Atheists or, more general, ‘western’ non-believers have difficulties to understand faithful people. The consequence is that we tend to analyze and interpret international relations in a sole ‘western’ secular framework. We assume that our framework is the ‘right’ one because our morals, values and judgments that make up that framework are the ‘right’ ones.
The neo-cons and liberal interventionists think we should and can remake other societies in our image. But people in faithful societies see themselves as made in the image of their god. That competitor is hard to beat.
Ryan J. Maher, a Jesuit who has been teaching theology for international affairs students in Qatar, points out:
During my two years in Qatar, I learned that many of my students approached discussions of faith and religion with an intensity and passion that differed in kind, not just in degree, from what I had grown accustomed to in the United States. Sure, there were those, Muslim and Christian alike, who were more interested in arguing than learning. But there were many more for whom religion was something more profound: the outward manifestation of an inner relationship with the divine.
…
The majority of people I know in higher education would argue that there is nothing wrong with religion for people who feel they need it. Their sentiments come down to something like this: "You have your religious convictions, I have mine. Let’s acknowledge our differences and agree to disagree with one another within the confines of polite debate."
…
This template for discussing religion and faith is fundamentally flawed. It presumes that different groups of faithful people approach their religions in the same way football fans approach their favorite teams: .. For people of faith, religion isn’t like that. A person of Muslim faith and a person of Christian faith engaged in honest conversation about religion are not like two fans pulling for their respective teams. They are more like two men in love with the same woman, each trying to express, safeguard and be faithful to his relationship with his beloved. Love brings with it complexities that football does not.
A Jesuit should probably use a better picture than two men in love with the same women, but I think the general idea here is correct.
People without faith have their subjective rational. For them it is
difficult to ‘get’ the subjective rational of people with intense
faith. Vice-versa probably applies. That is not an argument for or
against following a religion. It is to point out that one needs to
leave ones on subjective rational to understand the other. That is
neither easy nor without fear. It also takes time.
Pat Lang recently picked that theme up again with regards to the Middle East:
The
local cultures in the Middle East and Islamic "worlds" are very
strong. They are likely to change at their own pace, influenced by the
flood tides of information in the world today, but they will strongly
resist change at anyone else’s pace.The belief that outsiders can "manage" that change is as destructive today as it has always been.
I
think the argument is also right with regard to religions others than
Islam. Do we understand deeply Buddhist Burma? Do we understand how
faithful Hindi think?
I have argued the issue before in a piece about the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.
Medvedev
is now the leader of the Orthodox-Christian realm. He and the Russian
voters and the Orthodox-Christian people elsewhere are aware of this.
The "west" is not.
We are faithful that our believe
in democratic states, universal justice and enlightenment is right. But
to many those are relative things and there are alternatives to each.
We may not like those and we have the right to disregard them within
our communities. We have no right to press others communities into our
frames. Doing so will lead to conflicts we might well lose.