Oliver McTernan's three years at Harvard University's Centre for International Affairs, have, on the evidence of this interesting book, been well spent. It filled me in large part with admiration, in small part with irritation. Because it does both it will certainly become a focus for discussion amongst all who are concerned about the impact of religion on society.
Religion, says McTernan, can be a major factor in conflict and must not be ignored or marginalised by those trying to find solutions to it. This immediately challenges religious leaders of various persuasions who, when faced with conflict in which their adherents are involved, attempt to convince us that the conflict is political or economic, but not religious. That has often been the reaction to “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland. Religious attitudes are not responsible, we are told. Religious communities are there to pick up the pieces and put on the plasters. It is this desire to disclaim responsibility that has, I suspect, led McTernan to conduct his research, and this book is the result.
He is all too right. Too often I have attended interfaith meetings at which the representatives of the faiths present have explained how peaceful all their sacred texts are. Any deviations have been the result of political or economic forces out of their control. To this McTernan replies, “Religion is rarely the sole cause [of killing] but it is central to the meaning of too many conflicts to be ignored…It has always demonstrated a propensity for violence regardless of the social and political conditions of its devotees”. A further dimension of this has been brought into sharp focus by the action of the suicidal murderers on 11 September 2001. A letter left in a locker at Boston airport by their leader assures his companions “…we will all meet in highest heaven, God willing”. Religious killing in the conviction that God will reward the killers has a long pedigree and comes from different faith traditions. It includes Zealots, Sicarii, Assassins, Thugs and Crusaders, amongst others.
McTernan does not neglect the peaceful ambitions of the major faiths and they are described in detail. It is good to be reminded in the light of current prejudice that “Islam in thought and practice has a long record of tolerance”. St Francis of Assisi and Pope John XXIII get generous mention. Christians and Muslims need to be told that the call of the Talmud is “to seek peace and pursue it”. But ideals apart, when faced with outside threat or internal oppression, all major religious traditions have found ways of squaring the circle. The Bhagavad Gita is full of peaceful ideals. But the history of Arjuna, the hero king, makes clear that sometimes the sword is both inevitable and praiseworthy. We Christians hardly need to be reminded of the just war thinking that followed the conversion of Constantine.
That the major faiths are not pacifist is not news, but that does not line them up with the murderers of September 11th. Terrorism is something different. McTernan himself says that his focus is solely on that form of religiously inspired violence “that is targeted at civilian populations…in order to effect political change or power shifts…” That there have been in history episodes of such religiously inspired violence is unhappily clear enough. That is why in a very positive conclusion McTernan calls for a new emphasis on tolerance – the conviction that, however much we hold to our beliefs, it is not for us to decide how many roads there are to God.
Why the irritation? For three reasons. No secular backdrop is really provided by which to judge religious terror. Terror, historically, has first of all been an act of governments. No mention is made of the epoch-dividing acts of terror of the twentieth century: the destruction of the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the deaths of some 200,000 civilians. Starvation blockade in Nigeria/Biafra, bubonic plague in China delivered by Japan, “shock and awe” inflicted on the people of Iraq: the list is a long one. My question is why religious groups so easily come to justify what their governments have done despite the precepts of their own traditions? How have governments managed so successfully to manipulate faith communities and why are those communities so easily manipulated? Perhaps it is because the most powerful religion of the day – by which I mean nationalism – is not recognised as idolatry. For every person who would kill for religion there are ninety-nine others who would kill for country. Lastly I wonder if enough is said about the failure of religious faiths to undertake positive peacemaking. Peace is not just saying no when a war is about to start. Peace is a permanent search for justice, for empathy, for understanding, for forgiveness, and sometimes for challenging the political and economic structures of the day.
McTernan has done us all a favour in facing up to questions that too often are avoided. Only good can come from some fresh air on these issues. His book is a valuable contribution to the UN's Decade for a Culture of Peace in which we are now living.
