation between the United States, Israel, and Iran becomes widely interpreted through a religious lens, the consequences may be profound. Christian–Muslim tensions, already strained in many contexts, could escalate dramatically. Such conflicts would not respect national borders. They would unfold within societies, across communities, and through global networks of believers.

Ironically, this escalation occurs at a time when religious leaders frequently emphasize the peace-promoting teachings of their traditions. Interfaith initiatives celebrate dialogue, coexistence, and shared values. Religious texts across traditions contain powerful injunctions toward compassion, justice, and reconciliation.

Yet these ideals remain fragile when confronted with political realities.

If religious institutions fail to challenge narratives that sanctify violence, they risk becoming spectators to a new era of religious conflict. Worse still, they may be drawn into it.

Are “Religions” Truly for Peace?

We may therefore be standing at the threshold of a profoundly dangerous historical moment.

Religious language is once again being used to justify war. Political conflicts are increasingly framed as civilizational struggles. Multilateral institutions that once mediated global disputes appear weakened. And faith communities—despite their moral authority—have yet to mount a unified challenge to the narratives that sacralize violence.

None of this means that religion inevitably leads to war. On the contrary, religious traditions contain some of humanity’s most powerful ethical teachings about peace, justice, and compassion. Faith communities have played vital roles in reconciliation processes, humanitarian action, and social movements for justice.

But these possibilities are not automatic. They depend on conscious choices by religious leaders, institutions, and believers.

If religious actors allow their traditions to be mobilized in support of political violence, then religion will become part of the problem rather than the solution.

The question confronting us today is therefore both urgent and uncomfortable.

At a moment when wars are increasingly described as sacred struggles, when geopolitical conflicts are interpreted through religious narratives, and when Islamophobia and other forms of religious prejudice continue to spread, we must ask ourselves: How are religions truly forces for peace?

Prof. Azza Karam, PhD. is President, Lead Integrity

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

President Donald Trump Joins Faith Leaders in Prayer – Credit: The White House
 
According to the UN, Sunday marked the start of World Interfaith Harmony Week, a time to emphasize that mutual understanding and interreligious dialogue are essential to building a culture of peace. The week was established to promote harmony among all people, regardless of their faith.

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Feb 2 2026 (IPS)

Several events, meetings, consultations, initiatives, etc. taking place among faith-inspired, ‘faith-based’ and a variety of other similar efforts, over the past year, in the United States especially, concern me.

Coming from a background of human rights, international development, and humanitarian service, I have witnessed the arc of ‘none’ to increasing interest by Western governments in ‘religion’ – religious engagement, religion and development, religion and foreign policy, religious freedom, religious peacebuilding, or religion and peace, and more, including even religion and agriculture. Basically, religion and everything.

Non-Western governments within Africa and Asia, including areas overlapping with what we call (variably) “the Middle East”, have long been interested, and indeed actively engaging religious leaders and religious institutions.

As many scholars, observers, and foreign policy pundits have noted, the interest of such governments has often transcended any genuine fascination with faith, towards rather obvious instrumentalization of religious leaders, religious organisations and religious groups, in support of specific political agendas (e.g., making peace with Israel, legitimacy of corrupt – and violent – politically repressive leaders and regimes, etc.).

In fact, the marriage between select religious leaders/institutions/groups and some political actors goes back to the empires we have inherited pre-Westphalian states).

I recall some stories from my time serving as a staff member at the United Nations, and in other international fora. The first story revolves around one Arab and one Indian diplomat speaking with a European counterpart, during one of several UN Strategic Learning Exchanges on Religion, Development and Diplomacy, which I coordinated and facilitated, this one in 2014.

The discussion concerned how best to “benefit” from working with religious leaders to affirm a message of certain political parties, especially, albeit not only, around elections. The Arab patted the European on the back and said, with a smile and a wink: “you are finally catching up on how to use these religious leaders – congratulations my friend”. The Indian one, looking bemused, added “Yes. And be careful”.

Another story concerns another meeting I organised – in one of the basement meeting rooms of the UN – between UN officials and a diverse array of religious actors, around peace and mediation efforts, in select African and Asian conflict settings, early 2015.

A European Christian religious leader of a renowned multi-religious organisation made an intervention to address the concerns about “instrumentalization” of religious actors, which some faith-based NGO leaders were articulating.

While some faith representatives cautioned against religious actors being used to “rubber stamp decisions already made by governments and some intergovernmental organisations” (in the room were both UN and EU officials), this particular Western Christian religious leader spoke up and said, “I am not worried about that at all, in fact, I would like to say to my secular colleagues in this room, please use us… we can certainly benefit you… we are not common civil society actors, our mission makes us exceptional”.

My last story, is from my time serving as the secretary general of an international multireligious organisation which convenes religious leaders from diverse religious institutions around “deeply held and widely shared values”.

As soon as I became a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, I arranged a meeting between some of my multi-religious Board members (religious leaders), and some members of this high Level UN SG’s Advisory Board.

The idea was to nurture a quiet but candid dialogue between pollical and religious leaders, around why and how multilateralism can be significantly strengthened by multireligious engagement.

I hasten to note that multireligious engagement, if served well, can be – as I have written and persistently argued – resistant to instrumentalization of select religious actors to serve any one particular governmental agenda. The latter is a feature I warn against, and small wonder, given developments from India to the United States, from Russia to Israel, and beyond.

Once again, I heard a religious leader invite the members of the SG’s Board to “use” their (religious) wisdom because of their “exceptional” mission (presumably the godly one). This time, later reflection among members of the UN SG Board led to noting that such multireligious engagement would be inadvisable, due to a concern about “Muslims” involved in such multireligious spaces.

Fast forward to 2026, one year after an increasingly belligerent US Presidential Administration’s record, which includes relatively ‘minor’ policy decisions such as transforming the name of the Ministry of Defence to the “Ministry of War”. And not so minor human rights abuses of citizens and immigrants, and some pointing to manipulation and outright disregard of the rule of law, both at home and abroad (I hope this is polite enough wording). Of course one dares not mention support to certain genocidal regimes killing thousands in the name of self-protection.

In this environment, I listen to conversations among some of the United States’ most esteemed faith-based organisations, all with a remarkable track record of serving humanity in all corners of the world. Who, apparently, are seeking to engage this Administration “constructively”, with some praising the “unprecedented” outreach of members of this Administration in engaging, largely (some would say exclusively), with certain Christian NGOs, certain Christian religious leaders, and certain Christian faith protagonists – no doubt to further noble objectives. Apparently, this is a form of strategic engagement of/with religion.

Even though there were likely some who felt uncomfortable with aspects of this rhetoric, the studiously diplomatic silences – including my own – about challenging anything said, was noteworthy. The bottom line is, “we need access to the White House… we need more resources to do our (good) work”.

Why was I silent? Because I am the quintessential ‘other’ whose outspokenness has already earned me the loss of a sense of ‘home’ and security, many times over. This is neither excuse nor justification, rather, an acknowledgement of cowardice.

Into this Kafkaesque reality, let me ask a few questions I am battling with: what will it take to speak truth to power publicly – the way Minnesotans and Palestinians are having to do with their own regimes? Is it strategic to be silent, or such consummate diplomats, especially when we work in the name of the ‘godly’ – being such “exceptional” actors?

Conversely, is this Administration which we endeavour to be so tactful with, being silent about it’s “divine mission”? Is being “nice and essentially a kind person with their heart in the right place”, and doing godly work, a good reason to work with those who are serving regimes which ignore the rule of law in their own nation and abroad? Does faith-based diplomacy mean we either collude, remain silent, or take the struggle to the streets?

If so, what difference is faith-based diplomacy and engagement actually making to civic engagement, to honoring human rights and the rule of law, or to serving principled leadership? Or do these simply not matter since it is the self-interests of the ruling and rich few, are what matters to determine the integrity of life, planet and leadership?

Perhaps we should ponder the advice of the Indian Diplomat, given to his Western counterpart 22 years ago: how can we “be careful”?

Professor Azza Karam serves as President of Lead Integrity; and Director of the Kahane UN Program, for Occidental College’s Diplomacy and World Affairs.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

UN’s ‘responsibility to deliver’ will not waver, after US announces withdrawal from dozens of international organizations. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe
 
“Take up the White Man’s burden — Send forth the best ye breed… By all ye cry or whisper, by all ye leave or do, [T]he silent, sullen peoples shall weigh your gods - and you…” -- Rudyard Kipling, The White Man’s Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands (1899)

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Jan 12 2026 (IPS)

We’re living in an age where the world is loudly proclaiming the death of empire, yet reproducing its structures. This is not nostalgia for colonial postcards — it’s a reinvention of foreign policy, international governance and global economic power that resembles colonial logic far more than it does meaningful cooperation.

The term “New Colonialism” feels extreme until you look not at poetry, but at power in motion — from military takeovers and genocides, to diplomatic withdrawal, to institutions that still perpetuate inequality and human rights’ abuses under the guise of neutrality.

I – Where Are We Today

“Imperialism after all is an act of geographical violence through which virtually every space in the world is explored, charted, and finally brought under control.”
— Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (1993)

In January 2026, the United States executed what amounts to the most dramatic foreign intervention in Latin America in decades: a military incursion into Venezuela resulting in the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro. President Donald Trump openly declared that the U.S. would “run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” This is not coded language — it is overt control.

Critics and allies alike see the move not as a limited counternarcotics or law enforcement operation (as the Administration frames it), but as a return to the old playbook of hemispheric domination. Latin American governments from Mexico to Brazil condemned it as a violation of sovereignty — a modern mirror to the regime-change interventions of the 20th century.

Analysts at Foreign Policy have highlighted precisely how this intervention fits into a larger pattern of U.S. foreign policy ambition. Rishi Iyengar and John Haltiwanger note that under the banner of battling “narcoterrorism,” the United States has expanded the role of its military into actions that blur the distinction between security and political control — “adding bombing alleged drug traffickers to its ever-growing list of duties.”

Such actions reflect a foreign policy that is increasingly militarized and deeply unilateral in its execution.

This intervention was not an isolated blip. It fits into a broader dynamic which suggests Washington’s moves in Venezuela are less about drug interdiction and more about strategic positioning and resource control — especially Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

In the context of a “World-Minus-One” global order where U.S. power is contested by China and Russia, interventionist impulses have resurfaced not as humanitarian projects but as geopolitical gambits.

Viewed through the lens of colonial critique, the language of “rescuing” Venezuelans from an accused dictator echoes Kipling’s exhortation to take up the supposed moral burden. But those centuries-old justifications masked violence and labour exploitation; today’s rhetoric masks geopolitical self-interest.

The U.S. claims to be liberating Venezuelans from authoritarianism, yet asserts control over governance and economic infrastructure — a 21st-century version of telling another nation it cannot govern itself without direction from Washington. The result is not liberation, but dependency — a hallmark of colonial relationships.

II. The U.S. Withdrawal from Multilateral Institutions

“The White Man’s Burden, which puts the blame of the new subjects upon themselves without acknowledging the real burden — the systematic, structural and often violent exploitation — is the oldest myth of empire.”

Kumari Jayawardena, The White Woman’s Other Burden: Western Women and South Asia During British Colonial Rule, (1995)

If the takeover of Venezuela reads like old-fashioned empire building, the withdrawal from multilateral institutions is a disengagement from the very forums meant to prevent that kind of unilateralism.

In early 2026, the United States signed a presidential memorandum seeking to withdraw support and participation from 66 international organizations — including numerous United Nations agencies and treaty frameworks seen as “contrary to U.S. interests.” This list contains both U.N. bodies and other treaty mechanisms, extending a pattern of U.S. disengagement from global governance structures.

Among the organizations targeted are the U.N.’s population agency and the framework treaty for international climate negotiations. Already, U.S. participation in historic climate agreements like the Paris Agreement has been rolled back, and the World Health Organization was officially exited — marking a return to a transactional, bilateral focus rather than deep multilateral cooperation.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres responded to the announcement with regret and a reminder of legal obligations: assessed contributions to the regular and peacekeeping budgets are binding under the U.N. Charter for all member states, including the United States. He also underscored that despite U.S. withdrawal, the agencies will continue their work for the communities that depend on them.

This move comes against a backdrop in which the U.N. and other institutions are already grappling with serious internal challenges — problems that critics argue undermine their legitimacy and point to deeper governance failures. For instance, allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeepers and staff have repeatedly surfaced, with hundreds of cases documented and concerns raised about the trustworthiness of leadership responses.

In 2024 alone, peacekeeping and political missions reported over 100 allegations, and internal surveys showed troubling attitudes among staff toward misconduct.

Such abuses are not random flukes; scholars and advocates have documented persistent organizational cultures where power imbalances enable exploitation and harassment, and where transparency and accountability often lag.

These structural issues do not delegitimize the idea of multilateral cooperation — but they certainly challenge claims that these institutions function as equitable and effective global governance mechanisms.

International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) are likewise under scrutiny. Critics point to cases where aid workers have perpetrated sexual abuse and exploitation or where organizational priorities have at times aligned more with donor interests than with local needs.

A 2024 study on sexual exploitation and harassment in humanitarian work highlights how power imbalances and weak enforcement mechanisms within the sector contribute to ongoing abuses that remain under-reported and inadequately addressed.

These issues — within the U.N. and the humanitarian sector — fuel frustration that multilateralism too often protects institutional reputation at the expense of victims and local communities. That frustration helps explain why some U.S. policymakers see these organizations as outdated or corrupt.

But the response of walking away rather than strengthening accountability mechanisms plays directly into the hands of those who would hollow out global governance altogether.

III. It Takes Two to Tango

So, is the United States the villain in this unfolding story of fractured cooperation and revived colonial impulses? Yes — but only partially.

There is no denying that recent U.S. foreign policy has made unilateral moves that harm global norms: military intervention in sovereign states, withdrawal from key treaties and organizations, and politicized rejection of multinational cooperation reflect a retreat from shared leadership. Yet, the belief that multilateral institutions are inherently effective, just and beyond reproach is equally misplaced.

Structural weaknesses in international governance — from slow, opaque accountability mechanisms to insufficient representation of Global South voices — have long been recognized by scholars and practitioners. These deficiencies leave global organizations vulnerable to political capture, ineffectiveness in crisis response and the perpetuation of inequalities they are meant to dismantle.

The failures inside the U.N. and the aid sector are not the sole fault of the United States, but of a global system that institutionalized power hierarchies sustained by western donors, from the beginning.

The New Colonialism era does not show up as 19th-century conquest; it’s woven into the language of “interest,” “security,” and “institutional reform.” Whether it is a powerful state flexing military might under humanitarian pretences or “self defence”, or powerful states walking away from agreements that protect smaller nations’ interests, the pattern is the same: power asserts itself where it can, and multilateral norms are treated as optional.

If this moment teaches us anything, it’s that saving multilateralism requires both accountability and renewal — not abandonment. Countries that champion global cooperation must address colonial legacies in governance, ensure institutions are transparent and accountable, and democratize decision-making.

Likewise, powerful states must recognize that withdrawing from shared systems or using them to further their own limited interests, does not reset power imbalances — it entrenches them.

In the end, meaningful global cooperation cannot be the project of a single nation or a network of powerful elites. It must be rooted in shared accountability and genuine equity — a coalition of efforts for the common good, prepared not only to compromise, but to sacrifice.

Azza Karam is President of Lead Integrity and Director of Occidental College’s Kahane UN Program.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Nov 25 2024 (IPS)

The 16 Days of Activism to end gender-based violence, started with seeking to eliminate violence against women (VAW). This year’s theme highlights the reality that violence against women and girls is of pandemic proportions. The figures are galling.

References cite how millions of women and girls suffer physical or sexual violence all over the world; 95% of people trafficked for sexual exploitation in Europe are female; every 10 minutes, partners and family members killed a woman intentionally in 2023; one in three women experience violence in their lifetime; 1 in 4 adolescent girls is abused by their partners.

And more. The 16 Days of Activism is an opportunity to revitalize commitments, call for accountability and actions by diverse decision-makers. 2025 will be the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 2025, described by UN Women as a “visionary blueprint for achieving gender equality and women’s and girls’ rights everywhere”.

Apart from the pandemic scale of the violence against women we are living through – without it being properly declared as a pandemic by governmental authorities – and the horrific data which is on the increase, there are a few pieces of this VAW puzzle that bear stressing.

Lead Integrity’s founding Partner and international activist, Dr Fulata Moyo, who is credited with efforts to institutionalize the World Council of Church’s (WCC) Thursdays in Black campaign, and her successor at leading this and executing a Programme on Just Community of Women and Men, at the WCC – Reverend Nicole Ashwood – stress this centrality of unequal power relations.

Dr Moyo is a strong advocate of mentorship, and yet she reminds us that even this process can be misunderstood as a one-way benefit relationship. Instead, she constantly argues that both mentor and mentoree learn from one another. This insistence on awareness of the mutuality of benefit – and its responsibilities – is a means of righting power imbalances not only among individuals, but in families, societies and nations.

Another Lead integrity founding Partner, Grove Harris – also serving as the UN representative of the Temple of Understanding, and is a strong eco-feminist in her own right – argues cogently that the exploitative violence leveraged on our earth, is a reflection of the exploitative violence perpetuated against women. And vice versa.

In other words, we will need to face a reality that we cannot fight the violence against women and girls, without also struggling to eliminate violence against our planet. These are not separate struggles, but integrated ones.

Lead Integrity’s Senior Advisor and Gender expert, Ms. Gehan AbuZeid expounds further to note that VAW is about endemic structural violence which permeates all domains of life, including ecology, economy, politics, and of course, society.

Inbuilt power relations which prioritize the needs, views, and priorities of one set of humans at the expense of ‘others’ means all our institutions are predisposed to violence against those deemed as more vulnerable by the dominant groups.

Violence against women happens not only because of gendered dynamics per se, but because all of power dynamics around us, are inherently based on exploitative relationships.

This leads to another couple of critical observations – ones which are becoming more taboo to speak of, especially in the kinds of times we live in today. Since the root of VAW are exploitative relationships based on unequal power dynamics, then everyone, every institution and every nation, every initiative, is responsible for ending the structural, the social and the personal forms of these interrelated violent dynamics.

In other words, ending VAW is not, and should not, be left for women alone to end it (even when they may work miracles with male and myriad other allies), nor is it only a matter of legislation – as important as that is. And while we are recognizing the principle and reality of collective responsibility, let us also have the courage to acknowledge that women can be violent towards other women too, and some men are fairly vicious against each other which is statistically related to rising VAW, and as the countless wars around us attest to.

As we consider the collective responsibilities, we need to strengthen our multilateral institutions – not only secular ones, but also those which deliberately seek to partner with different civil society organizations, including those who work to mobilize multi faith and multi stakeholder collaborations.

An example of such a multi-stakeholder and global effort is the first Women, Faith and Climate Change Network, launched at the COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. The Network brings together faith-based and secular, women and male allies, working with governmental, non-governmental and intergovernmental partner institutions, elevating the influence of female faith leaders (including Indigenous ones) to maximize knowledge and impact, to right the power imbalances in each of these diverse institutions, as they work together to eliminate the violence perpetrated against our planet.

We need to ask ourselves this: by continuing to work – and work hard – within our respective silos (secular, religious, feminist, peacemaking, human rights, business, institutional, individual, national, regional, global, etc.), have we not, inadvertently, failed to address the interrelated forms of violence?

And if so, can the recognition of this pandemic of VAW, push us to work better together at a time when we face much polarization and fear – or are we destined to repeat some of the Covid pandemic’s mistakes? If we do, we risk our peaceful co-existence, and – heaven forbid – we may well risk losing the ability to exist on this planet.

Dr Azza Karam is President and CEO of Lead Integrity, and affiliate Professor at Notre Dame University’s Ansari Center for Religion and Global Engagement.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Members of SCOCCOMAD, Cameroon, pose for a group photo near a section of their cassava crop. Crerdit:: UN Women/Ryan Brown

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Oct 16 2024 (IPS)

Published ahead of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on 17 October, UN Women issued the 2024 World Survey on the Role of Women in Development Report. This is the UN Secretary-General’s Report, which is mandated by the Economic and Financial Committee (Second Committee) of the UN General Assembly, and focuses on macroeconomic policy, sustainable development, financing and poverty eradication.

Presented every five years, the Report’s executive agency, so to speak – UN Women – note that it provides an important opportunity for research and in-depth assessment of a theme related to gender equality and economic and social policy, “for the UN Member States”.

This 2024 edition focuses on Harnessing Social Protection for Gender Equality, Resilience and Transformation. The Report underscores, among other critical aspects, the widening gender gap in social protection, which is leaving women and girls more vulnerable to poverty, noting that while levels of social protection have increased since 2015, gender gaps in such coverage have widened in most developing regions.

The report suggests that the recent gains have benefited men more than women, and notes that up to two billion women and girls are without access to any form of social protection.

While this may not be widely known, and is not necessarily noted as such in the report, one of the most basic forms of healthcare for future generations, is maternal health. Without maternity protection, entire social structures – families, children, households, communities, and nations, indeed generations, can be rendered disabled.

Even on that score, the Report shows the dismal state of maternity protection across the globe. Despite advancements, more than 63 per cent of women worldwide still give birth without access to maternity benefits, with the figure soaring to 94 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Report points out that lack of financial support during maternity leave, not only places women at an economic disadvantage, but it effectively perpetuates poverty itself, across generations.

One of the Reports premises, a raison d’etre in a sense, which was at the heart of the research and discussions by global experts and UN Women’s own analysts, is that a gender analysis of opportunities, risks and levers for protecting and promoting rights “along the social protection delivery chain” is largely missing.

The report therefore aims to fill this gap by looking at how delivery mechanisms – including eligibility, registration, and enrolment processes; monitoring, participation and accountability payments; and service delivery and case management – can be strengthened to reduce discrimination, address multiple and intersecting inequalities and empower women and girls in all their diversity.

To that end, the report reviews evidence on barriers and enablers, including ways in which digital and data innovations can be harnessed to increase women’s access to social protection, as well as the role of women’s organizations in demanding access, sensitizing communities, supporting last mile registration and monitoring and accountability.

The report addresses the ‘great finance divide’ currently curtailing the ability of many developing countries to invest in gender-responsive social protection systems through greater domestic resource mobilization and complementary international support.

It notes that currently, global social protection expenditure remains insufficient to guarantee national social protection floors, let alone to provide progressively higher levels of protection to as many people as possible. The report seeks to explore good practices to increase domestic resources from taxation and social security contributions – focusing on doing so in gender-equitable and sustainable ways.

Clearly calling out that many countries have the means to create fiscal space domestically, the Report notes that low-income countries are unlikely to be able to raise on their own the additional USD 77.9 billion, or 15.9 per cent of their GDP, required for the implementation of a basic social protection floor.

The Report also discusses the need for global measures, including debt cancellation, reform of the lending practices of multilateral development banks, equitable global tax accords which ensure multinational corporations pay their fair share, as well as an increase in official development assistance.

This seminal Report on social protection is not only a means for reflection for member states of the UN, or for the more than 60+ offices, funds and mechanisms of the world’s premiere multilateral entity. It is a necessary tool with which to hold all human rights duty bearers accountable.

As such, this evidence-based, well researched, and necessary Report fails in one critical regard: it did not factor into its varied consultations, let alone the calculations undertaken and the evidence provided, the realms of social protection means which religious institutions and religious civil society organisations, actively play in, and contribute to – and have done for centuries.

To provide a small sample of how fellow entities (lest one be accused of not understanding the and Faith Communities in Health Emergencies published in November 2021 (prompted by the UN worldview) take the myriad forms of social protection means of/by religious institutions, I mention the following: in its Strategy for Engaging religious leaders, Faith-based organizations Covid-19 dynamics), the World Health Organisation (WHO) acknowledged its engagement of these constituencies, in supporting national governments during health emergencies.

The goal, notes the WHO was/is, “to enable more effective responses by strengthening collaboration between the WHO, national governments and religious leaders, faith-based organizations, and faith communities, resulting in more people being better protected from health emergencies and enjoying better health and well-being, including improved trust and social cohesion”.

For the World Food Programme (WFP) just one Church partner (the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, also known as the Mormons) donated, in 2022 alone, $32 million to help provide food and other assistance to 1.6 million people in nine countries. WFP partners with a whole host of other religious actors in its advocacy, as well as, crucially, its service delivery.

Similarly, UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) acknowledges its partnerships with faith-based organizations (FBOs) in a variety of ways, including raising and receiving funds (for UNICEF work), advocacy, program implementation, and collaboration on a range of issues, such as child nutrition and protecting child refugees – to name but a few.

In their rationale for their long history of partnerships, UNICEF notes that faith-based actors are “uniquely able to reach disenfranchised groups…[and] have also historically played a role in providing food, clothing, shelter, and promoting community development”.

Are none of these entities engaged with advising and supporting governments to enhance social protection means and mechanisms? Or is it that in spite of this (and plenty more evidence on how religious institutions, leaders, and NGOs contribute to the oldest forms of social protection known to human kind), this Report, like most of the research and data on social protection, remains blind and/or silent as to these global, regional and national sectors.

Any understanding of social protection without taking these providers, and the range of services they provide, into account, not only fails in its analysis, but it also omits to mention how religious actors are filling in some of the financial gaps – not necessarily always to the benefit of women’s empowerment and gender equality.

Yet, who is to hold them accountable?

Dr Azza Karam is an Affiliated Professor at the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion in the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, and President and CEO of Lead Integrity, a faith-inspired and women-led global management consultancy.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

Alice Wairimu Nderitu, United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (UNOSAPG), speaks at the high level segment of the 10th Annual Symposium on the Role of Religion and Faith-based Organizations in International Affairs, accompanied by the moderators of the session, Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, ACT Alliance general secretary, and Simona Cruciani, Senior Political Affairs Officer, UN Office of the UNOSAPG.
 
The symposium, organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and a coalition of faith-based and UN partners, featured UN officials, representatives of international faith-based organizations, and other experts. 25 January 2024. Credit: Marcelo Schneider/WCC

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Jun 25 2024 (IPS)

In Part 1, I outlined how our shared existence is challenged not only by simultaneous crisis, but also by the notions – and realities – of perceived ‘holy wars’. I point out that ‘holy wars’ are not only perceptions within, or of, monotheistic faith traditions, but actually enacted by members of diverse belief systems.

I note how these ‘holy war’ dynamics are part of the vicious cycle of polarisation and sorrowful lack of social cohesion in most societies, while also coexisting with an increasing realisation amongst several decision-making entities (governmental, non-governmental and intergovernmental) of how important religions have been, and continue to be.

Religious institutions, religious leaders and religious (or faith based) organisations, are indeed the original social service providers, community mediators, social norm upholders and changemakers, and actually, historically, also the original human rights’ defenders.

I emphasize how the toxic mix with narrow political interests (might that be tautological?) means that in the minds of some who hold decision making positions, and/or have access to arms, and/or control laws and their implementation, and/or impact on beliefs, behaviours and attitudes through unparalleled pulpits (or all of the above), ‘holy war’, is justified.

In the age of ‘holy wars’, we are called upon to understand that part of our social disconnect resulting in the polarisation and significant weaking of our civil societies, may well be furthered by the manner in the current interest in and on religion.

Elsewhere I have argued that appreciating the ‘good’ powers of religious institutions and leaders, and the remarkable reach of religious social services and positive changemakers, is necessary, but by no means enough.

In fact, seeking to emphasize, support and identify the religious as the panacea, is harmful – in the same ways that marginalising the religious as evil, anti-human rights, unhealthy, misogynist, unnecessary, parochial, etc. has been, and remains, harmful, to the very same fabric of the civil societies we all uphold.

It is not all about good religion or bad religion. Rather, it could be about how to generate, nurture, protect, and yes, honour, civil societies.

Neither our governments (including even the elected ones), nor our religious institutions (including those which have survived centuries) nor our corporations (including those with the highest ranking of CSR and ESG) can, alone, change the dramatic junction of our collective human and planetary realities.

The late Wangari Mathai, a Kenyan woman environmental activist who won the Nobel Peace prize in 2004, demonstrated remarkable foresight when she highlighted the interconnectedness of our challenges, thus: “[I]n a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace.”

We need to begin to investigate what it will take to identify, understand, and activate, a poetics of solidarity. The Oxford Reference explains that “poetics are the general principles of poetry or of literature in general, or the theoretical study of these principles. As a body of theory, poetics is concerned with the distinctive features of poetry (or literature as a whole), with its languages, forms, genres, and modes of composition.”

If we use the term ‘poetics’ to refer to solidarity, not merely as an aspect of literature and/or theory, but as lived realities, what are the “languages, forms, genres and modes of existence” that this would entail? In the following paragraphs, I do not propose definitive answers. I merely share some thoughts to engender and provoke each of us, to reflect – and to engage.

A poetics of solidarity needs to have as a premise of its existence, an understanding that working ‘alone’ to solve the problems which impact all – whether as a lone multifaceted institution, the United Nations, corporation(s), religion/religious or multi-religious entity, secular NGO or umbrellas of NGOs, judicial actor(s) or bodies, cultural agents or entities, financial or military behemoths, etc., is clearly not enough.

We have landed here in these very challenging spaces and times, even as so many have laboured for so long in almost all domains of human existence, and even after many movements of solidarity succeeded in overcoming and righting and fighting the good fight. Yet, here we are.

A poetics of solidarity needs to hold accountable all our ways of thinking and doing, so far. I am not implying, by any means, that we have all failed. Rather, we all stand on the shoulders of many who have given their lives to make this a better world for all. We must acknowledge that loud and clear and take responsibility for what many are doing, and have done, that contributes to our shared existence.

This alone would be unlike many leaders who take office and make a point of undermining, or worst still, undoing, all that was done before them or by their predecessors. Or those who hold offices and invest so much in decrying, complaining, unravelling, and withering critiques of those trying to work alongside. Or those who claim to be part of a team, but cannot and will not support one another when things get tough.

A poetics of solidary demands that we put our money, and other resources, including activating our so-called values – where our mouths are. It is not good enough to speak about human rights, and/or the glory of our respective faiths and/or “interfaith peacemaking”, or even building edifices to such ‘co-existence’, when we do not contribute to the efforts of those who fight for these rights.

It is hard to justify killing, maiming, criminalising, imprisoning and in other ways, silencing, those who ask for their rights, and struggle for the rights of others. It is also hard to justify those who pretend to fight for the rights of others, when the going is good, and are silent or notably absent, when the going is tough.

What if, rather than undermine, constantly critique, systematically oppose, complain, or even just remaining silent (and hide behind claims that the particular issue at hand is not their business or endeavour), when we see our fellow humans give – what if we praise, give thanks, reach out to share a kind word, and better still, ask how we can help…? What if we give of the ‘little’ we have? Don’t all our faiths say that? You think this sounds too simple?

Did Einstein not say at some point something like the only difference between stupidity and genius, is that genius has its limits, and that everything should be made as simple as possible – but not simpler? Kindness, praise, and giving of what we value, to those we would normally not (want to) see or deign to appreciate, giving to those who speak and work and live differently – but aim for the collective good, is not simple. It is genius. Working together with those who may bear a different institutional flag, rather than seeking to create or consolidate your own, is also genius.

A poetics of solidarity may require us to acknowledge that solidarity is fundamentally about how we relate to one another, with kindness, empathy and willingness to serve – in words and deeds. But it is also to humbly realise that even as some of us try our best to relate and to “support”, “empower”, “engender”, or “enable”, we may well end up hurting one another, and/or even damage parts of our environment that some of us, including future generations, will need, to just survive.

When it comes to the poetics of solidarity in the age of ‘holy wars’, we cannot afford to now see anything ‘religious’ as a saviour, or the only source of our interrelated salvation. Nor can we afford to ignore the religious realms altogether, thinking we know our welfare best, or keep the religious at bay. Instead, we need to take responsibility for the fact that our faiths – including our faith in human rights – demand us to be accountable for ourselves, one another, and our planet.

What we need is a poetics of solidarity which does no harm – but this may well mean sacrificing something dear to us. We have lived – and still do – in an age where we think it is possible to have it all. Perhaps we may just have to come to terms with the fact that we each, and all, need to let go of something valuable to us – and to give, in service, instead.

All our institutions, groups, communities and our individual selves, bear a responsibility. Our long-established religious institutions, faith-based and interfaith initiatives in their mushrooming multitudes, need to be held accountable to what we give of our most valuable, to those who are not religious, those who come from different religions or religious organisations, and especially, to those who uphold all human rights for all peoples at all times.

Secular rights’ bearers and duty holders too, need to take responsibility for how we marginalise even as we ‘advocate’, how we maim as we seek to ‘protect’, and how we silence as we vocalise the ‘like-minded’. We speak of alliances and partnerships, but we walk, and work, in silos, seeking our own profit(s).

A poetics of solidarity may well be about cultivating and deliberately working alongside those we dislike, and giving the best of what we have, and of whom we are.

Professor Azza Karam is President and CEO of Lead Integrity; an affiliate with the Ansari Institute of Religion and Global Affairs at Notre Dame University; and a member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Credit: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Jun 24 2024 (IPS)

“Holy War” is how the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church referred to the Russian war on the Ukraine, and indeed, on “the West”¹ . “Holy War”, aka “jihad” is a foundational principle of “the Base” or “al-Qaeda”, which has grown into a non-state hydra with too many names and atrocities to list here (but if you are curious, one of the hydra faces is ISIS).

In a recent opinion piece published in Foreign Policy, columnist Caroline de Gruyter noted that “Israel and Palestine Are Now in a Religious War”, in her attempt to argue why the Middle East conflict has been getting increasingly brutal, and increasingly hard to solve.

The intersection between holiness and war is even more nuanced in Zvi Bar’el’s Opinion piece in Haaretz, when he notes that “the war in Gaza is no longer about revenge for the murder of 1,200 Israelis or the hostages.

If they all die, along with hundreds of more soldiers, the price would still be justified for the Jewish Jihad waging a war for Gaza’s resettlement” [emphasis added]. Hamas’ own name –the acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement) – needs no elaboration. Neither does Lebanon’s Hizbullah (Party of God).

In India, a report by the Indian Citizens and Lawyers Initiative (in April of 2023), entitled “Routes of Wrath: Weaponising Religious Processions”, notes

Indian history is rife with instances of religious processions that led to communal strife, riots, inexcusable violence, arson, destruction of property and the tragic deaths of innocent residents of the riot-hit areas. There have been horrific riots and bloodletting caused by other factors too, most prominently the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 and the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, but no cause of interfaith riots has been as recurrent and widespread as the religious procession. This is as true of pre-Independence India as during the 75 years since we became a free nation…Post-Independence, we have faced numerous communal riots in diverse parts of India, under different political regimes, and the vast majority of these have been caused by the deliberate choice of communally-sensitive routes by processionists, and the pusillanimity of the Police in dealing with such demands, or even their collusion and connivance in licencing such routes.²

Already back in August of 1988, in an article entitled “Holy War Against India”, explicitly speaks of “Sikh terrorism” in the Punjab, noting that it “took about a thousand lives in 1987 and more than a thousand in the first five months of 1988.

If it continues at the present rate, Sikh terrorism in the Punjab will have cost more lives in two years than the IRA campaign in Northern Ireland has cost in twenty.” ³ Speaking of Northern Ireland, the marching season remains a flashpoint among Catholics and Protestants.

Politicised religion, or religionised politics – whence religious discourse is part of political verbiage, tactics, expedient alliances, sometimes informing foreign policy priorities, occasionally used to justify conflict – are not new phenomena. In fact, they may well be one of the oldest features of politics, governance – and warmaking.

The Crusades against Muslim expansion in the 11th century were recognized as a “holy war” or a bellum sacrum, by later writers in the 17th century. The early modern wars against the Ottoman Empire were seen as a seamless continuation of this conflict by contemporaries. Religion and politics are the oldest bedfellows known to humankind.

What is relatively new, is that after the 100-year war in Europe, and the subsequent moves towards secularisation or the so-called ‘separation of Church and State’ (again, really only in parts of Europe), provided a false sense of the dominance of secular governance in modern times.

Yet, even in the citadels of secular Western Europe, a relationship binding Church and State always existed, for the religious institutions and their affiliated social structures, remain critical social service providers – and humanitarian actors – till today. A reality now understood to be relevant in all parts of our world.

Nevertheless, what we are seeing today is a resurgence of religious politics, and the politics of religion, in almost all corners of the world. Before the Russian Orthodox Church proclaimed its “holy war” narrative, the reference to religion and politics almost always focused on Muslim-majority contexts, specifically on Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

Other realities would often go unnoticed, or somehow deemed as ‘odd’ or one-time phenomena – for instance the fact that the 2016 US elections delivered a Trump administration with full and public backing by a significant part of the Evangelical movement (many of whom are backing a potential comeback of him now); or the fact that related Evangelical counterparts backed Bolsenaro’s rise to power in Brazil; or the fact that religious arguments against abortion remain a key US electoral feature for decades; or the fact that a number of right-leaning anti-immigrant political discourses and blatant white supremacist politics have religious backing in parts of Europe and Latin America.

Was it perhaps that since these took place in ‘white’ and Christian-majority polities, somehow set these aside from being factored as part of the global resurgence of religious politics?

Whatever the case may be, it is time to smell that particularly strong brew of coffee, now. And as we do so, we are also obliged to note that it is no coincidence that this ‘brew’ is taking place at a time of remarkable social and political polarisation in many societies.

Indeed. we speak of multiple and simultaneous crisis (e.g. climate change, catastrophic governance, wars, famines, rampant inequalities, soaring human displacement, nuclear fears, systemic racism, rising multiple violence, drug wars, proliferation of arms and weapons, misogyny, etc.) and we also acknowledge the wilting multilateral influence to confront these. But as we acknowledge these, we must also recognise that social cohesion is a lasting and tragic victim.

Some governmental, non-governmental and intergovernmental entities have turned to religion(s) as a possible panacea. Religious leaders are being convened in multiple capitals (at significant cost) in almost all corners of the world.

Regularly touting the peacefulness and the unparalleled supremacy of their respective moral standpoints. Religious NGOs are being sought out, supported and partnered with more regularly to help address multiple crisis – especially humanitarian, educational, public health, sanitation, and child-focused efforts.

Interfaith initiatives are competing among each other, and with other secular ones, for grants from governments and philanthropists in the United States, Europe, Africa, many parts of Asia (with the notable exception of China), and the Middle East. Engaging, or partnering with religious entities is the new normal.

But just as the largely secular efforts we lived through (and some of us served for decades) in the 1960s to the 1990s, did not realise a brave new world, religious ones, on their own, cannot do so either. Especially not with the kind of historical baggage and contemporary narratives of holy war, we are living with now.

It is time we re-consider, re-engage and re-envision a poetics of solidarity rooted an abiding adherence to (and re-education about) all human rights for all peoples at all times. What would that entail?

¹ https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/88aug/obrien.htm
² Connor O’Brian, https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/routes-of-wrath-report-2023-2-465217.pdf
³ Connor O’Brian, https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/routes-of-wrath-report-2023-2-465217.pdf

Part 2 follows.

Dr. Azza Karam is President and CEO of Lead Integrity; a Professor and Affiliate with the Ansari Institute of Religion and Global Affairs at Notre Dame University; and a member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Mar 5 2024 (IPS)

One of the most fascinating aspects of International Women’s Day is an odd subtext. That this is all about and (only) for women. Really? Since when are the realities of one part of humanity – the part that gives birth to the rest by the way – only relevant to that one part?

Would we ever think that if we had an international man’s day (which would be practically every day of the years of our lives) is all about and only for men? No, we would not.

What international women’s day is, is an opportunity to see the world through the eyes of those who have been systematically, systemically and deliberately, marginalized, silenced, scorned – and sometimes violently hated. But it is also an opportunity to celebrate the resilience, the determination, and the remarkable rebirth, survival, and yes, the relief, if not the joy, of thriving.

Look deep into the eyes of the girls and women of DRC, CAR, Ukraine, Russia, Ethiopia, Eretria, Palestine, Israel, Afghanistan, of the Indigenous peoples in North America, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand – and countless other survivors of violence, in every corner of today’s world. Those are the eyes into the spirit of this earth.

International women’s day is but one of the 365 days of a year, to, perhaps, ponder the fact that our very earth is referred to, in many languages, in feminine terms.

Our earth is our very survival. Even, if and when, some of us succeed in living in Mars or on the moon, the majority of us will still need this earth to bear us, as it has borne our ancestors, and as it continues to, in spite of the deliberate destructions we levy against it, from each household, community, nation and region, in every corner of the world.

Our earth sustains nuclear tests which shred its very fibers from deep inside it. Even as it revolts in floods and roars back through erupting volcanoes, our earth still sustains the unending destructions of war, the piling up of human and other life forms, buried in it – and burned on it.

Our earth carries us and nurtures us on its oceans and seas and rivers, many of which we have choked with our human detritus which is killing the very same remarkable ecosystems that keep our waters clean, and help the air to heal.

Our earth tries to keep its own lungs functioning through the trees and oceans which are staying connected to one another, and to life itself, in ways many of us have no idea about. Every grain of sand, dew drop, branch, leaf, cloud – all feminine.

Come to think of it, our earth is being treated by humans, as so many girls and women are still being treated: taken advantage of, beaten, (ab)used, considered replaceable or profitable (or both), and when they excel, they are resented, including by some of their own kind.

We dare not speak of the woman-on-woman violence, right? That is not done, not even by the most stalwart of our feminist leaders. All the while this is happening though, poetry, prizes, even laws, are being enacted to ‘save’, commemorate, and ‘honour’ earth.

All faith traditions actually have a secret embedded within them: that that which is feminine, always rises again, to love, as it serves and gives birth, and to fight for the very possibility of life itself. As we commemorate this day, we would do well to remember that it is not about girls and women per se, it is about the power of the feminine that is earth itself.

None of us is born to be alone forever. We need one another. In fact, we are completely dependent on one another.

Our earth demands justice for life itself to be sustained. International women’s day is every human’s day, every life on this planet day, every living thing day, every star in the cosmos of creation day.

Can we honour that?

Azza Karam is a member of the UN SG’s High Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, and is the founding President & CEO of Lead Integrity, an International Management Consulting business, focused on creating a Roster, and making available, the expertise of women inspired by diverse faiths and serving in all professions, committed to leadership, integrity and competence.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

A boy looks through a schoolbook as he sits in the rubble of a home destroyed during an Israeli air strike on the city of Khan Yunis. Credit: UNICEF/NYHQ2014-0894/El Baba
 
“We Would Not Choose War”
 
“Peace cannot exist without justice, justice cannot exist without fairness, fairness cannot exist without development, development cannot exist without democracy, democracy cannot exist without respect for the identity of worth of cultures and peoples.” — Rigoberta Menchú

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Oct 27 2023 (IPS)

This year – 2023 – started with a commemoration of one year of war in, and on Ukraine, which has dramatically impacted the price of basic needs for the world’s populations in every corner of the world. It is an ongoing calamity for a world already living its worst collective food, public health and conflict-based insecurities.

Despite the peace agreement allowing access to Tigray, the humanitarian crisis following the conflict in Ethiopia has not abated, nor has the civil conflict in the Sudan. As fighting raged on in Somalia, the country faced its worst drought in forty years, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths.

The UN warned in June, that 400,000 of the 6.6 million Somalis in need of aid are facing famine-like conditions, and 1.8 million children are at risk of acute malnutrition in 2023. To add to the disaster, the World Food Programme has been forced to drastically cut its services in the country, due to lack of funding.

While there are more conflicts brewing in Africa, we have to take note of the fact that Asia also has its painful shares thereof, with ongoing Turkish government attacks against Kurdish groups as we write this. While talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia in April 2023 (mediated by China), raised hopes of a political settlement to end the conflict in Yemen, hostility between the two warring sides remains.

Further East, the civil conflict in Myanmar is resulting in more civil strife and untold misery also for minority communities. In Iran, a uniquely women-led uprising, continues to be brutally repressed, even as the country remains heavily vested in regional conflicts.

Another continent, Latin America, is host to serious political and economic instability – as in Venezuela – sometimes compounded by violence – as in Haiti – with significant humanitarian consequences. The continent also has its fair share of rising criminal gang violence, suspected to be closely aligned with certain political, arms and drugs’ interests, which are on the rise in several countries.

On October 7, 2023 the world witnessed atrocities committed by a religiously inspired (although by no means faith-justified) group, Hamas (self-designated as the Islamic resistance movement), on Israeli land, with ongoing mourning for the deaths, the trauma, and the fate of hundreds of hostages taken.

All of which appears to be used by some (largely western) governments to justify retaliatory actions which are resulting in millions of Palestinians (in Gaza) now living even without water, thousands already killed, many of whom are women and children, and over a million of them are being pushed, by a state actor, to become forcibly displaced.

In relatively (much) more peaceful countries, the rise of those advocating right-wing xenophobic actions and hate – some of whom are elected, by millions, to serve positions of senior most executive authority – is not unusual.

So, our world is not in a good place right now.

In each of these conflicts most of the key decision makers, are – perhaps coincidentally – male leaders. In all of these contexts, the ones paying the highest price in terms of loss of life, limb, deteriorating mental health, traumas, and denial of basic dignity – let alone access to basic needs – are women, children and those living with disabilities (which includes all genders, social classes, and age groups).

Yet in very few of any of those contexts, do we hear from the women leaders who are serving humanitarian needs, struggling to keep communities surviving, still speaking with one another and helping one another across the painful chasms and divides, and speaking out against the calls, and the murderous rationales, of war.

While there is data which implicates some women leaders in conflicts and violence – from suicide bombings to mainstream army and navy leaders and officers, members of right-wing extremist groups, non-state actors and gangs – these are not the norm. In fact, there is no comparative scope. As long as the majority of world’s senior-most political and military leaders are male, one cannot compare them to the legacies of the far fewer, and much more recent, women, in similar positions of power.

Women’s organisations tend to be among the most vocal and numerous, in their rejection of any and all forms of war and violence. The women who uphold this simple, and profoundly life changing and life affirming stances, of not choosing war, are often seasoned veterans of serving their communities and their nations. Many do not only speak from a place of aspiration, but from where they are rooted in taking collective actions for the common good.

Many women human rights defenders, and veterans of peacebuilding efforts in their communities and nations, tend to put into effect, the most pragmatic rationale of all: that my safety and welfare depends on yours. That you are part of me as I am of you. That in your annihilation, is mine own. That our collective resilience, is necessary, for this very precious planet, on which we are but (seriously disrespectful) guests, graciously hosted.

Yet these very same women, and their organisations, all of which are legacy builders, have to struggle to have their voices heard in the existing diversity and cacophony of media channels. Their absence from the seats of global decision making – because they are busy serving communities who have long lost their connection to today’s multilateral elitist spaces – affords them little to no opportunity to be part of the voices mainstream media prioritises. Indeed, media sometimes makes, select leaders, who appear to speak to the angry masses – or make the masses angry – but rarely showcases the work of the women building peace.

“We would not choose war” is not a temporary motto of convenience. It is a state of mind, and a state of being, which is struggled for, often at high personal, and professional cost. Its minimal threshold is the art of compromise. Its maximal achievement is peaceful coexistence. Both of which are sorely needed. It is also what most women’s organisations, and women-led efforts in all corners of the world, would say, and mean.

Given the state of our world, we need to make sure the track record of women’s peaceful leadership is actively and systematically supported, specifically when and where such efforts revolve around partnerships, and build on grassroots multilateral engagements. Such women-led peace initiatives should be a strategic developmental priority, within nations and between them. At the same time, this support should diligently avoid the all too frequent trap of creating new, parallel , duplicative, and replicative efforts, and/or focusing on supporting the already privileged elites.

We (should) have learned after decades of international development, that effective partnerships – advocated for in the 17th Sustainable Development Goal – are not optional. Partnerships in conceptualising, addressing, planning, delivery, and all forms of service, are a sine qua non, of social inclusion, social cohesion and peaceful coexistence. Not because they are easy to effect.

Perhaps precisely because they are challenging. But the challenge of partnerships around social cohesion are far more tolerable than the destructions of war. Away from the spaces of media, pomp and ceremony, media frenzy around temporal events, and elitist noise, women-led grassroots and international efforts are already providing alternatives to the current madness.

Dr Azza Karam, Professor of Religion and Development at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, and President and CEO of the Women’s Learning Partnership, based in Washington, and working with women’s human rights organisations in the southern hemisphere. She has decades of experience serving women-led multi stakeholder coalitions for democracy, peace and security.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

An Interfaith Moment of Prayer for Peace at UN Headquarters. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
 
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the gathering was taking place at a unique moment: on the last Friday of Ramadan, as Christians celebrate Easter, Jews mark the end of Passover, and Sikhs enjoy the festival of Vaisakhi. “Even the calendar is sending a message of unity,” he remarked. “Today, at this blessed moment of renewal across faiths, let us lift our hearts and voices for peace – our guiding star and our most precious goal.” April 2023

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Jun 28 2023 (IPS)

For the last 30 odd years, I have maintained that religions matter. I noted the reasons for why they matter, and always listed how they matter —as social service providers, as first responders in humanitarian crisis; as mediators in tensions and conflicts, as upholders of common good and the values of humanity; as protectors of children and of the most vulnerable; and even as political actors.

All to name but a few. I still feel amused when some of those I trained among the UN staff and the faith-based NGO community, quote something I said, in public – albeit without even being aware they are quoting (I am trying to be kind here) – such as: “we should not be talking about whether religions matter, but how they matter”.

In 2007, while at UNDP, I was told, more than once, “we do not do religion”. By the time I left the UN in 2020, after building two bodies – an Interagency Task Force on Religion and its Multi Faith Advisory Council – it was clear that almost all UN entities were competing to ‘do religion’. In fact, some UN entities are competing for religious funding.

While I have not lost that faith in faith itself, over the last years, I have grown increasingly incredulous of those who would speak in the name of ‘religion’. It is hard not to feel distinctly bemused, when versions of ‘if religious actors/leaders are not at the [policy] table, they will be on the menu]’, are being told in one gathering after another.

Often by the same kinds of speakers, among the same kinds of audiences, albeit meeting more and more frequently – and often more lavishly — in different cities around the world.

The reason for bemusement, is not disillusion with the unparalleled roles that various religious institutions and communities of faith play. Far from it. These roles are, in short, vast. In fact, they are as impossible to quantify, as they are implausible to assume full comprehension of.

After all, how do you accurately measure the pulse of our individual spiritualities – let alone our collective sense thereof? Religious leaders, religious institutions, faith-based and faith-inspired NGOs (FBOs) – let alone faith communities – are massive in number, and permeate all the world’s edifices, peoples and even languages. Faiths, and expressions of religiosity, are likely as numerous as the hairs on an average head (not counting those who may be lacking vigour in that department).

No, the reason for bemusement is disillusionment with the trend of commercialisation of religion, the business of ‘doing religion’. The emerging marketplace of “religion and [fill in the blanks – and anything is possible]” is reminiscent of not too many decades ago, when so many academics, consultants, think tanks, NGOs, worked on the business of democracy and/or good governance and/or human rights. Then, as now, projects, programmes, initiatives, meetings, and more meetings, were hosted.

A global emerging elite of ‘experts’ in the above (or variations thereof) permeated the four and five-star hotel meeting rooms, gave business to caterers and conference centres as they traipsed the ‘conference circuits’ from north to south, populated proposals to governments, philanthropists and various donor entities.

They defined the missions of for-profit consultancies claiming to enable the strategic capabilities, to inform the media presences, to refine the narratives, to provide the leadership coaching, to jointly express the common values, to uphold the good in public service… And so on.

We are not living in better democracies now, in spite of all that business. Will we have more faithful societies? Will people pray more, for one another and serve more selflessly now that ‘religion’ is in? Somehow, I doubt it.

By the time we realised the extent of the commercialisation of democracy and human rights, the commercial nature had corrupted much of the sagacity – and the necessary courage – there was. Even autocrats bought into the business of doing democracy and human rights, and used the narratives to enhance their respective agendas.

Few democratic actors worked together, and even fewer collaborated to serve – and save – the whole of humanity. As with any business venture, the motive of profit – and power – of some, dominated.

And rather than a consolidated civil society effort holding decision makers accountable for the sake of the most vulnerable, and collectively and successfully eliminating the tools of harm, we are living in the era where money, weapons – including nuclear ones – control over resources, and war (including war on this earth), dominate.

Today, some of the most authoritarian and self-serving regimes, and some of the most power-seeking individuals, and their retinues, are vested in the business of ‘religion’. And why not? It is among the most lucrative domains of financial, political and social influence.

Decades of study, however, point to some simple questions to ask, to distinguish the transactional nature of ‘religious affairs’ claiming to be for the good of all, from those actually serving the common good.

The questions include the following:

How many of those engaged in the work of religion (whether as religious or secular actors) actually give of or share, their varied resources, to/with one another (including those from other/different religions, entities, age groups, countries, races, etc.)?

How many different religious organisations plan and deliver, jointly, the same set of services to the same set of needs, in the same neighborhoods or in the same countries?

How many ‘religious actors’ actually partner with ‘secular’ civil society organisations to hold institutions of political and financial power equally accountable – if need be, at cost to their own welfare. In other words, how many stand on principle, irrespective of the cost?

And, my personal favourite: what are these religious actors’ respective positions on women’s rights, on gender equality and/or on women’s leadership?

The more diplomatic way to frame that is also one of the most powerful litmus tests: which human rights do these actors working on/with/for religion, value more? You see, those who are engaged in transactional practices wearing a religious garb, will invariably prioritise some rights, or some privileges, over others.

The answer to this question therefore, will indicate the difference between a coalition of religious fundamentalists (including secular power seekers and some religious and political leaders), and a multilateral alliance dedicated to serving the common good – for each and all, barring none, especially in the most challenging of times.

Azza Karam is a Professor of Religion and Development at the Vrij Universiteit of Amsterdam and served as a member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

The 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Nov 9 2022 (IPS)

In this year’s COP 27 two-weeklong summit in Egypt, which concludes November 18, a rough count indicates there will be 40 different sessions organised by, for, and about, religious engagements in/on climate change and related issues. This is likely the highest number of events by and around religious actors, organised at a COP event.

The reason? Religions, religious engagement, interfaith, etc., are the flavour of our geopolitical times. For better or worse.

His Holiness Pope Francis and His Eminence the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar were just addressing a major conference in Bahrain on East-West relations, with the King of Bahrain. After also putting in a similar appearance and speaking together with the President of Kazakhstan, in September. Both countries were hosting major international meetings of religious leaders, in the fanciest of hotels, convened from many corners of the world, replete with lavish food banquets and generous hospitality and care for their every need.

I should know, as I am a most grateful recipient, albeit not a religious leader, but an aspiring servant to religious multilateralism. But I run ahead of myself here.

In convening, countries appear to be competing with Saudi Arabia, which hosted such a seminal gathering (in May 2022, bringing together Buddhist and Hindu faith leaders, for the first time, as equals with their Muslim, Christian and Jewish brethren), as well as with the UAE, Qatar, and Oman, who are also hosting international gatherings of religious leaders this very month.

This year alone, there have been over 50 meetings of religious actors, that is more than 2 per month, and this is not a comprehensive tally.

Each of these major and rather expensive conferences, provides a platform not unlike the UN General Assembly, where each leader gets his (for invariably they are mostly men) time to speak, often eloquently, about their own faith tradition.

Each of these speeches regales with how diligent the efforts of faith/community/organisations are, to secure peace and human dignity for all people. As they remind of the spiritual wisdom each faith upholds, they also speak of past and upcoming initiatives, meant to safeguard dignity for all. Sometimes they also remember to speak about the planet and our responsibility to save it.

As someone who spent decades serving at the United Nations and in diverse international academic and development organisations, and now listening to the religious actors speaking, I find myself asking the same question: if each of these governments, and now these religious bodies, are working so hard and serving so amazingly, why is our world the way it is?

Why are so many governments and peoples and communities at war with one another inside and outside nation-state boundaries? Why are we listening to hate speech from every type of mouth and all types of platforms given ample media attention? Why are arms and drugs the biggest industries?

Why are the rich getting richer and the poor poorer while our planet becomes more bare and parched in one part, and flooded to death, in another? Why is violence of all kinds, inside families and within all communities, a pandemic? Why are medicines, and now even values, a commodity to trade power and privilege with?

Why is nuclear war back on the agenda of consciousness and politics? In short, why do we hate/fear one another one another so much, and so deeply?

Because what ails our multilateral system, in spite of the speeches (and efforts) of political leaders (in and out of electoral times for those fortunate enough to have genuine elections of their national leaders), and now also in spite of the speeches and works of religious actors, is fundamentally the same: each to his own. Multilateral – as an adjective defined by the Oxford Dictionary, where “three or more groups, nations, etc. take part”, is an endangered species.

The United Nations, the premier multilateral entity of 193 governments, is struggling to strengthen multilateralism, yet not necessarily by looking internally at its own behemoth infrastructures, or culture. Ever seen an organogramme of the United Nations system? One should. It is a universe of wonder where every human and non-human thought and action appears to have a dedicated office or structure of some sort.

But before we point fingers at the political multilaterals (who are remarkably good at either ignoring faith communities, or using them to the hilt, or both), we need to ask ourselves, how often do we see or hear of “three or more” religious institutions (not of the same faith) working together to actually deliver needs to diverse peoples around the world?

The answer is, that beyond the speeches, the lavish meetings and innumerable projects, multilateral religious collaboration (where money and efforts from many and diverse are pooled to serve, together, the needs of all, regardless of gender, national, ethnic, racial or religious affiliation) remains rare.

Please do not misunderstand: religious institutions are working to serve hundreds of millions of people on every area of need, humanitarian and development – and now also political. Just as Indigenous Peoples are the original carers of all nature, religious leaders and institutions are the original carers for myriad human needs.

There is plenty of evidence about this. HIV and AIDS, Ebola and the Covid pandemic highlighted how critical religiously managed health infrastructure is to communities – rich and poor. A glance at the education sectors, psycho-social care, migrants and displaced peoples, and other humanitarian areas of need, will show clearly that religious institutions still serve many, widely, and in the remotest areas.

So, it is not a dearth of service to humanity that diverse faith actors need to come to terms with. It is the famine of multireligious collaborative services – as in giving and doing together. At Religions for Peace, for over half a century of supporting interreligious platforms serve the common good in over 95 countries, we live the challenges of multi religious collaboration, on peace mediation, food and human security, migration and displacement, education, gender and women’s empowerment, and trying to save together, the world’s remaining rainforests, through, among other efforts, the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative.

We know that even within the realms of religion, the manner of dealing with these challenges tends to mirror prevailing colonial mindsets, with tendencies to give prominence to one religion, insistence on singular branding, and jockeying for more political influence and financial resourcing.

More and more faith leaders – young and older – are (rightfully) expecting financial remuneration for their time and energies spent in international work, thus slowly but surely reversing a trend of volunteerism that used to uniquely characterise religious service and giving.

Just as governments are failing to systematically work together as inhabitants and leaders of one planet, and just as too many civil society groups and corporations compete for branding and ‘market share’, so too, do religious organisations.

Some religious entities are replicating a secular catastrophic practice of seeking to build other/new/different/more ‘specialised’ entities and initiatives, rather than shoulder the heavy cross of seeking to work together in spite of the damning challenges (both puns intended). In so doing, many of these religious actors are effectively dispersing efforts.

One of the many lessons of failed multilateralism is that more, or different, or new and/or specialised, may well be the well-intentioned road to hell.

When it comes to actually investing in one another’s work so that they are speaking as one and serving together, many religious leaders and leaders of religious organisations will smile, say some nice words, and move on to the next sermon/meeting/international conference, or nevertheless doggedly pursue their own special/unique initiative(s).

Such that we have now so many religious initiatives, dominated by one or a bilateral religious partnership, or two and a half (relatively tokenistic representation of another faith), working on the same challenges, facing all of humanity.

What ails multilateralism is not the absence of resources, tools, values, the clarity of the crisis, or even the will and creativity to serve. Multilateralism fails when some want only their values, truths, communities, nations, cultures, security needs, and/or specific institutions, to prevail.

And with the failure of multilateralism is a failure of common humanity, and planetary survival.

Prof. Azza Karam is Secretary General, Religions for Peace

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Refugees entering Poland from Ukraine at the Medyka border crossing point. March 2022. Credit: UNHCR/Chris Melzer

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Apr 19 2022 (IPS)

“The war in Ukraine is a European …and a Christian… matter… It does not require the involvement of a colourful array of religions or people”. These words were uttered and affirmed by some European Protestant men, working in interfaith circles in Europe. The ‘colourful’ encompassed other than European, mostly Christian – and likely mostly male.

Add this perspective to another one from a seasoned Catholic lay male leader, diplomat and academic, echoing representatives working in various Vatican offices, who maintain that if there is to be any religious engagement [e.g. a meeting with the Russian or Ukrainian senior Orthodox Church representatives] around Ukraine or Russia, “it is the Pope who should be doing this [not any other faith leaders or institutions] …and this is the preference of European governments”.

To these people, the fact that the war in Ukraine (and economic sanctions against Russia), have raised the price of oil, gas, and wheat (and therefore basic staples such as bread) for all other inhabitants of our world, is simply irrelevant.

The important fact appears to that Europe is suffering – and losing face in doing so, one might add. The fact that there are religious minorities in Ukraine also suffering, is not meriting as much attention. The supremacy of the Catholic Pope, who is a leader of but 16 percent of the world’s religious populations, is also apparent in the discourse of many esteemed European male leaders.

Were European governments to see value-added to religious involvement in affairs of state, then it would clearly be the Pope who would merit the role, out of the thousands – if not more – of other faith leaders in (the rest of) the world.

Yet so significant is the war in Ukraine, along with the role of Russia (and perhaps after that China) in geopolitics, and the changing political, financial and economic consequences around a world already damaged by the vagaries of Covid lockdowns and declines in tourism (which was the source of basic income for hundreds of millions of people), that it is a staple of many conversations – outside of Europe.

One such perspective of some seasoned diplomats in the USA, is that “religion and religious institutions have nothing to do with this war nor play much of a role in it. This is one politician’s madness”. Someone must have forgotten to send the memo with the words of a Patriarch of the largest Church in Russia, with over 120 million adherents worldwide, justifying the war – and using a homophobic discourse to do so.

Or maybe we erased the other memo where millions of Russians voted for this one “mad” politician (as millions of others voted for other mad politicians elsewhere in the world).

And yet, as we ponder the rampant ignorance about the intersections of politics and religion worldwide, and the arrogance of some European religious and political actors, and as some of us listen to religious leaders from other corners of the world, it would be wise to ponder a couple of questions: are we sure that all religions would have found the Patriarch of Russia’s language, and its subject, quite so distasteful? And, are we sure that it is one man causing all this carnage and hate (and profit to weapons manufacturers, mercenaries, and all who make money from war)?

There are many forms of this kind of arrogance of ignorance, which have coalesced to bring our world to this point where it would seem that almost every corner of it, is blighted. For some it is the blight of many forms of extremism: from launching war against a sovereign nation and killing its people, to horrific gang violence, to desecrating sacred sites and attacking pilgrims and devotees during their prayers, even during times which are holy to both attacked and attackers.

For others, it is the blight of democracy abused and myriad human rights systematically and deeply violated. For yet others the blight is having to live with various forms of hate speech and hate filled actions, including those with distinct anti-Semitic and Islamophobic blows. Holocaust deniers are reemerging out of many layers of rotten woodwork in all corners of the world.

The semantics of Islamophobia are being argued about in some western government circles, even as veiled women are being openly abused in some streets and denied access to jobs in countries claiming respect for religious freedom, and where even turbaned Sikh men continue to face abuse because they are mistaken as Muslims, and/or because their form of dress is deemed injurious to secular sensibilities.

For others the blight is to have to contend with shootings by lone gunmen of innocents in schools or subways or nightclubs or concerts. All this in the middle of a public health epidemic that has claimed the lives of millions – and we are still counting (where it is possible to have reliable data) – and while climate change is contributing to the largest numbers of refugees and forcibly displaced peoples ever in recorded collective human history.

Yet climate change is still being denied. And as for misogyny, it is the new normal in private and public spaces, everywhere in the world – in Europe too.

But it is not all gloom. The same European country which decried the one million Syrian refugees it allowed in (and subsequently quietly offloaded thousands of them to other countries), has announced no limit to the number of Ukrainians needing to enter it, and sometimes ensuring that some of the newer Ukrainian refugees receive access to homes before other refugees (who had waited longer but now must continue their wait). Another European country which let some refugees die of cold on its borders rather than allow them in, is now providing all manner of support to the Ukrainian ones.

The United States, which a few months ago lost significant credibility as a result of a messy exit after a 20 year struggle against the Taliban in Afghanistan (leaving the country largely back in control of the Taliban), is today resonating with righteous indignation, and crowing that “the West is back”. The European Union too, has seen the error of its ways of being overly dependent on cheap Russian gas, and oil, and is now hastening to rid itself of such a dependency.

The war in Ukraine (albeit apparently not the ongoing horrors in Myanmar, Yemen, Mali, Niger, Cameroon, and Ethiopia – to name but a few) is indeed impacting our world. Like Covid-19, the war will doubtless continue to influence political, financial, and socio-cultural frames for decades. But here is another question: are we sure that the rampant and now fully on display discriminatory arrogance of ethnocentrism, and its appendages, will change?

This April 2022, witnesses another form of coalescing. Bahá’ís celebrate Riḍván, a festival of joy and unity which commemorates the beginning of their Faith. For Hindus and many others also, this month marks the celebration of the Spring festival of the harvest, and the Hindu new year. For Sikhs as well, this April celebrates the birth of the religion as a collective faith.

Jews celebrate Pesach, or Passover, commemorating the exodus of the Jewish people escaping the slavery of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Christians (Western and Eastern) – celebrate the resurrection of Christ this Easter. All while Muslims observe the thirty days of fast known as Ramadan. There are more faith traditions celebrating and/or commemorating. Definitely the best time, then, to pray for – or for those of tender anti-religious sensibilities let us say ‘to reflect’ on: the twin birth of humility and mercy.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

Credit: Religions for Peace

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Feb 21 2022 (IPS)

A “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, issued on February 4, 2022 on International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development”, contains laudable and strong language about commitment to democracy and human rights:

“The sides [the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China] call on all States to pursue well-being for all and, with these ends, to build dialogue and mutual trust, strengthen mutual understanding, champion such universal human values as peace, development, equality, justice, democracy and freedom, respect the rights of peoples to independently determine the development paths of their countries and the sovereignty and the security and development interests of States, to protect the United Nations-driven international architecture and the international law-based world order, seek genuine multipolarity with the United Nations and its Security Council playing a central and coordinating role, promote more democratic international relations, and ensure peace, stability and sustainable development across the world… The sides share the understanding that democracy is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of States, and that its promotion and protection is a common responsibility of the entire world community.”

The fact that these are the words from one country that is amassing thousands of troops on the borders of a sovereign nation (threatening to enter it and ‘protect’ its people at any moment as of the writing of this), together with another country which is denying the existence of camps housing over a million people of one particular religion and ethnicity, within its borders, is interesting – eerily so.

And yet it was not so long ago, that ‘noblesse oblige’, ‘la mission civilisatrice’ and ‘white man’s burden’ were being articulated as pretexts for territorial takeover and the oppression and subordination of people, land, and dignity.

The colonial missions (mandates, protectorates, etc.) created a fundamental imbalance in the power of man over (others’) resources, and the power of some (men) over others, and a continuing legacy of interference in others’ affairs ostensibly to help (hence presumably the reference to sovereignty in the above statement), and usually – and here is part of the vexing reality – at the behest of nationals who ask for the ‘assistance’.

And it is still the case, that the very ideologies of supremacy of one people over another, including of one race and/or one sex or one religion over another, the refusal to be held accountable to centuries of discrimination now part of the DNA of almost all institutions; the insistence on subjugation of nature to man; and the perpetuation of misogyny – all continue to define our present broken world.

But today we have an awareness among esteemed politicians, academics, and several governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental institutions, that religion matters. Indeed, that in various forms of ‘engagement’ with (usually specific and selective) religious institutions, religious NGOs, and/or religious leaders, good things come about.

Salvation may be imminent. “Faith for [insert the wording here]” or “religion and [insert appropriate term here] is the new formula for overcoming most difficulties, from vaccine hesitancy to gender discrimination, from electoral gerrymandering to racism, and everything in between.

And why not? After all, religious institutions (churches, mosques, temples, etc.) actually are the original development and humanitarian actors, and are still critical service providers in countries where governments are increasingly struggling to serve basic needs of many of their populations.

The very first schools and hospitals known to societies all around the world originated in and through religious bodies. Today, Catholic Churches alone manage significant public health infrastructures from North America to Sub-Saharan Africa. Caritas Internationalis for instance, is one of the largest (Catholic) humanitarian and development NGOs in the world.

If we begin to look at other religiously inspired NGOs, we will find a significant number of them delivering much needed refuge and support to the largest refugee and displaced populations ever recorded in human history, as well as health, education, sanitation, nutrition and humanitarian relief services, to hundreds of millions, in all corners of the world.

Furthermore, ‘Islamic finance’ is a source of funding for major United Nations entities’ development and relief efforts (e.g. UNHCR, UNDP, UNICEF) around the world – and more of that is being sought after, with various Muslim entities rushing to provide fatwas (religious edicts) and justifications for why this is good Islamic practice.

Increasing ‘faith investments’ in and for sustainable development are being strongly advocated for by some, with new initiatives emerging in that advocacy space to ‘help and encourage… ethical religious investments’. Private sector interest is focusing on how ‘faith-based actors’ are facilitators of emerging markets – and possibly multipliers of profits, for some pharmaceuticals, among other companies.

Just as in the 1990s, we started to learn how investing in women’s rights makes economic sense. Today, we are hearing how investing in faith actors makes that kind of sense too. In fact, some humanitarian and development religious NGOs (mostly with a Christian background, many Evangelical) are being actively mobilised to run initiatives to champion freedom of religion and belief, and/or to facilitate strategic ‘advocacy’ for major faith-based NGOs – ostensibly as part of their learning and wisdom acquired defending other human rights (albeit sometimes with an underdeveloped track record).

Yet, while they touched on almost every single aspect in their strong statement, neither the Russian Federation nor China reference ‘faith’, or ‘religion’ in their Joint Statement. Indeed, not once is ‘civil society’ mentioned. For these powerful states, as with others like them, religions, and any aspect of civic engagement, are either non-existent, or totally subservient to their own will, as to be unworthy of singling out.

Instead, an appropriation of the language of human rights, of democracy, of “cultural diversity”, “balance, harmony and inclusiveness” and even “moral principles” is de rigeur. But you see, this is the other side of using religion. You can overemphasize its value, or you can eclipse it.

Religious institutions, faith leaders and faith-based NGOs, have a responsibility to protect civil society. Instead of seeking to earn a celebrity status with some governments or political parties, or trying to leverage their own influence as Catholic/Protestant/Orthodox/Evangelical/Jewish/Muslim/Hindu/Buddhist/etc., all faith actors need to learn to come together as a collective power that is part of their secular civil brethren.

In doing so, their combined moral, economic, financial, political, cultural, and social weight, will dwarf the most authoritarian of structures. At the very least, in coming together to serve all, religious communities can hold all decision makers accountable to a collective justice – of gender, of environment, of voice, of representation, and ultimately, of dignity.

Civil societies are the barometers of collective planetary wellbeing. As we dismember and silence civil societies, by using/focusing on (some) religions at a time, and serving piecemeal selective interests, we ensure that the arc of history remains mired in the abuse of indivisible and interdependent human rights, which are central to vibrant and healthy democracies.

To the tyranny of states and religious institutions alike, I would say: stop using your power to gain political and financial expediency. Instead, work with all religions on a level playing field, with the rest of civil society, to hold one another accountable, and thereby, to ensure peace and security for all times.

Prof. Azza Karam, PhD, is Secretary General, Religions for Peace International.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Sep 9 2021 (IPS)

Described as the “worst terrorist attack ever in the United States”, September 11, 2001 is a moment which has led to multiple transformations, cascading around our world.

US President George W. Bush and his administration described the attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon as an ‘attack on freedom’, an act of ‘evil’, and he quoted a Biblical passage in his first address to a nation in shock, and later described the US position as ‘a crusade’.

Religious language was normal in the political narrative of some leaders in the Middle East and in parts of Africa and even Latin America. But this was an interesting demarcation of the discourse of politicians in the Western world.

The United States clearly saw itself a force of goodness, and there was an evident demarcation of the attackers as evil. Most nations around the world stood in solidarity with the pain of a nation still perceived by many, as a beacon of freedom, and democracy.

But a succession of foreign policy and military decisions by the Bush Administration and subsequent administrations under 4 different presidencies, effectively ended that sympathy, and elicited what is today a major credibility crisis for the United States.

Afghanistan, now referred to as the ‘longest war in American history’, began with US forces allied with warlords of dubious track records in humanity, let alone credibility, and ended with a withdrawal which was heartbreaking and chaotic, albeit rather politely referred to as ‘surprising’ by the US and its NATO allies.

The background to the US series of decisions, is Guantanamo (described as “a beautiful…sunny… island” by Donald Rumsfeld). The symbol of America’s willingness to use any means to counter evil, Guantanamo permanently damaged the US’s own self-image, as are its interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the by now rather farcical “war on terror”.

The dismantling of the Saddam regime in Iraq was akin to a theatre, where the Coalition Provisional Authorities (CPA) made a series of catastrophic decisions. These ultimately fueled within the entire Arab region, a series of conflicts within and among its countries, dealt a massive boost to sectarianism between Sunni and Shia Muslims reverberating around the world, reconfigured regional power politics in the Gulf, and gradually created fertile ground for rampant misogynistic and right-wing discourses globally.

The fact is that in spite of unprecedented global civil protests, wars were carried on. These wars, and their many impacts in and around every corner of the world, including the very legitimacy of so-called ‘just war’ narrated by many religious leaders inside and outside of the United States, ultimately resulted in a loss of confidence in all political institutions.

Whether the US Congress, the Indian Parliament, or the legislatures of Brazil or Russia, political institutions are facing a crisis of legitimacy and efficacy, and political parties, globally, appear to veer from one source to dissonance to another.

We now know that the ‘free press’ of the US (and elsewhere) actively took part in propagating the lies about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, among many other fallacies, which contributed to the gradual unravelling of the myth of objective media institutions. A myth effectively shattered today by the normalcy of the phenomenon of ‘fake news’ and the ultimate casualty thereof – ‘truth’.

Business corporations are already maligned thanks to one profit-mongering or environmental scandal after another, and the financial institutions took a massive hit with the 2008 financial crisis and its ensuing free market prodigies.

Child sex abuse rocked the world’s largest and oldest religious institutions, and although the present Pope is considered redeeming by many, the fact remains that the Catholic Church today does not leverage nowhere near the same power it used to, just a couple of decades ago.

Instead, it is a Church, or a belief, now strongly rivalled by Evangelical groups in many of the largest countries, and continents, of the world. The collateral damage of this decline of institutional legitimacy is a shrinking civil society space and the near extinction of a form of accountability: Human Rights.

Meanwhile, an interest in ‘religion’ and so-called ‘values’ and ‘values-based’ discourses, is on the rise among policy makers, within multilateral institutions, and think tanks, North and South.

The interest was certainly spurred on by the fear of “Islamic extremism” which seemed to emerge in Western public consciousness with the Muslim outrage about a Salman Rushdie novel and the Danish cartoons (and then Charlie Hebdo), but then grew to be seen through the prism of Al-Qaeda, which now pales in comparison to the so-called Islamic State, Boko Haram, al-Shabab and more. Although less interest is paid to other religiously inspired political and militaristic actors, they exist too.

But this interest in values and religious engagement leads to more attention being paid to religious actors as ‘peacemakers’, ‘mediators’, ‘peacebuilders’, and as developmental and humanitarian partners.

Especially since we see religious organisations serving desperate needs resulting from the Covid epidemic, and natural disasters all over the world. This is an interest I am biased in favour of. But we should not be blinded by it.

Elsewhere I have written of how this interest by supposedly secular politicians and policy makers, if not deliberately multi-religious in nature, and intentionally geared towards energizing – and being accountable to – a vibrant civil society, and which consolidates existing multireligious platforms (rather than trying to build new ones), can be a source of disruption, political instability, a new business and profit-making industry, and cause overall harm.

The rise of ‘religion’ in a world reeling from the collapse of multiple forms of institutional legitimacy, is a double-edged sword. Some religious arguments were used – and still are – to vilify and disenfranchise Indigenous Peoples, to legitimize all forms of violence – from the Apartheid regime, to Nazism and its offshoots today, to the most egregious forms of gender-based violence – and to justify ongoing wars and conflicts between peoples.

So, religion is no panacea. But to avoid a scenario where religions serve as fodder for new ideologies of opportunism, injustice, and violence, requires us to ensure that some of the legacies of September the 11th, 2001 – namely the distrust of the infallibility of institutions, is upheld, while the decline of the observance of human rights as a standard of justice, is reversed.

Our ‘salvation’, and that of our planet, may well be in the upholding of all Human Rights. No one religion, or religious institution, actor, or leader, owns this set of rights, or can realise them alone. Just as no government can and has. In fact, we arrived at the Human Rights Articles precisely by elucidating the values common to all faiths.

For us to uphold all human rights, we must hold all religions and their institutions and their leaders accountable to working together, to serve all peoples.

Professor Azza Karam, Ph.D, is Secretary-General, Religions for Peace International

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Religious leaders. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Jul 22 2021 (IPS)

The UN High Level Political Forum (HLPF) came to a conclusion on July 15th. Another HLPF, another series of declaration, and commitments and concerns articulated by governments.

All of which are besieged by the combined pandemics of institutional and systemic failures, increasing violence, global warming which has already led to the deaths of species and humans, and of course, Covid-19 and the utter shame of only the rich getting vaccinated.

And the results of this High Level Political Forum?

Not the dramatic changes that our planetary existence cries for. Not even the radical introspection about each of the governance and civic responsibilities attested to by various human rights and humanitarian catastrophes in almost every corner of the world. In fact, the HLPF, like so many other summits and consultations between and among governments, has ended with more of the same.

But who am I to challenge or hold accountable? What have I done to try to make an iota of difference?

I ask myself that as a human being, as a citizen, as a woman, as a person of faith, as many other things. But most importantly, as the person elected to serve the world’s largest multi-faith leadership and grassroots organization. I ask as a person who has devoted over 30 years of studying and working in and on the intersections of religion with international development, democratization, governance and human rights.

Remember when good governance and democratization were such buzz words? Remember when human rights was not just what the United States tried to claim was critical to its foreign policy, while it was aiding and abetting the same regimes and groups that abused them liberally, and fighting for the triumph of liberalism against communism (which was not supposed to care much for any of those ideals)?

Remember when NGOs sprouted left, right and center, ostensibly committed to realizing good governance, human rights and the attainment of democracy, so that proposals to international development and foreign policy donor entities were replete with “building” and “strengthening civil society”?

And remember the days when “truth and reconciliation” were what the South African bloodless transition from apartheid to democracy, represented (as opposed to the painful turmoil we see in the same country and in most countries around the world)?

Remember those days?

Can we claim, with a straight face – let alone with any data to back this up – that we now have a world where human rights, democracy and good governance reign supreme – or even reign at all in most parts of the world?

If we can claim that, the entire Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) before them, and countless Treatise, Conventions, Agreements, Resolutions, not to mention NGOs, academic centers and disciplines, policy think tanks, evidence gatherers and reams of research, etc., might have been a bit unnecessary – to say the least?

Unless of course, we would maintain that democracy and good governance were not meant to ensure a world where every single form of inequality and inequity, where war and violence, where epidemics and a pandemic – run rampant?

Over the last decade in particular, we started to hear more about the importance of religion, engaging with religious leaders, and the value-added of faith-based work and organisations in terms of community reach, moral standing, trust building, conflict mediation and peacemaking, social service provision (such as healthcare, education, nutrition), and humanitarian relief.

Since the pandemic we are now hearing how houses of worship, and the large public health infrastructure, are so critical to the Covid response, and to vaccine uptake (or lack thereof). Multiple global, regional and national initiatives, in and around the United Nations, regional intergovernmental organizations and bodies, governments, networks, projects, academic degrees, and NGOs, are now sprouting in all corners of the world, all professing to do with religion or faith or interfaith.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, democracy, good governance and human rights almost became a commercial business, with donors competing to fund initiatives and to create their own.

Recipient NGOs and projects – some of them developing in record time with support from governments with a dubious record of democracy and respect for human rights – competed to seek funding from governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental sources.

Millions of dollars were given, and spent. Duplication of efforts – with each claiming to be unique – became the norm. A new global NGO elite emerged, who grew used to meeting each other in different conferences in different locations, racking up airline miles as they globe trotted from one end of the world to the other, offering their wisdom, sharing their ‘lessons learned’, showcasing their initiatives and their respective ‘approaches’ as well as their ideologies.

Members of this democracy and human rights’ community lamented the lack of political will to recognize their unique and necessary value-added, the increasing normalcy of abuse of democracy, the lack of ‘proper’ policies leading to a furthering of authoritarianism and intra-state conflicts, and usually passionately decrying the lack of resources to help their work.

Some of these civil society initiatives competed viciously, sometimes beneath a thin veneer of collaboration and partnership, and even actively undermined one another. Some of these actors compiled and decried human rights abuses in regimes and countries, when they themselves struggled with similar abuses in their own organisations, institutions and networks.

Many demanded accountability, when they themselves were among the least accountable. Few, if any, gave of their own resources to support one another’s initiatives, even when they worked for the same purposes, in the same communities, with the same people. It was each to – usually – his own.

The need for the visibility of the respective organisation or network or initiative, became more important and defining, than the absolute necessity of the collective struggle for democracy and human rights.

Does it sound familiar? It should.

Because faith-based and faith inspired actors, or religion, in various guises, is en vogue today, in the same way that democracy, good governance and human rights, were in the 1990s. And what is happening in the realms of religion, religious engagement, faith-based activity (whatever the nomenclature is), is eerily similar to the above scenarios.

And the catastrophe is that this continues to happen in the midst of a global pandemic which should be dramatically transforming our every thought and action.

In today’s geopolitical reality where authoritarianism and insecurity rules amidst a collapsing planetary infrastructure, the business of human rights and good governance is clearly teetering on bankruptcy. Religions, and faiths, are the sacred realms for most of the world’s populations. None of us can afford the bankruptcy of the sacred.

If Covid is not pushing us to take a deep dive into overcoming every single excuse which prevents us from working together, regardless of the differences between and among our faiths or organisations or races or genders, to serve all, together, then we are looking straight into the abyss of that particular hell – which we are contributing to creating.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

A mother holds her child in the Al Dhale'e Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Camp in Yemen. The war in Yemen continues to ravage the country and its people, senior UN-appointed rights investigators said, in a call for an international probe into suspected war crimes, and sanctions against the perpetrators. Credit: YPN for UNOCHA

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Feb 2 2021 (IPS)

For more than two decades, the mantra was “PVE” (preventing violent extremism) and/or “CVE” (countering violent extremism).

Millions of dollars were spent, new NGOs and think tanks emerged, government policy papers were drafted, countless books and articles were published, large and small scale initiatives developed – indeed almost an entire industry in development and foreign policy spaces thrived.

Complete with UN resolutions and entire units inside the UN system and intergovernmental entities were created to focus on this (thinly veiled religious) violent extremism.

It would seem that PVE/CVE also delineated political positions in certain countries. Were you of the PVE or the CVE inclination? The difference between these two positions was not whether one considered violent extremism to be a – largely – religious (and let’s face it, Islamic-focused) set of features, but whether you were seeking to be politically correct about the endeavor, or just ‘call it like it is”.

Of course, all this generated multitudes of arguments, analysis and ‘alternative views’. By and large, the consensus – and certainly where multi million dollars of investment were going – appeared to be, that ‘developing a counter narrative’ was the way to go.

Horrific gang violence, atrocious drug-related violence, spiking gender-based violence, sexual violence in conflict and non-conflict settings, even domestic violence, school shootings, policy brutality, all soared. But none of that of course, is violent extremism.

In the US, throughout the 1990s, several incidents took place – Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992; Waco, Texas, in 1993; and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The sight of men carrying torches in Charlottesville and braying anti-semitic and anti-everything decent slogans, apparently was … well, clearly, freedom of speech.

While on the other hand, peaceful demonstrations against the oldest and most vile of prejudices which intersects with and informs so many other prejudices – I mean racism by the way – those we did see as worthy of brutality and force. And that brutality and force was also not violent extremism.

With all that, to many of the pundits (‘experts’, intellectuals, intelligence communities) in the ‘developed’ part of the world, none of all this qualified as violent extremism. No, violent extremism, and its kin, terrorism, were what, by and large, Muslims did.

And the Muslims, by the way, were not really a religion. In fact, maybe they were not even human. Our kind of humans, you see, don’t do violent extremism. ‘Our’ kind of humans do good, old fashioned pro-Life kind of religion, informed by wholesome [western] values which are worthy of export as part of an ongoing mission to bring light to the world.

And when some of those things turn ugly and even contravene international standards of human rights (as if those are even relevant), it does not get labelled what it is, because ‘there are good people on all sides’.

When nations turn away or intern those seeking refuge and those displaced by their own duty bearers, and when these people end up cold and without clothes in the coldest of times, or separated from their loved ones in manners reminiscent of the stories of earlier Jewish internment camps, that is not violent extremism.

When there are over two million Muslims in “reeducation camps” (because of their propensity to ‘Islamic extremism’ of course) – no, not in Nazi times back then, but right here, happening right now – that ‘reeducation’ is not called violent extremism.

Even genocide – when we dare to name it – is not violent extremism either, apparently. You see, if a powerful government commits it, it is not violent extremism. And the label of genocide is anyway facetious and disrespectful and libelous and plain wrong. Some say. When they dare to speak.

We needed to watch the Capitol of the United States of America, besieged by men with war paint on their faces, wearing animal masks, military-like fatigues, brazenly waving the flags of states which once went to war with kith and kin to defend human slavery, former (and currently serving) military and/or police officers, even women with a mission apparently willing to scale walls to enter “the people’s house” – and get shot dead by terrified, seriously understaffed security people.

We had to wait to see these macabre sights of yet another awful US reality TV show, to begin – only begin – to name it. So now that we have named it, shall we draw upon the decades’ long ‘expertise’ of NGOs, human rights actors, think tanks, governments and the industry, academia, which largely focused on the Muslim other?

All those who valiantly created “counter-narratives” to deal with this variant of the virus of violent extremism? Or are counter-narratives only something we invest in when it comes to others outside of ‘our’ kind?

And what is the counter narrative to rampant hate of the multiple, intersecting and difficult to discern forms of ‘otherness’, when divisiveness, bitterness and ignorance are normal in so many parts of the world?

For we spent decades normalizing othering. Even as we sought to deal with violence, we did so by ‘othering’ (rendering different from ‘us’) the perpetrators and the actions, even when they were us. We even othered violence itself by defining an extreme form thereof! As if violence was not bad enough.

As we sought ‘counter narratives’, we affirmed the us-versus-them world view: our narrative was, would be, better than theirs. But hate is not a narrative. Hatred is felt, it is embodied, it is lived – and it is actively justified.

Hatred feeds on othering. Othering is the fuel which makes hatred rage as the fires that consumed our earth did in 2020 – literally as well as metaphorically.

The antidote to othering, to the roots of hatred, is to recognize the power inherent in our diversity. All faiths teach that diversity is manifestations of the Divine, and/or that the Divine resides in diversity – sometimes in polar opposites (e.g. Destructor-Creator).

All faiths try to teach that power is not about institutions and boundaries. Instead, ‘power’ is to love the diversities. Yet still we persist, and our religions and our politics and our institutions persist, in the politics of othering, and defining the boundaries of us versus them.

When will we learn, that we are one and the same? What will it take?

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

Religions for Peace Interreligious Council of Albania distributing Covid relief supplies from the Multi-religious Humanitarian Fund. Credit: Erzen Carja

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Aug 4 2020 (IPS)

— I have never been interested in religion or spirituality before, but I found myself tuning in to all sorts of on-line religion and spirituality related forums “in search of something.”

These are the words of a 30-something single young, middle class man (born into a Protestant-Catholic family background) in a European country.

The latter is known more for turning several churches into museums or shopping centers, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. When people are afraid, lonely and alone – they tend to seek “something” beyond science.

A quarter of Americans say their faith has become stronger because of the pandemic, according to a Pew survey conducted during April 20-26, 2020, of 10,139 U.S. adults.

But this is to be contrasted with the experiences of those from an older generation (60+) in the southern hemisphere, like my own 85-year old Muslim father, who lives to pray. For him, the mosque has, over the last decade since my mother’s death, become both his spiritual hub and social club.

His cohort is differing ages of retirees, who, in spite of very different political perspectives in a Middle Eastern country reflecting the now normal of intense polarization, treasure their prayerful community spaces. This middle class (an endangered species to be sure) of retirees, share a sense of deep faith informing their social and political convictions.

For many of them, the lockdown was experienced primarily s an inability to go to the mosque, and thus as almost physically painful. None of them countenanced the idea of on-line prayers, that doesn’t make any sense, they maintained. Their sense of depression was almost palpable throughout the lockdown period, as was their joy at the reopening of some mosques.

The coronavirus presents barriers to caring for the sick and to performing certain death and burial rites which are core religious practices, and especially needed in a pandemic that has already claimed nearly hundreds of thousands of lives.

In Sri Lanka for example, public health measures for safe burial practices have already challenged traditional rites, wherein authorities mandated cremations for Covid-19-linked deaths, despite the fact that cremation is supposed to be forbidden in Islam.

Covid-19 also complicates Jewish and Muslim burial practices of washing and cloaking bodies before burial, given concerns about transmission. Innovative religious responses seeking to reconcile public health policies with traditional burial practices have been taking place.

In Israel, for example, bodies are wrapped in plastic before burial, and before that, ritual washing is completed while wearing full protective gear. Some Islamic scholars are providing exegesis and guidance on how the ritual of washing the body prior to burials, could be conducted safely whilst following Islamic principles.

Religions for Peace Interreligious Council of Albania distributing Covid relief supplies from the Multi-religious Humanitarian Fund. Credit: Erzen Carja

This echoes what occurred during the Ebola crisis in West Africa. In fact, while COVID-19 differs from HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and Ebola, there are nevertheless some important similarities.

In cases of dealing with diseases where transmission affects large numbers of people, and vaccines and medication remain relatively hard to find and/or provide to all affected, beyond the health inequities which are underscored during such times, there are critical lapses by national and international authorities in acknowledging and supporting the role of religious leaders.

In fact, during previous outbreaks of HIV/AIDS (around the world), and of Ebola in Central and West Africa, the strengths of religious communities were rarely incorporated into public policy – until national and international secular authorities lose the plot.

In Religions for Peace (the only multi religious organization representing all religious institutions and communities around the world with 90 national and 6 regional Inter-Religious Councils/IRCs), a founding mantra is that caring for the most vulnerable is deeply embedded in all faith traditions.

As a result, religious institutions, communities, and faith-inspired/based NGOs (or FBOs as they are often referred to), have historically served as the original providers of essential social services. In fact, FBOs are the first responders in most humanitarian emergencies. Their work includes providing spiritual sustenance for sure, but also hunger relief, heath care, and shelter.

This is not only a feature of the developing world. Samaritan’s Purse set up a health center at the height of the pandemic in Central Park – an icon of New York city. Caritas, at one point, was feeding 5,000 people a day, in Geneva, Switzerland.

For 50 years, Religions for Peace worked to equip its IRCs (through the respective religious institutions and services) to seek peace through advocating for human rights (including the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as women, religious minorities, the disabled, elderly, and youth), mediating conflicts, providing emergency humanitarian relief, and contributing to sustainable development efforts (including health, nutrition, sanitation, education and environmental sustainability).

The defining feature of Religions for Peace IRCs is multi-religious collaboration. The main principles of this collaboration are representativity and subsidiarity. In the case of the former, each IRC earns Religions for Peace affiliation by ensuring its governance represents each and all of the nations religious institutions, and communities. In return, each IRC is guaranteed its independence to determine its national/regional priorities, and its modus operandi.

Half a century of collaboration with several United Nations entities at different moments in time, provides a comparative context to enable an assessment of how the UN works with some religious actors.

At the very least, this historical time-line of partnership efforts on peace and security, sustainable development and human rights, provides a learning context. It is with that in mind that we can say that UN efforts in seeking partnerships with faith-based NGOs in facing the Covid-19 implications, are noticeably on the increase relative to pre-Covid dynamics.

Entities like UNHCR, UNICEF, UNAIDS, WHO, and even non-operational entities like the Secretary-General’s own office, as well as UN Office of Genocide Prevention and Responsibility to Protect, have, respectively, issued statements specifically calling on religious leaders and actors to uphold their unique influences (noted above), sought religious input on and in Covid Guidance documents, and (are) hosting multiple consultations to strengthen myriad joint responses.

Working with multiple stakeholders, Religions for Peace research is revealing that while some religious charities are struggling to find resources to continue their services for communities, other FBOs are able to raise more resources for pandemic relief, than anticipated.

This is particularly the case for Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist organisations in countries in Asia, but also Muslim and Christian charities in Africa and the Middle East.

Almost 90% of Religions for Peace IRCs reported a 100% increase in engagement (asks) of their advocacy and messaging efforts from/by national governments, particularly as of May and June 2020 – as compared to this time last year.

This is evidenced through national campaigns during religious occasions and holidays, as well as local awareness raising efforts by religious leaders in particular, as opposed to faith-based NGOs.

Out of the Covid response efforts tracked by 25 Religions for Peace IRCs in 4 regions, thanks to the Multi-Religious Humanitarian Fund administered by RfP, multi-religious efforts are, on average, much harder to encourage than efforts administered by Ecumenical or single religion organisations.

A rough estimate shows that out of the nearly 100 humanitarian assistance projects being tracked by RfP in 40 countries in parts of Africa and Asia, only 1 percent involve multi-religious efforts. Several IRCs have also reported finding it harder to even advocate for multi religious collaboration to provide pandemic assistance (food and medicine packages) in conflict impacted countries (i.e. more than it normally is to seek to mediate some of the conflicts and/or work with governments in mediation efforts).

While it is now almost a cliche to call for more partnerships with religious, or faith-based actors, this is simply not good enough. FBOs, like many NGOs fully immersed in relief efforts, are finding several (good) excuses not to work together.

Faced with a global pandemic, even the FBOs – ostensibly inspired by religious calls for serving all, including the most vulnerable – are less keen on collaborating across their multiple differences (institutional, theological, structural, financial and political), as they continue to serve millions.

Is it enough to serve all who need regardless of religious affiliation (the current bar against which religious NGOs are often measured by the UN and other international entities), or should a pandemic inspire more, and better collaboration among multi-religious partners?

One can but wonder what the relative lack of religious NGO collaboration may foretell for social coexistence after the pandemic, not to mention what this lack of collaboration spells for the legitimacy of the so-called prophetic voice many of them speak of.

Excerpt:

Credit: Religions for Peace/RfP2020

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Mar 25 2020 (IPS)

I was able to take office as the secretary general to the largest global interfaith organization – Religions for Peace – with interreligious councils (IRCs) composed of senior-most religious leaders representing their religious institutions, in 90 countries, and 6 regional IRCs, a week before we had to ask all employees to work from home, in compliance with New York State law.

As a person who feels functional with direct and open communication, where I can get a sense of the person (or persons) I am talking with, having to take leadership over an office of people I can no longer be with, feels a little like trying to run with legs tied together. It can be done, but it is tough.

And this is now the new normal, not only in the US, but everywhere in the world. For the first time in recorded human history, coming together – even within and among nuclear families – is a dangerous option, literally done at the risk of health and lives.

Thanks to more and more governmental regulations designed to ‘flatten the curve’ of a deadly and racing rate of Covid-19 infections, ‘social distancing’ is identified as the only viable option until a vaccine can be developed and given. Social distancing literally means not being in the presence of one another.

In the last decade, several functionaries around the world were learning to communicate via many electronic means, which enabled us to ‘see’ each other, while being thousands of miles apart.

Some institutions were trying to move to reducing carbon footprint from travel, by hosting more and more meetings/conferences/presentations on-line.

Prof. Azza Karam. Credit: United Nations

But this was occasionally done. And it bears mention that when this was done, the sense was invariably colored by some dissatisfaction for those of us who appreciate actually being in the same space with those whom we can see and speak with.

Most theories of communication insist that nothing can replace being together and seeing one another face-to-face – even corridor talk can often make the difference between a peace deal and a continuing war.

This hampering of our ability to be in the presence of one another on a regular basis will definitely contribute to changing the world forever.

As businesses, finance, all levels of education, civic action, religious services, governance, intergovernmental affairs – almost every profession including even many forms of health care – now moves irrevocably to almost total and complete reliance on virtual communication, our words will matter more than ever.

What we say, the words we choose and use, and how we use them, will matter even more than they already did. And they already matter plenty, as increasing norms around “email etiquette” also testify for instance.

Use of words by political and religious leaders in particular, already make a big difference to the perception of impact and capacity. Some politicians are under heavy criticism for how they are reacting to the Covid-19 crises. Few are praised.

Credit: Religions for Peace/RfP2020

These perceptions are not only based on the laws and regulations being put in place (and when or how these happen). A great deal of value is also placed on the words used.

Words have an impact on human consciousness, something scientists have long studied, and many researchers and health services are committed to. Articulation and eloquence have long defined culture.

And ‘having a way with words’ is a way of either praising special capacity – or bemoaning ‘spin’. Words, and how they are used, is a large part of what many bemoan as ‘fake news’.

So, we know that words matter. Now that we move into virtual communication for everything from trade to learning, from industry to worship, words will matter more than ever.

It is time to learn how to speak with mercy, how to raise interest and make deals with words, how to speak truth to power, heal wounds, raise alerts, voice concerns, convince and impact, even how to show deep love, all with words.

Faith – in anything, from a government and political leader, to a policy, to public advocacy, to all manner of relationships – will have to be elucidated and demonstrated through the word. Never before, have words mattered to so many at all times.

Time to pay attention, therefore, to how we use the word. Time to listen, and to learn, from some of those who come from the oldest professions of using and understanding and translating the word.

Faith leaders themselves are learning to communicate to their communities and congregations, manage worship, very differently – but still very much rooted in the word.

This is why Religions for Peace has issued a call to all faith leaders from all traditions, ages, regions, and identities, to raise their voice in prayers for and with one another, and to share narratives and stories of love in times of Covid.

For it is time for the kind words to overflow to express love and realise healing for this earth and for one another. As we gaze upon this world, we recognize we have to contribute to new beginnings for all life. And in the beginning was the word.

And regardless of where we stand or what mission we serve, the word now has to be love/mercy/compassion/dignity for all life. This is the change we must realise to survive, and in Maya Angelou’s words, to thrive.

Excerpt:

Delivering services through a faith-based NGO in Zimbabwe..." Credit: Walter Keller, third-eye-photography.jimdo.com

By Azza Karam
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 12 2019 (IPS)

Since 2008, a number of articles/opinions have been written, on the nexus between religion and development.

In chronological order, the articles first made the case for why ‘religion matters’ to the attainment of developmental objectives, noting how religious leaders are critical to changing social norms which can be in contradiction to human rights, and noting the extent to which faith-based organisations (FBOs) have anyway served as the original social service providers known to human kind.

Around 2014, the articles continued in the same vein, i.e. making the case that partnering with religious actors was an increasingly recognized necessity within the UN itself, but also for other governments and non-governmental development partners.

Except this time, the argument incorporated some of the political facets of religion. At the height of the ISIS/so-called Islamic State terrorism, the articles argued for recognition of the value of religious engagement, whether it was intervening in combatting Ebola or seeking to counter violent extremism.

In 2015 and 2016, the call was to acknowledge that increasing partnerships with religious NGOs, for health, education, nutrition and other aspects of development, was “the new normal” for development practitioners.

Azza Karam

Moreover, the argument was that such partnerships were in and of themselves, a means of countering the narratives of violence and extremism in communities.

In 2017, however, another note crept into the analysis on the intersections between religion, development and foreign policy: a note of warning.

The caution noted the increasing preference, undertaken by certain governments, in promoting more direct partnerships with religious NGOs in other countries, rather than supporting multilaterals to scale up successful partnership initiatives for the SDGs/Agenda 2030.

The article noted that the interest on the part of some governments to circumvent multilateral partnerships and aim for direct support to specific religious NGOs abroad, carried a “…danger … that such efforts will be misconstrued as the new colonial enterprise in international development, playing into rising religious tensions globally.

History is replete with examples where mobilizing religious actors in other countries, no matter how well-intentioned, can create some rather unholy alliances”.

In fact, this was the beginning of a now ongoing concern wherein ‘religion’ and ‘religious engagement’, somehow delinked from people’s faith and/or beliefs, are increasingly perceived as an element in the toolbox of development and foreign policy praxis – i.e. a transactional commodity.

This can take many forms. Including an increasing convening of FBOs as ‘non traditional partners’ to be hosted and feted around policy tables, building new NGOs and INGOs around ‘religion’ and ‘religious engagement’, formulating business propositions around these themes, and now, increasingly, seeking to tap into the financial resource bases of some of these faith-based entities (largely Islamic ones).

A few of the most skeptical voices are now noting (mostly in private conversations) that ‘add religion and stir’ could be argued to be ‘the new flavor’ in the market of international development.

But being in the ‘toolbox of practices and approaches’, per se, is not unhelpful. On the contrary, development – writ large to include peace, security and human rights – is a series of learned processes.

By now it is even a cliché to say that there is no one-size fits all development intervention. By extension therefore, different ‘tools’ are needed to assess what or which intervention works, and what may not, in diverse contexts.

And there is a significant body of evidence built, which proves that FBOs are key actors in development, and that investing in partnerships with FBOs is cost-effective and socially transformative (see the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities – https://jliflc.com/

But when ‘religious engagement’ can be part of a transactional approach, are there guarantees that the link to people’s faith, and belief systems, will not be forgotten, overlooked, or worse still, appear to be abused?

The fact is, FBOs symbolize, and in some cases, epitomize and uphold, what many people actually believe in. That is also why many FBOs can draw upon the regular contributions of believers (e.g. donations and collections in churches and zakat contributions).

Many FBOs are pleased with the secular policy makers’ increased attentions, and eager for more as they see this as a vindication of their particular wisdom and unique value-added.

But some are beginning to voice an increasing skepticism, “[W]e feel as though we are treated, at best, as a rubber stamp… instrumentalised to serve already agreed upon agendas…” is not an uncommon refrain.

The increase in the number of meetings (mostly of the same groups of FBOs) is not necessarily accompanied by equivalent financial and/or political support to actual multi-faith collaboration or advocacy.

Nor are these multiple convenings, leading to innovative governmental or intergovernmental support for broader, integrated civil society engagement for human rights, in an era of shrinking civic space globally.

Some of the smaller FBOs are slowly beginning to question the time they are devoting to answer the increasing meetings hosted by some governments and organisations.

Their presence at these increasing number of meetings, the FBOs argue, is likely contributing to enhance the appearance of the conveners’ image as ‘sensitive to religious sensibilities’; as being ‘concerned for freedom of religion or belief, or for religious minorities (often not in their own back yard but in other countries), and/or appearing to be savvy enough to address the ‘missing link’ in development and peacemaking interventions.

Yet other international FBOs, by now well-versed in engaging with certain policymakers, are taking the opportunity to stipulate thinly veiled conditionalities for their engagement. Peacemaking, environmental stewardship, protection of children and minorities, are all ‘good’.

But gender, gender equality, gender identity, comprehensive sexuality education, reproductive health, reproductive rights, sexual rights, and/or family planning, are all no-go areas for some of the well-established FBOs.

The price for engagement on one set of issues with these partners, therefore, may well be the forgoing – or silencing – of the human rights – and dignity – of others.

Other faith-based partners are viewing the governmental and intergovernmental interest in their methodologies, and now, increasingly, in their resourcing modalities (e.g. in Islamic financing) with more suspicion.

Barely accusatory questions such as “are you interested in partnering with us or in picking our brains?” and “why are you interested in our money all of a sudden?” are now heard in more than one meeting whether in Stockholm, New York, Cairo or Buenos Aires.

Certainly such questions can be dismissed as misunderstandings or lack of awareness, or shrugged off by those whose convictions are so strong that the right thing is being done. But would it be wise, perhaps, to pause and reflect on the root causes which may be inspiring such questions in the first place?

Are we honoring multi-religious civic collaboration for sustainable development, or are we possibly risking making religious engagement a transactional enterprise – and thereby forgoing some of the most difficult human rights?

Excerpt:

Azza Karam. Credit: UN photo

By Azza Karam
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 3 2018 (IPS)

In 1994, Dr. David R. Hawkins wrote a book positing the difference between power and force (Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior – the latest revised version came out in 2014).

Basing his hypothesis on the science of kinetics, Dr. Hawkins made a case for how human consciousness – and the physical body – can tell the difference between power, which is positive, and force, which is not. An example of power over force is illustrated as Gandhi’s non-violent resistance to the force of British colonialism.

Power is slow, steady, and long lasting, whereas force is moving, fast, and tends to both create counter-force, and eventually exhaust itself. Dr. Hawkins’ argument, often labeled as ‘spiritual’, lays the groundwork for how faith, or belief, is a source of power, and, to coin a phrase, it’s all good.

Historically, from the first century’s Lucretius, to 16th Century Machiavelli, to 18th Century’s Voltaire and David Hume, through to modern day Richard Dawkins and others among the New Atheists, it has long been argued, in different ways, that religion —particularly as manifested through religious institutions — is, in Hawkins’ terms, more pertinent to the realm of ‘force’.

And yet, it is still largely towards these religious leaders, and religious institutions, that the international community (now increasingly shepherded by many governments) is looking, as a means to (re)solve a myriad of human development and humanitarian challenges.

These challenges include poverty, migration, environmental degradation, children’s rights, harmful social practices, ‘violent extremism’ (often narrowed down only to the religious variety), and even armed conflict. Religious leaders, and occasionally faith-based organizations, are posited as the panacea to all these, and more.

The notion of partnering with religious actors as one of the means to mobilise communities (socially, economically and even politically), to seek to (re)solve longstanding human development challenges, has evolved significantly inside the United Nations system over the last decade. But the intent of the outreach from largely secular institutions towards religious ones, has changed in the last couple of years.

The rationale for partnership, as argued by the diverse members of the United Nations Interagency Task Force on Partnership with Religious Actors for Sustainable Development (or the UN Task Force on Religion, for short) in 2009, was based on certain facts: that religious NGOs are part of the fabric of each civil society, and therefore bridging between the secular and religious civic space is key to strong advocacy and action for human rights (think the Civil Rights Movement in the USA); that religious institutions are the oldest and most long-standing mechanisms of social service provision (read development including health, education, sanitation, nutrition, etc.); and that some religious leaders are strong influencers (if not gatekeepers) of certain social norms – including especially some of the harmful social practices that hurt girls and women.

Thus, the UN Interagency Task Force developed guidelines for engagement with religious actors, based on a decade of learning, consultations and actual engagement among 17 diverse UN entities and almost 500 faith-based NGOs. These guidelines stipulate, among other aspects, engagement with those who are committed to all human rights. Thus, there is to be no room for cherry-picking, or so-called ‘strategic’ selectivity about which rights to honour, and which to conveniently turn a blind eye to.

When the specific religious actors who are committed to all human rights, are convened, even around one development or humanitarian issue, the ‘power’ in the convening space is palpable, and the discourse can – and does – move hearts and minds. This was evident as far back as 2005 when UNDP started convening Arab faith leaders around the spread of HIV.

Some of the very same religious leaders who held that HIV was a ‘just punishment for sexual promiscuity’, when confronted with the scientific realities of the spread of the disease, and its very human consequences on all ages and all social strata, signed on to a statement which remains one of the most ‘progressive’ (relatively speaking) in religious discourse of the time, and some went so far as to ask for forgiveness from those living with HIV among them.

The ‘power’ of religious actors who are systematically convened together for the human rights of all, at all times, was repeatedly witnessed over the course of several UN initiatives over the years, in different countries, and at the global level. Notably, UNFPA and UNICEF convened religious leaders with other human rights actors, to effect a social transformation as witnessed in a number of communities committed to stopping the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in several sub-Saharan African countries.

The latest event took place as 2017 wound to an end, in December, when the UN Office for the Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, after two years of convening religious actors – using the UN systems vetted partners and it’s Guidelines — as gatekeepers against hate speech, responded to a request from some of the religious leaders themselves, to come together from several South Asian countries (including Myanmar, Thailand, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka).

Sharing respective experiences of protecting religious minorities and standing in solidarity with the rights of all, across religions and national boundaries, created a sense of shared purpose, and above all, of possibility, hope – and yes, of power. Not a minor achievement in a time of a great deal of general confusion and sense of instability around, and with, religion.

Can the same be said of convening religious actors who are prepared to uphold a particular set of rights, even at the expense of ignoring other rights, ostensibly for the ‘greater good’? Or are we then, very possibly, inadvertently mobilising the ‘force’ of religion?

Excerpt:

By Azza Karam
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 4 2017 (IPS)

A decade ago, it was difficult to get Western policy makers in governments to be interested in the role of religious organizations in human development. The secular mind-set was such that religion was perceived, at best, as a private affair. At worst, religion was deemed the cause of harmful social practices, an obstacle to the “sacred” nature of universal human rights, and/or the root cause of terrorism. In short, religion belonged in the ‘basket of deplorables’.

Azza Karam, Senior Advisor, UNFPA and Coordinator, UN Interagency Task Force on Religion and Development

Yet, starting in the mid-1990s with then President of the World Bank, James Wolfenson, and celebrated in 2000 under then UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan when the Millenium Development Goals were agreed to, a number of religiously-inspired initiatives coalesced, all trying to move ‘religion’ to international development’s ‘basket of desirables’.

The arguments used to begin to generate positive interest in the role of religious NGOs in international multilateral fora were relatively straightforward. Today they are almost a cliche: religious institutions are the oldest social service providers known to human kind, and several basic health and educational institutions of today, are administered or influenced to some extent, by religious entities.

So if we are serious about strengthening health systems and universal access to healthcare, enhancing educational institutions, content and accessibility, protecting our environment, safeguarding the rights of marginlised and vulnerable populations, countering social exclusion and ensuring human dignity, then – the argument is – we have to work with those who influence minds, hearts, and continue to provide and manage significant amounts of social services in most countries. Facts and figures as to how many social services are provided by/through religious institutions continue to be provided and roundly disputed.

The number of initiatives within the secular multilaterals – like the UN – which focused on ‘religion and development’ began to slowly attract the attention (and the money) of some western donor governments such as Switzerland and Norway, both of whom were keen on mobilising religious support for women’s rights in particular. Some governments (such as the USA and the UK) dabbled in engaging with religious NGOs both at home in their own countries, and supporting some of them in their development and humanitarian work abroad.

Nevertheless, from a multilateral perspective, the larger tapestry of western donor support to efforts around religion, tended to be marginal – dipping toes in the water rather than taking a plunge.

With the increasing presence of al-Qaeda on the world stage in 2001, and the subsequent war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the world witnessed the emerging gruesome hydras of religious extremism, at once fueling, and being fueled by, the phenomena of ultra nationalism, racism, xenophobia and misogyny. Some western governments spoke openly of engaging religious actors in counter-terrorism, but this narrative was fraught with political tensions.

It was only when migrants appeared to ‘flood’ European shores (albeit in numbers which are only a fraction of those ending up in developing countries), that there was a noticeable surge of keen interest by several western governments in ‘this religion thing’.

For the UN developmental entities who had invested significantly to generate the interest of their largest western donors in the relevance of religions to development, spurred by the learning from the MDGs and with a view to realizing Agenda 2030, there was a noticeable volte face which was taking place right under their noses.

Almost overnight, UN-steered initiatives to engage with religious actors and enhance partnerships around health, education, environment, women’s rights, humanitarian work, all of which had been painstakingly prepared and backed by years of research, consultations, networking and shared practice (as the work of the UN Interagency Task Force on Religion and Development testifies) became the object of desire by some governments.

Rather than seek to support the UN in continuing to engage with this work and the critical partnerships developed and labored over for years, however, the objective of these governments is to seek to directly manage the convening, networking and funding roles of faith-based entities, ostensibly with the same objectives of achieving the SDGs.

But there is a critical difference between the UN convening and working with faith-based organizations and religious leaders, and one or a handful of governments doing so. To survive, to thrive, and to protect human rights, the agenda of multilateral entities has to remain distinct from the national self-interest of any one government – or a handful thereof – no matter how powerful this government (or these governments), may be.

This applies to all issues, constituencies and types of partnerships outlined in SDG 17. But the argument here is even more powerful: that where religions are concerned, the need for unbiased and non-partisan engagement with religious actors, distinct from any one nation’s self-interest, is crucial.

If there is suspicion about the role of a non-western government in supporting religious actors in countries outside of its own, then why do we not also suspect western governments of involving themselves in supporting religious efforts in countries other than their own?

This question becomes especially pertinent when we begin to look at the religious composition of the western governments now keen on ‘supporting religion and development’ abroad – they are mostly Christian. And if we look at the governments viewed with much suspicion who have long been supporting religious engagement overseas (also for development and humanitarian purposes, one might add), they tend to be Muslim. A coincidence perhaps?

To avoid these kinds of questions, it would behoove all concerned parties interested in achieving the significant targets of the Sustainable Development Goals, and with a view to endorsing the United Nations’ mandate of safeguarding peace and security and protecting human rights, to support the efforts of the UN system in engaging the whole of civil society.

Rather than efforts driven by some governments, to work with select religious actors, in some countries, the challenge (which is fully achievable) is to strengthen the multi-faith and broad-based civic coalitions of legally registered, bona fide NGOs, working with and known to their governments and to the UN entities, at national, regional and global levels, to deliver for the world.

Otherwise, the danger is that such efforts will be misconstrued as the new colonial enterprise in international development, playing into rising religious tensions globally. History is replete with examples where mobilizing religious actors in other countries, no matter how well-intentioned, can create some rather unholy alliances.

Excerpt:

By Azza Karam
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 6 2015 (IPS)

In 2007, an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune argued that you “gotta have faith in the U.N”.

A play on words, the article posited that the shifting sands of geopolitics and concerns surrounding available developmental resources were demanding a rethink of multilateral institutions and traditional forms of developmental partnerships. The fact is, there is no blueprint for multilateral engagement with religious actors, especially as we live in times in which we confront some of the most paralysing human political, cultural and economic strife, at the hands of other ‘religious actors’.

As part of this re-imagining of global relations, the article argued, religion, and diverse faith-based actors in particular, had to be reckoned with more seriously by policy makers at the United Nations in particular – given the timeliness of the ‘mid-term’ MDG review processes.

The article noted that unless religion was systematically and consistently factored into developmental outreach, policy design, programme implementation, and monitoring efforts, something would continue to be missing in the equation of sustainability of human development processes.

In line with the gist of the article, a United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Engaging with Faith-Based Organizations for Sustainable Development was officially formed under the aegis of the U.N. Development Group (UNDG), in 2009, bringing together several U.N. entities (UNFPA, UNICEF, UNDP, WHO, UNAIDS, as well as U.N. Alliance of Civilizations, DESA, UNESCO, UNHabitat and UNEP) with the World Bank as an observer, and headquartered in New York.

The mandate of this body, dubbed the “UN Task Force on Religion and Development” for short, was to seek to share knowledge, and build U.N. staff and systems’ capacities on dealing with faith-based entities, and questions of religion, around the MDGs.

At first, the aspiration of some members of this Task Force was to develop common guidelines for dealing with religious actors, to which the varied U.N. developmental agencies/offices in particular, could sign on to. Very soon it became clear that common guidelines would not be possible.

Why? Because to agree to common guidelines would entail some form of common acceptance that religion mattered. Even more challenging, common guidelines would imply some sort of legitimacy around a complex and hard to define category of ‘religious actors’.

The Task Force members collaborated to serve as a hub for information and knowledge sharing between and among U.N. agencies and religious NGOs (or faith-based organisations/FBOs) accredited to ECOSOC or to DPI.

In February 2015, World Bank President Jim Kim convened a roundtable with CEOs of major international development and humanitarian FBOs, and religious leaders. In it, he stated that [the World Bank] cannot effectively seek to eradicate poverty without partnering with FBOs and religious leaders.

“We are open for business,” he said, indicating that these very actors can hold the World Bank accountable, henceforth, for more systematic engagement. The exact modalities of which, it should be noted, are yet to be worked out.

The meeting between WB President Jim Kim and the leaders of major FBOs signals a tipping point in international development, which will be underlined next week, on July 8 and 9, when the World Bank, together with bilateral co-sponsors, international FBOs and aid agencies, will convene a global conference on “Religion and Sustainable Development”.

The conference will focus on eradicating extreme poverty – one of the World Bank’s key objectives and the number one SDG. The objectives of the meeting will be to look at the evidence of faith-based engagement in poverty eradication, specifically in health, humanitarian relief and violence against women; to seek actionable recommendations for scaling up successful work modalities, and to secure more targeted and strategic investment in “faith assets”.

Building a ‘global faith-based movement for sustainable development’ has been mentioned by some of the organisers as one of the outcomes of this gathering. This conference may well mark a turning point in international development speak – from ‘whether/why to engage with faith actors’, to ‘how to engage better’.

The question is whether the conference could signal a moment in the trajectory of international development when ‘engaging with religious actors’ may well become the ‘new normal’?

Immediately following the World Bank meeting, on July 10 and 11, the U.N.’s Inter-Agency Task Force will convene a select number of donors, U.N. agencies and FBO partners, to host its second trilateral policy roundtable also on religion and the SDGs (the first took place in May of 2014).

The objective of this meeting is, put simply, to press the ‘pause’ button, so as to reflect, together, on where this potentially ‘new normal’ could lead us.

Focusing on the ‘governance’, ‘peace and security’ and ‘gender equality’ development goals, and with the relative ‘safe space’ afforded by respecting Chatham House rules, the gathered participants will speak candidly to what each organisation, and policy maker, in each of these ‘sectors’, is facing when religion comes into the mix.

Needless to say, these three developmental goals are where the challenge of religious dogma, harmful practices, and incitement to extremes of violence – to name but a few – are very much at play.

Those of us who have had to do battle inside our own organisations to bring attention to bear on the importance of learned appreciation of the roles of religion know full well how the difficulties posed by some religious ideologies, certain religious organisations, and specific ‘religious’ leaders are not just ‘out there’ in the communities we ostensibly serve, but also form part of the intergovernmental debates which define the organisational mandates we serve.

Part of the claim to success of some FBOs is their age-old capacity to provide social services directed to inequalities among the most hard to reach, and to develop innovative means of resourcing their work – including a capacity to rely on volunteer labour.

At the same time, however, some of the experience of certain U.N. entities –especially around human rights (and women’s rights in particular)- bespeaks serious challenges with certain religious leaders and faith entities.

It is not insignificant that this moment of honest reflection is being sought as the Financing for Development (FfD) conference, with all its attendant disputes among different Member State groupings, is also being enacted.

One of the many critical questions to be debated is whether FfD should have its own follow-up and review process or be merged with the post-2015 process. Also debated are issues of accountability and shared responsibility between and among governments, as well as dynamics relevant to public-private partnerships around human rights.

But where does follow-up, accountability and partnership modalities with faith-based actors fit into these debates?

The fact is, there is no blueprint for multilateral engagement with religious actors, especially as we live in times in which we confront some of the most paralysing human political, cultural and economic strife, at the hands of other ‘religious actors’. So as we undertake to normalise faith-based engagement with multilateralism, we have some serious questions to confront and find answers to together with our faith-based partners.

These include: should we be cautious of seeking to normalize partnerships with faith-based development organizations, and with religious leaders, at a time when some faith-based entities, and certain ‘religious leaders’, are also significantly undermining the very basis of multilateralism based on universal human rights, human development, and peace and security?

How realistic is it to maintain that we are working with the ‘good [faith-based] guys’ only? Or is it (finally) time to be very clear about the means of implementation and accountability of such partnerships, at a U.N.-system wide level?

Given the intergovernmental haggling over means of implementation and the U.N.’s fit for SDG purposes, what are the criteria which will be used to assess whether the U.N., in its current guise, is indeed, fit for the purposes of religious partnerships?

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Scene from an Ebola treatment facility run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Guéckédou, Guinea. Credit: UN Photo/Ari Gaitanis

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Nov 13 2014 (IPS)

The simultaneity presented by the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus on one hand and militant barbarism ostensibly in the name of Islam on the other present the international development community – particularly the United Nations and international NGOs – with challenges, as well as opportunities.

At first sight, the two are unrelated phenomena. One appears to be largely focused on the collapse of health services in three countries, and to a lesser extent, on economic and political ramifications thereof.ISIS claims religion in its very name, ethos and gruesome actions. Can the international humanitarian and development worlds afford to continue to ignore religious dynamics – precisely because of the extent to which their actions challenge human rights-based actions?

The other, i.e., ISIS/ISIL/IS, appears to be a complex basket of geopolitical conflagrations involving a violently militant political Islam, weak governance dynamics, botched uprisings, transnational youth disaffection, arms proliferation — all to name but a few.

So what is the connection and why is this relevant to international development and humanitarian engagement?

In a Strategic Learning Exchange organised by several United Nations bodies, and attended by U.N. development and humanitarian staff, and their counterparts from a number of international faith-based development NGOs, which took place in Turin, Italy last week, the confluence of these challenges was tackled head-on.

The U.N. and faith-based NGO staff present work both in their headquarter organisations as well as on the ground in countries in Africa, Asia, and the Arab region.

In both sets of cases, there are realties of overstretched service providers seeking to respond, in real time, to rising death tolls, collapsing state-run services, and the actual inability to deliver basic necessities to communities struggling to stay alive because of diverse, but nevertheless man-made, barriers.

Some of these are run by those carrying arms and demarcating territories as off limits while those within them are imprisoned, tortured, killed, terrorized, and starved. Other barriers are made of communities hiding their ill and their dead, distrusting and fearing those seeking to help, and anguished over the loss not just of loved ones, but also of care-takers, sources of income, and means of protection.

But there are other barriers which the last few weeks and months have revealed as well, some of which present long-term challenges to institutional and organisational cultures, as well as to the entire ethos of international humanitarianism and development as we know it today.

The response to the Ebola virus, first and foremost, focused on the medical aspects – which was/is urgent and unquestionable.

But it took months before international aid workers realised one of many tipping points in the equation of death and disease transmission: that burial methods were key, and that even though there are manuals which seek to regulate those methods so as to ensure medical safety, there was relatively less attention paid to the combined matter of values, dignity and local cultural practices in such crisis contexts.

Burying the dead in a community touches the very belief systems which give value and meaning to life. How those infected with Ebola were buried had to be tackled in a way that bridged the very legitimate medical health concerns, but also enabled the family and community members to go on living – with some shred of meaningfulness to their already traumatised selves – while not getting infected.

When this particular dilemma was noted, faith leaders have been hastily assembled to advise on burial methods which bridge dignity with safety in these particular circumstances. But the broader and more long-term roles of ‘sensitising’ and bridging the medical-cultural gap between international aid workers, local medical personnel and over-wrought communities have yet to be worked out.

And the opportunity to address this medical-cultural gap (which is not new to development or humanitarian work) extends beyond burials of the dead and medical care for the living, to providing psycho-social support, and ensuring economic livelihoods. In these areas, too, faith-based NGOs have roles to play.

The militancy of ISIS and the repercussions of the war currently being waged both with and against them presents a similar set of cultural challenges to national and international actors.

This cultural feature was reiterated with cases from the same Arab region involving Hizbullah, Hamas, and now ISIS. How to navigate practical roadblocks controlled by parties you are not supposed to be talking to as a matter of principle, and who question the very legitimacy of your mandate, as a matter of practice – precisely because it does not ‘do religion’ and is part of a ‘Western secular agenda’?

Yes, there are manuals and protocols and procedures governing the provision of services and rules of engagement – in compliance with international human rights obligations. Yet, some hard questions are now glaring: should any form of ‘dialogue’ or outreach be possible between those who speak human rights law, and those who wish to speak only of “God’s laws”?

Are there lessons to be learned from prior engagement with (now relatively more mainstream) Hizbullah and Hamas, which may have resulted in a different trajectory for the engagement with ISIS today, perhaps?

Boko Haram’s actions in Nigeria and al-Qaeda’s presence (and elimination of Bin Laden) in Afghanistan have highlighted a link between religious dogma and critical health implications. Unlike with Ebola however, a possible role for faith leaders – and other faith-based humanitarian and development actors – has not been solicited. At least, not openly so.

And yet, could these roles shed some light on the particular ability of some religious actors to maneuver within humanitarian emergencies in these specific circumstances?

Could a clearer appreciation of the potential value-added of faith-based interventions – which have to be distinguished from those of ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, etc. – increase understanding of and dealing with a world view that is costing lives, now and in the future?

ISIS claims religion in its very name, ethos and gruesome actions. Can the international humanitarian and development worlds afford to continue to ignore religious dynamics – precisely because of the extent to which their actions challenge human rights-based actions?

And if the international community makes a choice to deal with any religious overtones – and is not capacitated in its current frameworks to do so – whose assistance will be needed to call upon, in which fora and with what means?

There are answers to some of these questions already percolating in several policy-making corridors, inherent in the experience of many cadres working with faith-based/ faith-inspired development NGOs, and academics who have devoted decades of research.

What was clear from the discussions in Turin, and other roundtables on religion and development, is that these questions have to be posed, because the answers belie multiple opportunities.

All opinions expressed belong to the author, and are not representative or descriptive of the positions of any organisation, Member State, Board, staff member or territorial entity.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt: