The Promise and Challenge of Multireligious Peacebuilding in the 21st Century: A Myanmar Case Study

Abstract

This article explores whether a relational approach to peacebuilding, shared multireligious perspectives and widening networks can bring sources of strength which enable positive peacebuilding and create grassroots, cross-community peace. While religious peacebuilding organizations have become the object of a burgeoning literature, the role of multireligious organisations in peacebuilding has received far less attention. The purpose of this paper is to redress this lack. By examining the influence, challenges and benefits of multireligious approaches to transnational peacebuilding, we hope to develop a sharper and more critically nuanced understanding of the potential role of multireligious organisations in global peacebuilding, and consider what, if anything, distinguishes them from secular and other faith-based organisations. We do so by analysing the impact of a project carried out in Myanmar by Religions for Peace. The project provides three case studies which offer unique opportunities to consider the limits and potential of multireligious grassroots interventions in conflict contexts with very different histories and cultural configurations.

The Buddhist Nuns and Dialogue in Wartime Myanmar: Understanding the ‘Banality of Othering’

“…From the aforementioned anecdotes, it becomes clear that i) the majority of Burmese Buddhists are not yet ready to engage in dialogical conversations with 'the religious other'; ii) much needs to be discussed within the Buddhist communities before engaging with the 'Muslim-Other'; and iii) while monks are representative of authority and the 'Buddhist way of life' (Walton 2015;King & Owen 2020), Buddhist nuns, though a significant number of more than 60,000, 10 are barely recognised as leaders who are needed in the process of dialogue or can affect changes. Female monastics who carry untapped and transformational potential in terms of facilitating inclusive and sustainable peace (Saf 2019, 1) are often excluded from these processes.…”

The Froman Peace Campaign: Pluralism in Judeo-Islamic Theology and Politics

“…Similarly, an emerging view in both academia and the peacemaking arena has focused on the reconciliatory power religions also have. In 1987, a project originally defined as “religion and conflict” published Religion, The Missing Dimension of Statecraft , an edited volume dedicated to reintroducing religious values into peacemaking (Johnston 1999; Johnston 2014); this was the first major publication in the field of “religious peacebuilding.” It lamented the neglect of religious dimensions in the study and practice of international relations (Johnston and Sampson 1994; Omer et al 2015; Kind and Owen 2020). Since then, religious peacebuilding scholarship reiterates its view that “while the divisive character of religion is widely recognized, its obverse contributions to resolving conflict are all but totally unknown” (Carter 1994, vii; Johnston and Sampson 1994, 4; e.g., Abu-Nimer 2001, 685–86).…”