The Complex Reality of Religious Peacebuilding by Hertog Katrien;Gopin Marc;

Author:Hertog, Katrien;Gopin, Marc;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Published: 2010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusions

In this chapter, I have presented a conceptual framework of religious peacebuilding which is based, on the one hand, on the field of peacebuilding, and on the other hand, on the field of religious scholarship and practice.

The framework starts from a holistic, comprehensive vision on peacebuilding as reflected in the model of the peacebuilding architecture, which consists of different peacebuilding blocks. Within this peacebuilding architecture, I have paid special attention to the integrative climate, which refers to the soft aspects of peacebuilding. The soft aspects of peacebuilding are understood as “the emotional, psychological, socio-psychological, and existential-spiritual issues involved in peacebuilding, such as attitudes, perceptions, cognitive thinking patterns, values, expectations, desires, emotions, traumas and wounds, assumptions, motivations, relationships, frustrations, intentions, concerns, taboos, principles, norms, beliefs, identities, loyalties, worldviews, and memories.” They pertain to the deepest layers of peacebuilding, are particularly apparent on the personal, interpersonal, and climate levels of peacebuilding, and permeate all the stages of a peacebuilding process. The attention for the soft aspects of peacebuilding is related to an understanding of conflict transformation and peacebuilding which is centered on consolidating peace in the hearts of people, moving their minds from conflicting to reconciling mindsets, transforming adversial and violent relationships into cooperative, peaceful ones, and creating an overall climate of peace. Interacting in an interdependent, mutually reinforcing relationship with the hard aspects of peacebuilding, the soft aspects can be seen as the life-giving, underlying current of any peacebuilding process. Increasingly referred to as “the minds and hearts of the people,” soft aspects are crucial to any peacebuilding process and have become even more important in view of the nature of contemporary conflicts. In addition, I have argued to put the soft aspects more to the center stage of peacebuilding in view of the crucial role that individuals play in processes of social change and their potential to initiate from within a change that transforms society. In short, the soft aspects of peacebuilding, which focus on the deeper layers of peacebuilding, on the individual person and his relation to others, and which permeate all levels and stages of peacebuilding, are crucial for sustainable peace, but until now they have been mostly neglected. It is up to peacebuilding scholars and practitioners to acknowledge their importance and integrate them in peacebuilding thinking and practice.

With regard to the religious basis of the framework, I have first analyzed religion as organization, social actor, and living tradition, with an eye to identify resources for peacebuilding. As organizations, religions can usually rely on peacebuilding resources in terms of networks, channels, institutional resources, and communication systems. Also the internal organization of religions influences the opportunities for peacebuilding. As a social actor, religion is an important factor in today’s world and therefore constitutes a significant political and social power. Since religion is a social phenomenon in continuous, interactive relationship with other social phenomena and processes, it can influence people’s opinions, attitudes, and behavior, as well as social changes, in a conflict-enhancing or conflict-reducing way. As a living tradition, religion

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