Just Peace may be read as legitimising ‘Imperial Peace’

Just Peace is a problematic term. Its pacifist connotation in the WCC Ecumenical Call to Just Peace and its appropriation by the global empire as moral justification for the use of force combine to “legitimiz[e] the peace that is claimed by the principalities and powers.”

This in part was the assessment of Dr. Ninan Koshy of India and Prof. Kim Yong-bock of Korea on the Ecumenical Call to Just Peace and The Message of the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC), which took place in Kingston, Jamaica on May 17-25.

In a written comment sent to the WCC on July 12, the two eminent Asian theologians said the Ecumenical Call “reflected only the dichotomy between just war and pacifism”, calling pacifism Just Peace. But with “just peace” now also a term in the ”imperial lexicon”, Just Peace in effect endorses what is “more appropriately called today Imperial Peace.”

Just Peace as “the mantra of the WCC for its understanding of peace and justice” is problematic in light of the “prevailing discourse on war and peace reflecting the hegemonic definitional power of the USA”, said Kim and Koshy as they cited speeches by US Presidents Bush and Obama that “linked just peace to weapons, military alliances and war.”

The comment was sent to the WCC through General Secretary Olav Fykse Tveit and members of the Central Committee. Koshy and Kim wrote the paper in consultation with and “for ecumenical friends who are involved in the issues of peace” many of whom are members of the Peace for Life network, which they helped establish. Peace for Life’s coordinator, Carmencita Karagdag, is also a member of the WCC Central Committee.

During its February meeting, the Central Committee made the justice and peace agenda the focus of the 2013 WCC assembly in Busan, Korea when it approved the assembly theme, “God of Life, Give Us Justice and Peace”. [Click here for related story.]

This theme, according to Koshy and Kim, “reflects fully the Biblical understanding of peace”. But they said the call of the IEPC Message to make Just Peace a key priority in the framing of a new international agenda at the Busan assembly effectively reformulates and restricts the scope of the theme.

Call not prophetic enough

Koshy and Kim lamented that the Ecumenical Call makes “no criticism, let alone denunciation, of the forces that currently threaten peace in the world.”

They find “a studied reluctance to critique the powers and principalities of the world. [...] There is no attempt to name names and denounce wars that are being waged now. There is no call to end wars and occupation. [...] There is no questioning the idolatry of the [neo-liberal capitalist] system. WCC's Porto Alegre Assembly's call for the transformation of the dominant system also is omitted.”

The paper contends that on the whole, the Call failed to convey the “enormity of the challenge” and a “sense of urgency”, so that it appears to be more “a ‘timeless’ statement of principles” than a call to action.

Responding to the comment, former WCC General Secretary and moderator of the drafting group for the Ecumenical Call Rev. Dr. Konrad Raiser said the document “is meant to launch the discussion towards” formulating an “Ecumenical Declaration on Just Peace” for adoption by the 2013 Busan assembly.

A Busan declaration, said Raiser, will mark 30 years since the last “substantial declaration on peace and justice” issued by the 1983 Vancouver assembly.

Just Peace in ecumenical discourse

Raiser clarified that the drafting group for the Ecumenical Call did not invent Just Peace but was part of the mandate coming from the 2006 Porto Alegre assembly “to develop an extensive ecumenical declaration on peace” that will be “adopted at the conclusion of the Decade to Overcome Violence in 2010”.[1]

Raiser acknowledged the term’s “problematic use in the political arena” but pointed out that the term evolved on its own in ecumenical discourse. He said the call to Just Peace was in fact “an attempt to take the debate beyond the old antagonism between ‘just war’ and ‘pacifism’.”

In a recent article situating Just Peace in the ecumenical movement’s historical debate on war and peace, Uruguayan theologian Guillermo Kerber credits Raiser for the rejected amendment to the 1991 Canberra assembly public statement on the Gulf War to call on churches “to give up any theological or moral justification of the use of military power… and to become public advocates of a just peace [emphasis added].”[2]

The question on the use of the term, explains Kim, arises out of a concern that the document’s treatment of the issue of justice was not based on a full consideration of the “new and radically changed world situation”, and out of a fear that if the ecumenical movement fails to come to terms with all the dimensions of the newly emerging geopolitics of war, it may “los[e] the prophetic stance on the issue of justice”, in the same way that the world is “forgetting justice discourse in the neoliberal regime of global economy.”

Aiming for a convergent vision

The critical stance taken by Koshy and Kim on the Ecumenical Call for Just Peace derives from their long history of engagement in the worldwide ecumenical movement’s work on peace and social justice, and also from a recent joint undertaking to draft a peace charter from the people’s perspective.

The project, called the People’s Charter on Peace for Life, was supported by Peace for Life, an interfaith peace and justice movement resisting global hegemony, of which Kim now serves as co-moderator.

Koshy and Kim undertook the project on the belief that the current historical context of an emerging global empire demands a standard for peace that existing international conventions and instruments do not provide: an articulation of a people’s vision for peace that draws from the perspective of those victimised by wars and social injustice as well as from the philosophical traditions of various religious/cultural communities.

Kim brings this perspective in his reply to Kaiser, asserting that the issue of peace and justice cannot be dealt with without the ecumenical movement taking a decisive step towards interreligious ecumenism. He expressed his hope that the ecumenical declaration on justice and peace that will be forged at the 2013 Busan assembly will embody a convergent vision that reflects this new ecumenism.

“[R]ecognizing that Asia is the birth place and home of world religions (Christianity and Islam included) as well as the garden of rich people's religions”, Kim believes that Busan will provide this “opportune moment”.

Notes:

[1] World Council of Churches (2006), Vulnerable populations at risk. Statement on the responsibility to protect. WCC Ninth Assembly, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 2006, February 14-23

[2] Kerber, G. (2011), “Peace with the Earth” in the Context of the Decade to Overcome Violence. The Ecumenical Review, 63: 35-43. doi: 10.1111/j.1758-6623.2010.00091.x

External links:

Ecumenical Call to Just Peace
The IEPC Message: “Glory to God and Peace on Earth”
WCC Just Peace Companion (PDF)
Peace message closes convocation, but work has only begun, 25 May 2011
2013 Assembly theme: “God of life, lead us to justice and peace”, WCC News, 22 February 2011
IEPC website