Walt Werner
University of British Columbia
Abstract
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Sectarian violence continues in our world. Most of our information about these incidents, though, comes second-hand through the media. This article outlines five suggestions for guiding classroom discussions of media reports on religiously based conflicts. The goal is to encourage thoughtful analyses of these reports, and to counter the influence of overgeneralizations, stereotypes, and cynicism. |
Prior to the "International Year for Tolerance" (1995), UNESCO lamented that "Residual and renewed religious intolerance has intensified and religious discrimination, segregation and conflict undermine national unity and pose severe problems of human relations especially challenging to schools" (1994b, 22). Not a lot has changed in the decade since then. Sectarian violence and repression continue across the globe. But after September 11, 2001, renewed interest in understanding violence arose as the media gave higher profile to the role of religious grievances in conflict, and as President Bush framed in ontological terms his war of "lnfinite Justice" against "Evil."
Social studies is a place where students have opportunity to make sense of current conflicts reported through the media, including those involving sectarian violencei and repressionii (Bickmore 1997, 1999). But how should media reports be used in the classroom? Various approaches to teaching about religious conflicts have been taken:
These approaches are not sufficient for helping students understand particular incidents of conflict reported by the media. This article recommends another approach consisting of five instructional suggestions to guide discussions: map the context, look for hidden wiring, broaden the frame, take a stand, and turn the question. Although these ideas are neither new nor comprehensive, they do have renewed salience for classrooms at this time because of media visibility given to sectarian violence; they briefly suggest a starting point for discussing with students what they read or see in the news in ways that encourage thoughtful analyses and avoid overgeneralizations, stereotypes and cynicism.
Map the Context
Incidents of sectarian violence occur in specific places, sparked by specific events, involving specific individuals and groups who hold specific grievances, and result in specific consequences. They are often ignited by a specific event that focuses issues, gives rise to intensified rhetoric and the alignment of groups, and escalates through cycles of response and counter-response that heighten hatred and desire for further revenge. In the northern Indian state of Gujarat, for example, the country's worst violence in a decade began on February 27, 2001, after a train carrying Hindu nationalists was torched. The 58 deaths prompted riots and retaliatory attacks during the next week, resulting in about 700 deaths (mostly Muslims), burned out communities, and looted businesses. The immediate cause was a Hindu rally in support of building a temple on the site of a sixteenth-century mosque destroyed by a militant mob in 1992, claiming the site was the birthplace of their deity Ram. Followers of the fundamentalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Congress) had gathered on the site and announced their intention to begin immediate temple construction in defiance of a court ruling (Reuters 2002a).
The starting point for classroom discussion is to contextualize the event within its immediate time and place, and cloth it with real participants. This first requires that the incident be taken seriously on its own terms, as exemplified by the following questions: According to the media report(s), who are the participating groups, and what were their specific motivations and grievances? What immediate incident(s) triggered their actions? What are the key issues of disagreement? What past events and conditions led up to the violence? What were the consequences, and for whom? How was the incident defused, and were any underlying issues resolved? The benefit of rich contextualization is that it mitigates against stereotyping — the tendency to overgeneralize from an incident, or to represent an entire religious group or tradition as homogeneous. A little knowledge of an event without contextualization can lead to unwarranted conclusions. For example, when hearing reports on violence involving a particular church, temple, mosque, synagogue, or other religious organization, casual listeners may quickly implicate these institutions in general or hold entire religious traditions as suspect. Mapping the context of a specific event, however, discourages quick judgment in order to first clarify the incident in terms of itself. A focus on specificities also helps to counter abstractions — the West, the Muslim world' axis of Evil, Christendom, Palestinian extremists — when analyzing and evaluating the complex and messy realities of specific conflicts. Reality is much more nuanced than implied by abstractions.
Look for Hidden Wiring
Searching for less visible or immediate causes must follow from contextualization. Underlying the event in northern India were deeper tensions over time. Hindu-Muslim animosity over the past five hundred years focused on the disputed origins of the holy site claimed by both groups, and in 1992 more than 3000 people were killed in riots following the mosque's destruction. But this site is also just one of 3000 where Muslim monuments are claimed to have been built on sacred Hindu ground (Editorial 2002b). Although the Indian state is secular, the rise of Hindu nationalism over the past decade brought Prime Minister Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party to power nationally and in many states (81% of the 1 .3 billion population is Hindu and only 12% Muslim), and this religious-political alignment further encouraged fundamentalism. Recent elections, though, raised uncertainties for religious nationalism:
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It [sectarian violence] has been about a high-stakes chess match in which Hindu chauvinists and Indian secularists are playing for the nation's destiny.... The fundamentalists [World Hindu Congress] are unsettled following a rout of their political ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party, in key state elections last weekend. The party is now in danger of losing power in New Delhi and losing it to the secular Nehru-Gandhi family who Hindu fanatics have always considered to be Muslim apologists. Across four northern states, the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP and its allies were thumped by secular forces, including the Congress Party that is led by Sonia Gandhi.... The BJP, which has held power nationally since l998, even lost control of its beloved heartland, Uttar Pradesh, the country's largest state.... Gujarat, in western India, now remains the only major state where the BJP still holds power. It is where most of this week's violence occurred as state police, curiously, pulled back from Muslim areas that were at risk of being attacked. (Stackhouse 2002, A14) |
Many crosscurrents interweave with the religious violence as political parties struggle for voter support and attempt to shape and use Hindu nationalism as an ally (Editorial 2002a, Khilnani 2002).
In classroom discussions of such events, participants should "look for hidden wiring" to use a phrase coined by Robert Harvey (1982) — on the premise that every event is more complex than appears on the surface. Below are causes and effects interconnected in surprising ways. Violence is nurtured from long-term grievances over unresolved historical injustices, institutionalized economic deprivation and political exclusion, lack of processes for voicing and addressing grievance, and the plight of refugees (Key 2001, Salutin 2002, Thakur 2002). When trying to understand some of these connections, classroom discussants should treat single news reports as incomplete and partial, search the websites of more than one major newspaper over a number of days, and read ideologically differing newsmagazines.
Broaden the Frame
Because most information about violent incidents comes via the media, students need awareness that short news reports are biased towards the sensational side of events and their immediate negative consequences, and give less emphasis to long-term attempts at implementing just and lasting solutions. This focus on episodic carnage and its gruesome details (e.g., shootings, suicide bombings, mob killings) can lead to cynicism regarding future prospects. Whenever possible, then, this narrow framing should be recognized and countered.
An important way to broaden the frame is to balance negative information with positive actions being taken to resolve the situation in ways that are just and non-violent. Otherwise it is easy to over emphasize the tragic and neglect hopeful initiatives seeking compromises and solutions. For example, in ten reports provided by a major newspaper on the course of violence in northern India, only three sentences even hinted that there were groups interested in initiating hopeful action. Two appeared on the fifth and sixth days after the initial mob killings: "In Ahmedabad, Gujarat's largest city, a mob attacked a peace march organized by students" (Freeman 2002), and "Social workers and non-governmental organizations were planning a peace march later Tuesday in Ahmedabad" (Associated 2002). Twelve days after the initial event, readers were informed that many Muslim and Hindu leaders were working to defuse the immediate conflict and establish a long-term and just compromise through the courts and negotiations (Reuters 2002b). This imbalance is typical of news reports, and can lead to unwarranted pessimism about possibilities for peaceful co-existence. Rarely reported are the activities of many non governmental organizations (national or international; secular or faith-based), as well as coalitions of religious and secular groups, providing economic, educational and social development projects in areas prone to religious conflict; this work is based on the positive premise that inter-group violence is not "intrinsic" to human biology, and that groups learn to co-exist through education and a supportive social environment (UNESCO 1991).
An explicit moral frame also needs to be introduced into discussions of media accounts. The basis for openness towards human diversity lies in a fundamental value that all individuals regardless of their religious or any other differences have equal moral worth as persons, and are for this reason alone worthy of respect, basic entitlements and just treatment (Butalia 2001). As the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights"; this shared humanity is the ground underlying the many interlocking values represented by tolerance, human rights, justice, and democracy. Media accounts graphically illustrate how religious intolerance and violence arise when participants reject a commitment to moral equivalence, and with what consequences.
During discussions students should identify and defend basic values they believe necessary for achieving social peace in specific incidents (Merryfield and Remy 1995). Such a task is important, though difficult, because it reminds discussants that values are always at the heart of human actions, attitudes, policies, and social arrangements, and that tolerance and the non-violent pursuit of justice are minimal requisites for inter-group harmony. It also teaches that when values come into conflict, important choices have to be made on limitations; for example, although everyone has the right to observe religious beliefs and practices (Article 18 of the Universal Declaration), this right cannot be enacted in a way that denies the rights of others.
Take a Stand
It is appropriate during classroom discussions to evaluate an incident of violence and take a moral stand against it. Repression dressed up in religious dogma does not make it less repressive or exempt from evaluation. As a journalist rightly noted, "hate speech is hateful, no matter who utters it, or where" (Wente 2001). However, the why and how of such a stand need careful classroom
discussion around the specifics of an incident in order to avoid stereotyping of broad groups. Each
of the following five specifics of a particular incident can be the object of evaluation:
This illustrates the ease with which a specific event can lead to broad conclusions when contextualization is neglected.
These five specifics can be the foci for evaluation. However, evaluation requires contextually appropriate and specific criteria to be made explicit and justified. Whenever criteria are hidden during discussions, possibilities increase for chauvinistic values, unexamined assumptions, inaccurate information, and stereotypes to be taken for granted and reinforced through the discussion itself. There are at least two starting points from which students can develop criteria applicable to a specific incident. The first is a commitment to promoting human rights. One of the achievements of the twentieth century was the forging of consensus across a majority of governments that some moral values on the treatment of peoples are necessary to prevent and deal with violence. iv For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and many other agreements such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination can be used in classrooms as grist for discussion of criteria. Once a conflict is understood contextually, its specifics can be judged in accordance with international standards that define a basic level of respect for persons. The second source is the school subject of social education itself as a value-laden activity. Students need to recognize that promoting an active appreciation for human dignity and justice is an overriding goal of social education. Citizenship is in large part the point of social education, including an unequivocal commitment to democratic values such as active participation in public life without discrimination, respect for minority positions and dissent, respect for the rule of law, pluralism of opinion, freedom of assembly, independence of courts, etc. (UNESCO 1974, 1993a, 1994a). As practiced in North America, the social studies are supposed to be a means for strengthening democratic values and commitments to human rights and justice, and these values can be a source for developing contextually appropriate
evaluation criteria.
Turn the Question
Discussion of distant sectarian violence also needs to be turned back on the school and community. Making judgments about abuses "over there" can be comfortable and easy when disconnected from violence "over here" (Eco 2001, Smith 2001). At some point in discussions of media reports, then, it may be appropriate for participants to personalize how religious intolerance manifests itself in their own lives, classrooms, and the school grounds, as well as what can be done individually and collectively to eliminate it. At the heart of intolerance is "the belief that one's own group, belief system or way of life is superior to those of others" (UNESCO 1994b, 15), and that this thereby gives one the right to denigrate or hurt those who differ. From their experience in the school or community, students can develop indicators for recognizing religious intolerance including the use of pejorative language and name calling, teasing, bullying, excluding, scapegoating, stereotyping and discuss the sources and consequences of these attitudes and actions.
The question can also be turned towards the rhetorical methods used by journalists and readers (ourselves) for interpreting incidents and drawing conclusions. One of the commonest is 'cherry-picking' a sentence out of context from its sacred text and then making it stand for the beliefs of an entire group or tradition. The executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations noted that journalists sometimes "utilize a crude, cut-and-past analysis that uses Koranic texts self-servingly without concern for context.... It is forgotten (or conveniently ignored) that one tenet of Islamic interpretation, as in Talmudic interpretation or Christian scriptures, is that a verse cannot be explained apart from its context. Verses on a given topic must be read together, holistically, for only then can their intent be gleaned" (Saloojee 2002). Another common method lies in the use of crude generalizations that hide the incredible diversity of traditions and experiences encompassed under monolithic umbrella terms such as "Hindu," "Buddhist," "Baha'i," or "Sikh," or that conflate incidents across the past 1500 years as if contexts and beliefs are unchanging. For example, Protestant-Catholic terrorism in Northern Ireland, genocide in Rwanda, or the European religious wars of the sixteenth century in which Christians killed Christians and others do not lead to the broad conclusion that "Christians" across time and place are predisposed to violence. Care also has to be taken that statements of attribution — for example, concerning the beliefs and practices of Islam, Judaism, First Nations, Fundamentalists — do not treat large groups of people from various times and places as unified entities to the neglect of important differences. Another suspect method is to selectively use examples to prove a point. To be reader friendly, journalists are fond of using the experiences or statements of 'real' informants to add human interest to their reports, but students need to be cautious about the inferences and generalizations drawn from a case.
Sectarian violence and repression are unfortunate ongoing facts of our world, and the social
studies classroom has an important role in helping students to make sense of the images of that
world mediated through the news. The five instructional moves discussed above encourage
specific analyses of media reports in ways that do not exacerbate intolerance through
overgeneralizations and stereotypes. Where evidence allows, students can learn to make thoughtful
judgments about specific aspects of a reported violent incident, where the judgments are not based
on ethnocentrism or religious chauvinism, but on contextually appropriate criteria consistent with
universal human rights and the promotion of democratic values and justice.
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Notes
i Violence refers here to the more severe indicators of intolerance: threats or actions that lead to physical harm against a person or group, destruction of their property, exclusion from employment and social institutions, or segregation or expulsion from the community. "All such actions originate in the denial of the fundamental worth of the human person. Thus the overriding goal of education for tolerance is an appreciation and respect for the human dignity and integrity of all persons"(UNESCO 1994b, 15).
ii Religious repression refers to "Enforcement of a particular faith or its values and practices and the favouring of members of that faith over others, rationalized by the notion that the faith in question is the authentic interpretation of religious or spiritual truth" (UNESCO 1994b, 20). Repression includes expressions of hate, and misrepresentations of another group that lead to a climate of fear.
iii For example, many high school students know little about the "troubles" in Northern Ireland than that it involves "Protestants" and "Catholics." Knowing something about abstract theological differences does not help them understand why children on their way to their Catholic school in Belfast were recently subjected to the terrors of adult Protestant hatred.
iv "The modern political and social values out of which the present international standards of human rights have evolved were first articulated in a call for tolerance as fundamental to the maintenance of social order. The Western political philosophers articulated the necessity of tolerance to a society that could no longer tolerate the intolerance and strife of religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The recognition of tolerance as a fundamental component of peace among nations was a significant part of the first modern rights declarations that culminated three centuries later in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights" (UNESCO 1994b, 12).
Walt Werner is an associate professor in the Curriculum Studies Department of the University of British Columbia