Notes from lecture:

• It is common belief that human rights are often violated by those in the religious community because they refuse to recognize the human rights of those outside of their community. It is this belief that kept the collaborators/writers of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 from getting entangled with such religious communities when preparing the document. Religious representatives were not invited, though some were present.
• The media/press often criticizes Muslim societies for their violations of human rights. A question arises: How should religion be part of the human rights discourse? Should it?
• Dr. Sachedina wants to increase awareness of human dignity. Increase awareness for all those inside and outside of Islam, for the women, the children, the minorities, etc.
• Sharia is discriminatory, which is a fundamental problem with Muslim law:
  • Sharia is not compatible with human rights.
  • Sharia sees a difference between believers and non-believers
  • Sharia discriminates against women
    • Ex: Case in Saudi Arabia where man has right to sell women. Can selling of women be ok in Sharia? Yes, but the real question that should be asked: Is the selling of women endorsed by religion? No.

Is it Sharia that is responsible for this? Or is it Muslims that have imputed/interpreted Sharia that makes this case? Have they interpreted Sharia to uphold the values of human rights? Or does it have to do with the culture in which Sharia is being used that determines what is and is not right?

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was secularly conceived with universality in mind. Dr. Sachedina objects that religion is not taken seriously by the secular and traditionalists of human rights. Why should they be afraid to entangle themselves with religion?
• We are looking for universal values. Rights = unconditional entitlements. As moral agents we know right from wrong. Human dignity = the respect we can expect to receive as being a member of the human family.
• Dr. Sachedina referred to past legal systems that were challenged, and why legal systems can and should be challenged.
  • Sharia should be challenged!  We need to look at the foundational sources. Is anyone looking at the Qur’an? Muslims did not/do not study theology. Iranians do, but nowhere else do you find Muslims studying theology. They have separated theology from the law. But it is there that we need to be looking.
  • Some societies have institutionalized discrimination because of how they read the Qur’an. Why is it that when some read the Qur’an, they see it as taking dignity away? And yet we hear from Mohammed that the person with dignity is the most pious.
  • If you go to the theology of Qur’an, you will come out for human rights. It has essential teachings about human dignity. The more you go to Sharia, the more you are confined. Sharia defines just three groups of people: believers, non-believers, and people of the book. The teachings of the Qur’an on human dignity need to be recaptured!
  • If you were to ask those who debate Sharia: Can people negotiate their spiritual destiny? They would say yes. But if the answer is yes, then why are those outside the Muslim community not tolerated, or treated as second class? Human rights mean the equality of all citizens. So the distinction between believers and nonbelievers is fundamentally discriminatory.
• When Dr. Sachedina worked on the Iraqi Constitution a few years ago, he argued that because citizenship is a missing concept in Sharia, because no such vocabulary exists, the idea of citizenship is not accepted. When it was suggested the Iraqi constitution be based on Sharia, he asked: Whose sharia? The Sunni Sharia – Shiia Sharia – etc? Also, if the constitution is based on Sharia, then who will be considered a citizen? Dr. Sachedina argues that the constitution can only have Sharia values, not its actually corpus, if you want everyone to be citizens.
• Secularist and traditionalist of human rights are not asking the right questions. In order to protect human rights, we need to answer: Why do we deserve these rights? Why must they be protected? Why just human rights, not animal rights, planet rights, etc?
  • The secularist are not asking the right questions, and so the religious communities are not convinced. They are suspicious of the language used in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They need foundational arguments, such as recognition of God’s image.
  • We must recognize human nature, before we can demand human rights. The Qur’an says all humans are endowed with human nature, not just Muslims, but all humans.  By nature we know right from wrong, so by nature we should ask Why?
• Politics is a human institution. It is not part of religion. The Qur’an says humans’ purpose is to seek justice. Justice must always be strived for. The purpose of government is to guarantee justice and fairness. Humans must create institutions that strive for justice, which means human rights.
  • Conformity with Muslim faith is not required to enjoy the fruits of justice. The Qur’an says “Justice is for everyone!”
  • Qur’an says “Give them the message and then leave them alone! Actual guidance is done by God.” This functional secularity is part of Islam. Religious people can recognize the validity of other’s rights/approach to salvation. We can recognize their right to believe what they want. Qur’an says, “There is no compulsions in the matter of faith.”
  • Governance is not tied with faith, and according to the Qur’an, unjust governments will not last. Government must be held accountable for what it does.

Abdulaziz Sachedina, Ph.D., is Frances Myers Ball Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virgina, Charlottesville. Dr. Sachedina, who has studied in India, Iraq, Iran, and Canada, obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. He has been conducting research and writing in the field of Islamic Law, Ethics, and Theology (Sunni and Shiite) for more than two decades.

In the last ten years he has concentrated on social and political ethics, including Interfaith and Intrafaith Relations and Islamic Biomedical Ethics. Dr. Sachedina’s publications include: Islamic Messianism (State University of New York, 1980); Human Rights and the Conflicts of Culture, co-authored (University of South Carlolina, 1988); The Just Ruler in Shiite Islam (Oxford University Press, 1988); The Prolegomena to the Qur’an (Oxford University Press, 1998), The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism (Oxford University Press, 2002), Islamic Biomedical Ethics: Theory and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2008), Reform through Human Rights: Islamic Political Theology (Oxford University Press, 2009), in addition to numerous articles in academic journals. He is an American citizen born in Tanzania.

From The Psychodynamics of International Relationships: Concepts & Theories,

by Vamik D. Volkan, Joseph Montville and Demetrios A. Julius

In this chapter, Joseph Montville explores the application of psychoanalytic psychology to political analysis and the field of conflict resolution. He begins with a discussion of the analytical ideal, as defined by Freud and expanded on by Fine, as the goal of the global society. The analytical ideal suggests everyone seeks a certain level of balance and integration in the realms of love and work, and when content with one’s standing in these realms, the person’s tendencies towards war and violence are reduced, or cease.

Freud used psychoanalytic psychology as a tool of understanding human activity in social life. Building on this instrument, Mitscherlich suggested a basis for a psychoanalytic approach to political analysis in international relations and foreign policy problems. Eric Erikson used it in what he calls “pseudospeciation,” which illustrates how persons or groups in conflict are willing to dehumanize their enemies.

The “Greening of Diplomacy” concerns the discovery of psychoanalytic literature’s theoretical applications for political phenomena. In Gaylin’s book, Caring, he tells why people need to be valued, respected and loved to be secure. Additionally, he explains why those who have been insulted, attacked, etc. can be violent and destructive in “defiant defense of their identities.” In adolescence, individuals acquire a conscious membership in an identity group, and then grow to share of that group’s historical memories, especially animosities and hurts. It is such historical experience that is important to the formation of national identity.

“Individuals have a protective superstructure of belief in safety through membership in a social system, a sense of personal power and of self worth.” This structure is destroyed by victimization. Victims are exposed to anxieties about threats to their existence. A component of victimization includes that assaults represent just one part of a continuous threat posed by the adversary group, which creates a fear of annihilation. As examples of such a continuous fear taking over victimized groups, Montville discusses the Basques in Spain, Armenians in Turkey, and Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Montville makes a case that an experience of profound psychological processes is necessary for the sense of victimhood to be relieved. There are powerful connections between oppressors acknowledging their wrongs, and then both sides completing a mourning of losses, in order for balance and true sense of respect and security can define the relationship.

So how do you connect security anxiety, uncompleted mourning and peacemaking? Vamik Volkan says uncompleted group mourning has harmful, because rather than letting go, victims attempt to recoup past losses. The inability to mourn is to be unable to adapt to new realities, which allows for psychological effects to carry on from one generation to the next.

In some ways, uncompleted mourning reflects unresolved issues of whether or not survivors of loss can depend on a secure future. Based on objective analysis of a protracted political conflict, it is possible to convince all sides in a conflict that peaceful resolution is feasible, if based on mutually enforced guarantees of security for those victimized. With assured security, the mourning of past losses can be completed. Montville follows this by saying “tribes and nations can ease or resolve long enduring political conflicts, characterized by narcissistic rage and victimhood, by working to reaffirm the innate value of their adversaries though acts of respect, vigorous self-analysis, self-criticism, and contrition.”  He offers several examples of this in history, including Franco-German reconciliation processes after World War II, the Japanese apology at the US Senate four years after the atomic bomb, and lastly the English’s role in the Northern Ireland conflict. .

Over many years of searching for answers to the intractable Arab Israeli conflict, one historic grievance that has stood out for Montville is that of Jews against Gentiles, especially against Christians.  In the process of trying to understand Arab and Jewish psychology, he has learned the reality of what it means to be Jewish in a Christian world. Montville then takes up the history of Christian oppression of Jews. Examples include the fourth Gospel’s condemnation of all Jewish people for the death of Christ; the middle age belief in Spain that all Jews had tails; and Martin Luther’s preaching that Jews are the sworn enemies of Christianity, and compared them with Satan. Contemporary Jews, such as Henry Ebel and Ofira Seliktar, have had the courage to express their pain and rage, over the almost two thousand years of destructive behavior exhibited by Christians.

Montville ends his chapter with a request: “I ask as a private, individual Christian, the forgiveness of the Jewish people for the hurts inflicted on them by Christendom. I ask to be permitted to mourn Jewish losses with Jews and then work in brotherly alliance with Jews and Arabs to mourn unjust hurts suffered by some Arabs as Jews fleeing Christian brutality in’Europe established a homeland in Palestine and ultimately the State of Israel. And I ask to work with Jews and Arabs to establish a relationship which assures a secure and just future for them and their children.”

In conclusion, if there is a greening of diplomacy, it means that strategies of conflict intervention and resolution are being developed by responsible diplomatic officials and unofficial but enlightened citizens in many countries of the world. At key points, it can be used by authorities to take responsibility for the formal protection of the basic right to life and developmental potential of all human beings on the face of the earth.

What is Track Two Diplomacy? In this chapter, Montville answers the question by describing its three distinct processes:

1. Problem-solving workshops that bring together the leaders of conflicting groups for the purpose of:
   1. Developing workable personal relationships in a microcosm
   2. Understanding the dimensions of conflict from the perspective of the adversary, and
   3. Developing joint strategies for dealing with the conflict as a shared problem, the solution of which requires reciprocal and cooperative efforts.

1. Influencing public opinion – A psychological process that consists of reducing the sense of victimhood of parties and rehumanizing the image of the adversary.

1. Cooperative economic development – provides incentives, institutional support and continuity to the political and psychological processes. Offers the prospective of growth, the enhancement of individual well-being, and a measure of stability for families and communities who have suffered significant personal loss and endured chronic stability.

Montville concludes the chapter by citing examples in the European community of track two diplomacy successes. The hope is that these accounts of track two diplomatic efforts will contribute to a better understanding of the potential of conflict resolution.

from Changing Nature of Diplomacy 2006,  7 (2)

In this chapter, Montville discusses the role of public opinion in the healing of history. He says the creation of an environment in public opinion that makes it safer for political leaders to take risks for peace is key. This is the most neglected part of the track two concept and the most promising for real peacebuilding. Montville goes on to highlight the role of public opinion in the case of Northern Ireland conflict.

Next, attention is turned to Israel, the Palestinians, and healing the Jewish-Christian-Muslim relationship. In this section, he asserts that efforts made at the leadership level must be pursued in conjunction with a strategy to create support in public opinion for peacemaking.  “Governments sign treaties, but only the people in conflict can make peace.” He goes on to list several track two activities, which make an important contribution to healing historic wounds in the Abrahamic relationship.

from Social Pathology in Comparative Perspective: The Nature and Psychology of Civil Society,

edited by Jerome Braun

The subject of this chapter contributes to a scientific theory about the psychology of peace making. Montville begins with the phenomenon of mourning in individuals in the face of significant loss, and the need to work through loss by acceptance of it and reintegration, through investment in another object of love. Special note is taken of the apparent connection between grieving and the sense of loss of an object vital to the individual’s security and survival. A move is then made from the individual self to the concept of the group self, its origins and its manifestation as ethnos or nation, and then the idea of collective loss and the resultant large group mourning processes.

The author then analyzes various forms of psychological and physical assault by external forces on the group self, and of the concept of consequent narcissistic injury and related rage.  Following this, Montville examines the psychology of victimhood and its consequences for political relationships, whicih leads to a discussion of how nationalism becomes extreme and potentially violent.

Finally, there is brief reference to a theory of peace making as the reactivation of an interrupted mourning process; dealing with methods  of healing group narcissistic wounds through a specific political-psychological strategy. One can enhance the environment for resolution of an ethnic or national political conflict through historic review of the relationship, acknowledgement of past injustices by the aggressors, offers of contrition, and ideally, expressions of forgiveness by the victim group. The practical consequence of this healing strategy is the reaffirmation of the value of the self-concept and self-esteem of the victimized group. Equally important is a commitment by each group or nation to a new relationship based on equity, justice, and mutual respect.

from the Psychodynamics of International Relationships Vol II: Unofficial Diplomacy at Work,

edited by Vamik D. Volkan, Joseph Montville and Demetrios A. Julius

In this essay, Montville’s approach is influenced by two themes commonly spoken by Holocaust historian Elie Wiesel:  1) the Holocaust defies all explanation and 2) the drive to kill all European Jews is central to the event, defining its mystery and horror.  He asserts that Christians need to put an end to the Jewish fear that the Holocaust can happen again. The most effective defense to such fears is the “harsh light of clinical analysis, exposure, and relentless treatment of racial, religious, and ethnic hatred whenever and wherever it occurs.”

The goal of this essay is to dissect the anatomy of evil and to set out the broad outlines of a system to deter it.  Genocide is the most profound example of evil, so Montville starts with a review of it’s definition. It is clear that genocide results from a combination of factors: political, economic, and social break down with resultant group regression under stress; sometimes the pressure of a destructive charismatic, narcissistic, leader; and, often the existence of an ideology that rationalizes mass killing.

The next step is to develop a set of indicators that could serve as an early warning device in a program of genocide prevention. The essay cannot offer a comprehensive structure for such a system, but does offer guidelines based on efforts already underway. For example, Montville lists five general characteristics that signal the development of maladaptive dehumanization and the levels of information to be monitored in a genocide early warning system. NGO’s such as Amnesty International, Cultural Survival and International alert are doing the work to document human rights violations.

from Conflict Resolution: Theory & Practice, Integration & Application,

edited by Dennis Sandole and Hugo van der Merwe

This chapter deals with alternative approaches to ethnic and religious conflicts that are resistant to traditional technique of diplomatic or political mediation and negotiation. Healing and reconciliation in such settings depend on a process of contrition and forgiveness between aggressors and victims. A process that is indispensable to the establishment of new relationships, that which are based on mutual acceptance and reasonable trust. Montville says this process depends on joint analysis of the history of the conflict, recognition of injustices and resulting historic wounds, and acceptance of moral responsibility where due.

Montville begins the chapter with a description of victimhood and its three components. What follows are discussions of:

• Problem solving workshops, which make possible a process of undermining negative stereotypes and rehumanizing relationships.
• Conflict resolution strategy of taking a history, whose purpose is to elicit grievances and wounds, which have not been acknowledged by the side responsible for inflicting them. Revising and cleaning up the published historical record of a conflicted intergroup or international relationship is essential to the reconciliation process.
• Accepting responsibility; contrition and forgiveness; and transforming public consciousness.

The chapter ends with a review of strategies for changing negative belief systems in Northern Ireland and the Middle East. The projects highlighted here aim at influencing belief systems among adversaries to create an environment in public opinion which would promote other conflict resolution efforts.

from Identity, Morality and Threat: Studies in Violent Conflict,

edited by Daniel Rothbart and Karyna Korostelina

Montville begins “any conflict resolution strategy that does not address the psychological needs of the victims and victimizers can only have a superficial effect on the resolution.” He contends the only practical approach to intractable conflicts is one that aims for the reconciliation of peoples and nations.

Conflict parties should be led to accept moral responsibility for their behavior. Under these circumstances a sense of justice will emerge among those who have suffered, and the possibility for real peace will appear too. It is this link between justice and peace, documented thoroughly in human psychology, that continues to elude professional diplomacy and statecraft. The latter cling to a scientifically unjustifiable concept of power politics and cynicism, the traditional realpolitik.

Theorists and practitioners of conflict resolution need to understand the depth of hurt of the peoples they propose to help. Proceeding with modesty, care, professional skill and commitment to the analysis of the historic and psychodynamic dimensions of what is essentially a task in healing in the relationships between the groups and nations in conflict. This chapter attempts to outline the dimensions of that task, with sections on: 1) Acknowledgement and justice in conflict resolution theories 2) Victimhood in history 3) Taking a walk through history 4) Recruiting Participants 5) and the psychodynamic workshop. Montville uses Serbia, Northern Ireland and Poland/Russia as examples of this approach.

Practitioners will be approached in conflict settings by those seeking to escape past and present tragedies. The task then is to respect the suffering of conflict parties by learning what must be learned and helping them to walk through the processes necessary to come to terms with their past. If practitioners go about their work with a compassion informed by profound knowledge and skill, they can help people and nations to heal and get on with their future.

published in Reconciliation, Coexistence and Justice in Interethnic Conflict: Theory and Practice,

edited by Mohammad Abu-Nimer

This essay deals with restorative justice as it relates psychologically to the dignity and self-esteem of individuals, as well as the design of reconciliation strategies for peacemaking. Montville covers topics such as: 1) Human needs and the defense of the self, 2) Individual and group reaction to traumatic loss, 3) Victimhood psychology, and 4) Public and private acts of healing.

In particular Montville says the public act of healing, embodied in truth and reconciliation commissions, performs the crucial task of acknowledgment of the victim’s loss. (With or without expressions of remorse or repentance by perpetrators.) By making the violation of basic human rights a permanent part of the state’s public record, the state assumes a protective stewardship for the victim. Thus providing an essential assurance to the victims that their future safety is protected.

This chapter concludes with an account of partially successful reconciliation efforts in Northern Ireland. The lesson from this analysis of the burdens of history on ethnic and sectarian conflicts is that even the most brilliant negotiator can at best help make a temporary deal between adversaries, unless he or she also advances a genuine process of healing the wounds of history.

In this speech, Montville speaks fondly of Freud’s theories of psychodynamics, and how psychoanalysis as instrument in research can be applied to ethnic, sectarian and large group conflict. He begins with a recollection of the psychology of enmity, and the need for enemies.

Moving onto the topic of narcissistic rage, he says the instinctual reaction is that of vigorous defense of the self. Montville then describes this concept in terms of Israel’s displaced rage on Arabs and Muslims. This rage was initially earned by the Jewish experience in Christian Europe through the centuries.

Continuing on the topic thread of rage, Montville says dealing with victims of violent trauma, the aim should be for them to get a grasp what happened to them. You do this by cognitively explaining how the attack happened, that the victim’s story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Lastly, the victim should be assured they are safe now, that nightmares, dissociative experiences, and panic attacks are no longer necessary, because the story had an end. Montville suggests using such cognitive therapeutic approaches to convince Jews that Christians can understand the burden of history and the enormity of their debt.

He concludes that “the work of diplomacy that is psychologically and psychoanalytically informed requires study of sacred literature and the history of human relationships.”

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