Soft Power and Conflict Prevention

Lord Parekh Excerpts

Friday 5th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parekh (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking and congratulating the most reverend Primate on securing this debate and introducing it with very considerable eloquence and wisdom. Today’s debate could not have been more timely and morally more engaging. Over the past few years we have become so used to violence that we resort to force every time we want something. This is true of private individuals and groups and, sadly, it is also true of nation states and Governments. When nation states and Governments intervene violently in the name of “humanitarian intervention”—paradoxically so called—sometimes they end up causing more direct and collateral damage than the harm they are seeking to prevent. We need, therefore, to explore non-military alternatives to the use of violence, which is precisely the theme of our debate today.

Before doing that, I want to question—or if not question then certainly interrogate—the concept of soft power. I have said on several occasions in your Lordships’ House that I feel slightly uneasy about the notion of soft power for two simple reasons. The first is that it traps us in the logic of power. We seem to think that soft power can or should achieve more or less the same things as hard power except that it does so by different means. In other words, soft power refers to a different modality, but it does not question the logic of power itself. The second difficulty is that I am not entirely sure what it includes. We talk about persuasion and getting people to think in a certain way, but what about, for example, economic sanctions? Do they constitute the exercise of soft power? What about threats of a non-military kind that one nation might make to another? The arm-twisting that goes on—does that constitute soft power? We need to be careful to ensure that soft power is not understood simply as a negative category—anything that is not hard power—but that it is understood as a positive concept capable of being defined on its own terms.

Once that is done, some difficulties arise. If we engage in certain charitable and philanthropic activities such as supporting NGOs, educational programmes in schools and so on, we somehow begin to think that we have acquired the right to exercise soft power. If the countries in which we invest in these ways do not oblige, we feel cheated. We then ask ourselves what it is that we have been doing, and why. The example of Nelson Mandela was cited a little earlier. Here was a man of whom I would hesitate to say that he was exercising, consciously or unconsciously, soft power. Why does he matter to us? Why does he have such influence? It is because he exemplified a certain way of life and certain ideals, and those ideals speak for themselves.

From a religious perspective—I am not a religious person but inevitably this debate has a religious character—ideals can speak in a quiet way often without being articulated and without being turned into instruments of power. We in Britain do have considerable influence—I will not use the term “soft power”—because we exercise a certain moral authority. However, the notion of moral authority is in danger of being subsumed into and misunderstood as soft power. Beyond the soft power which comes through the kinds of things we have been talking about, there is a certain kind of influence and authority that both individuals and nations can exercise. In our case, we have exercised and continue to exercise a certain kind of moral authority. When we speak, people listen. They may not necessarily agree with us, but they will listen because they know that it is a voice of maturity born out of great historical experience and a talented people who are given to critical debate and therefore to arriving at their views through critical reflection. Ultimately, it is what we stand for which matters, and thus it is how we organise our political life and culture that will give us our moral authority.

The danger, which I began to perceive while listening to the speeches of quite a few noble Lords, lies in the debate about how to connect soft power with the prevention of conflict. The debate is increasingly concentrated on how to accumulate and use soft power, while the prevention of conflict is quietly falling from view. If we are not careful, the language of soft power can be very seductive. It is also worth bearing in mind that soft power can so easily be lost. Britain stood for something very important and exemplified some great ideals. We made a disastrous mistake in the case of Iraq, with the result that lots of people all around the world began to ask what has happened to this great country. It is capable of great wisdom and maturity, so why did it have to follow the American lead? Everyone—Nelson Mandela, the Holy Father in Rome and many others—all said loud and clear that that was not the way to go. That voice included the Jewish community, as the Chief Rabbi said that it was not the way to go, and yet we went. The damage that did to us was great. It wiped out all the years spent building up our moral authority, or what some might like to call soft power.

The first thing to bear in mind when we talk about soft power is that it is, first, a slightly nebulous concept and, secondly, it can easily be undermined by the misuse of hard power. Ultimately, moral authority is achieved because people trust us. They must trust our intentions, that we mean well, and they must trust our judgment, our capacity to arrive at the right kind of view. Trust in our intentions and trust in our judgment take years to acquire, and once they have been acquired, we must ensure that we do not follow a foreign policy or act in a manner which is so partial that it wipes out whatever moral authority we happen to have.

I turn now to a question that has not been touched on, which is the question not just of preventing conflict but of moderating conflict. Human beings being what they are, tainted by original sin, will continue to fight, so what we can hope for is not the creation of a world free of conflict, but one in which they can be managed, moderated and, it is hoped, minimised. Religion has played a very important part in conflict—some data that I looked at recently suggested that, of the about 78 conflicts that obtain in the world today, around 50 or more can be traced to religion in one form or another. Religion either creates conflict or accentuates it, and precisely because it is the source of the problem, it has to be the source of the answer. Most of these conflicts occur in transitional societies in which people who are used to a particular way of life are embracing modernity and all the tensions that that can create. They hold on to their religious institutions, practices and values in order to give them an anchor and a sense of identity. Religion plays a particularly important role in transitional societies.

As I say, religion can become a source of conflict, but it can also be the source of resolving it. I want to explore two or three ideas of how we could lead a movement in that direction under the leadership of the most reverend Primate, who has a great deal to say on these matters and who brings with him his great historical experience. I think that we could take the lead in this direction, but how could that be done? Let us look at how religion has played a part in, for example, suicide bombings in the Middle East. Muslims have debated for years whether that is a right thing for a Muslim to do: is it permitted by the Koran? It was only after three or four years of serious jurisprudential debate that imams in Beirut and Cairo said, “Yes, it is consistent with Islam”, and people engaged with it. You could see how much even suicide bombing depended on religion to give it legitimacy.

Therefore, in order to ensure that religion plays a creative role, I want to suggest that we might do three or four things. First, religion should be encouraged to build bridges between and within communities. That is extremely important. It should also learn to challenge dubious interpretations of religion, as in the case of IS. It is very striking that in the case of IS some Muslim leaders in the Middle East have taken the lead, challenging those who try to hijack religion.

I am also persuaded by a slightly different argument that people have made. In the case of Nigeria and one or two other places—for example, Buddhist monks in Cambodia supporting Pol Pot’s regime, or Serbian churches blessing Serbian nationalists who then went about killing Muslims—religious leaders could have said, “Those who engage in certain kinds of activities will be excommunicated”, or, “They will not be entitled to funeral rites in the same way that suicides and convicted murderers are not”. Religious communities have powerful sanctions and people who have worked with terrorists report them saying, “If we had been told or if we had ever had any doubt that this activity would deny us a place in heaven or that it was against our religion, we would not have engaged in it”. They were looking for some heavenly place and the heavenly place would be denied to them. If church leaders were absolutely clear and said, “Those who engage in it will not be given a decent Christian”—or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist—“burial or cremation”, I think it would have a profound effect and I am surprised that many churches and religious institutions have not taken a lead in this.

Finally, because religious leaders generally tend to be trusted and are seen as people of good will, well meaning, with good judgment, they should play a creative role in bringing various groups together, making their concerns mutually intelligible and ensuring that people are able to talk to each other in a common language. Here we have a wonderful example: South Africa would not have been—pre or post-apartheid—what it is without the role played by Bishop Tutu and many religious people. There is also the role played by the then Archbishop Monsengwo in Congo, by the Sant’Egidio community in Mozambique and Burundi and by Bishop Belo in East Timor. These are some examples of where religious leaders, guided by religion but politically savvy and politically sophisticated, have been able to bring various groups together.

I feel slightly uneasy advocating some of those things because there is a question about whether the close relationship between the state and religion in this way might not create conflicts for secularism, but I think that can be tackled at a different level in a different way. The time has come for us to recognise that religious institutions play a significant role in creating conflict and that they can, therefore, be persuaded to play equally significant roles in dissolving conflict. Therefore, rather than avoid them, states and Governments need to collaborate with them.