RESOURCES • FAITH, CULTURE & EMPIRE

Churches and The Cold War

A Third World Perspective with Special Reference to Asia

By NINAN KOSHY

 

INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH CONFERENCE

Christian World Community and the Cold War

The Evangelical Theological Faculty of the Comenius University

5-8 SEPTEMBER 2011 | BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA

I come from the small state of Kerala in South India with a population of 33 million of which 6.5 million are Christians. The state elected democratically, within the framework of the Indian constitution, a communist government in 1957, said to be the first of its kind in the world. The government was dismissed in 1959 by the Central government following an undemocratic agitation in which the Roman Catholic Church in the state played the leading part. It is now history that the struggle had the blessings of the Vatican, strident in its anti-communist propaganda and the support of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), heavily involved in the US’ Cold War activities against communism at that time. While there had been allegations of CIA funding of the struggle even at that time, they were substantiated by Patrick Moynihan in his book A Dangerous Place.(1) Moynihan was US ambassador to India during 1973-75. His statements are corroborated by Howard Schaffer, the biographer of Ellsworth Bunker who was US ambassador during 1956-61. Bunker confirmed to Schaffer American and his involvement in funding the agitation against the communist government to prevent “additional Keralas”. The biography Ellsworth Bunker: Global Trouble Shooter, Vietnam Hawk quotes Bunker “The election results rang alarm bells in Washington”. Allan Dulles, CIA chief at that time said, “It is very unlikely that local agitation alone will prove sufficient to oust the communist government”, whatever that meant.(2) The long arm of the Cold War had stretched to the southern-most tip of India.

The topic Churches and the Cold War: a Third World Perspective is obviously vast in its scope. So after describing the Third World and the impact of the Cold War on it, I have limited myself to two wars—Korea and Vietnam—to examine the response of the churches and especially the ecumenical movement. There are also references to religious or rather Christian elements in US foreign policy during the Cold War. This is a topic which needs much more detailed study on Asia itself and on Latin America and Africa, both about the impact of the Cold War on these regions and the responses of the churches.

What is the Third World?

The term ‘Third World’ is understood in various ways, from a purely geographical sense to a socio-political description. It was originally used in 1952 by the French demographer Alfred Sauvy, who saw similarity between nations moving towards independence from colonial power and the Third Estate in France demanding freedom and equality during the French revolution. The term soon became a useful designation of the international reality; the “First World” referred to the powerful capitalist nations, mostly of the West; the ‘Second” to the socialist countries of the East; and the “Third” to the non-aligned “underdeveloped” and “developing countries” in the rest of the world. Currently ‘Third World” is used as a self-designation of peoples who have been excluded from power and authority to shape their own lives and destiny. As such it has a supra-geographic denotation, describing a social condition marked by social, political, economic and cultural oppression that render people powerless and expendable.

Vijay Prashad argues that the Third World was not a place. “It was a project. During the seemingly interminable battles against colonialism, the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America dreamed of a new world. They longed for dignity above all else but also the basic necessities of life (land, peace and freedom). They assembled their grievances and aspirations into various kinds of organizations where their leadership then formulated a platform of demands. The Third World comprised these hopes and the initiatives produced to carry them forward.”(3)

The Bandung Spirit

One of the most significant developments in the formation of a Third World consciousness and agenda was the Afro-Asia Bandung (Indonesia) conference in April 1955, hosted by President Sukarno. This conference attended by Prime Minister Nehru of India and Prime Minister Zhou En Lai of China among others, was the precursor of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The Bandung conference affirmed the identity, role and cooperation of newly independent countries of Asia and Africa. The Conference made a major impact on life together of nations of Asia and Africa. The Bandung spirit had great influence in the region. But it was regarded with suspicion in the West, even in ecumenical circles.

That was the time when discussions about the formation of a regional ecumenical body in Asia were in the final stage. Western church leaders expressed their apprehension about the impact of the Bandung conference on such a body. Visser t’ Hooft wrote in his Memoirs about the founding assembly of the East Asia Christian Conference, held in March 1957 at Prapat, Indonesia. “Were we witnessing an ecclesiastical version of the Bandung Conference of 1955 where statesmen of 24 Asian nations had affirmed solidarity of the Asian people over against the West? …There was one important difference. Asian churches at Prapat certainly believed that their churches and their countries should draw together, that they had common problems and common tasks. But there was nothing exclusive or introverted in their sense of solidarity. And one strong argument for their regional ecumenism was that it would make the voice of Asian churches more clearly heard in the ecumenical movement”(4)

The Superpowers and the Third World

After 1945 the superpowers found themselves with a sense of destiny, enormous power, and an intensive mutual rivalry and an agenda that might appeal to Third World leaders not least because of the US and Soviet ‘empires’ were (supposedly) very different from the retreating European empires. According to Odd Arne Westad, Moscow’s and Washington’s objectives were not “exploration or subjection, but control and improvement”. As to the Third World leaders they had emerged from decades or more of European exploitation hoping to throw off the remaining shackles of colonialism, create new stable states of their own and build a global agenda based on racial equality, a just international economic system and an end to external interventions.(5)

Westad argues that it was the US which “had done much to create the Third World as an entity”. Its interventions against radicalism in Iran and Guatemala, its support for Israel, its interface in the Congo in the early 1960s and its support for a laissez faire economic system that effectively kept much of the Third World in poverty—all seemed to alienate most of the Third World. In some cases such as Britain’s anti-communist campaign in Malaya, the US was ready to prop up colonialism and in all areas of the European departure, was designed to pave the way for American sponsorship of particular types of regimes. Ironically the interventionist policies of the USA contributed to radicalizing many of the Third World regimes. Where national leaders were not prepared to follow Washington’s agenda (as with Egypt’s Nasser or Indonesia’s Sukarno) this led to a rapid deterioration of relations and a tendency of those leaders to turn to Moscow for assistance at a time when Nikita Krushchev was more willing than Stalin had been to court support in the Third World. This did not mean a willingness even from self-confessed Marxist regimes to behave as Soviet puppets. Far from it, in the 1960s Cuba and Vietnam challenged not only Washington in defence of their revolutions they also challenged the course set by the USSR for the development of socialism. On the other hand through the world economic system that it had created the US had helped to prolong the time that was needed for most countries to break out of poverty.(6)

For a while it seemed that the US still had the upper hand in the Third World with the mid-1960s seeing the downfall of Sukarno, the consolidation of power in the Congo (Zaire) of General Mobutu and the death in Bolivia of one of the greatest of the new breed of revolutionaries, Che Guevara. But Vietnam of course turned the tables putting Washington on the defensive and encouraging Moscow to revive its engagement with the Third World even as it also tried to develop a policy of détente with its arch rival. But by the seventies various encounters in the Third World contributed to bringing an end to détente.

The liberation of Angola and Mozambique and the military coup in Ethiopia led Soviet officials to believe that the world was turning in their direction. However, the intriguing change of loyalties of Ethiopia (from the US to USSR) and Somalia (from USSR to US) and the burden of supporting a regime in Ethiopia which had little to do with Marxism showed the Kremlin that intervention in the Third World was far from an easy business. Two dramatic events in the Islamic world spelled difficulties in turn for both the US and USSR—the collapse of the Shah’s regime in Iran and the fracturing of the Marxist regime in Afghanistan, culminating in an ill-fated military intervention by the Red Army. In both Iran and Afghanistan the superpowers were challenged from an unexpected and underestimated quarter—the upsurge of a militant form of Islam that rejected both capitalism and communism. That upsurge has become a major factor in international politics today.

But in the 1980s, the superpowers remained preoccupied in their competition with each other, the invasion of Afghanistan having destroyed the vestiges of détente. Under Ronald Reagan, the US guided by a ‘neoconservative’ belief in an aggressive foreign policy, yet unable to use its military forces easily in the wake of the Vietnam War, to work with anyone who opposed Soviet intervention or even influence in the Third World, including the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and Pol Pot in Cambodia.

Third World, the Cold War’s Battlefield

Historians tend to focus too much on European issues, seeing US and Soviet intervention in the Third World as some kind of afterthought once the Cold War rivalries took off. As well as the Cold War having impact on developments in the Third World, the most important aspects of the Cold War were neither military nor strategic nor Europe-centred but connected to the political and social developments in the Third World.

One of the central paradoxes of the Cold War is that it ushered in the longest sustained period of peace in Europe in modern history at the very same time that Asia, Africa and the Middle East were convulsed by unprecedented scales of violent conflicts. European peace was at the expense of the Third World. If Europe’s long peace can be directly attributed to the structure of stability imposed by the East-West standoff, then to what extent did the Cold War encourage, ignite or exacerbate, whether directly or indirectly the Third World conflicts of the Cold War era? There were no wars in Europe at that time. It appeared that wars were outsourced to the Third World to keep Europe free from them. “To the superpowers, Europe as the point of origin of the Cold War did not present itself as a practicable battlefield for one important reason; the risk of escalation—conventional and nuclear—was too high”.(7)

Strategists in both camps believed that ultimate victory or defeat in the Cold War depended on the outcome of Third World conflicts. Moreover many of these areas harboured vital natural resources, such as oil in the Middle East upon which the developed world had become dependent.

Westad makes a forceful case for continuity extending back to early US and Russian expansionism to the “Cold War as a continuation of colonialism through slightly different means” to the assertion that pot-September 11 “rampant intervention” by the Bush administration is ‘not an aberration but continuation—in slightly more extreme form of the US policy during the Cold War”.(8)

The Struggles for Liberation and Human Rights

The struggles for liberation and independence from colonialism and settler colonialism marked an important phase in the life of many Third World nations during the Cold War. There were also struggles for human rights and dignity in several countries of the South. In these struggles the USA in almost all cases took the wrong side collaborating with and supporting regimes that attempted to suppress these struggles. In general the Soviet Union gave active support to liberation movements. It also earned the goodwill of large sections of people including churches around the world.

For years Washington coveted as a strategic partner South Africa, at the time a racist white minority regime that attempted to contain and suppress liberation struggles and black radical movements in the name of fighting communism. The Soviet Union supported the liberation movements. The US and SU supported different sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While Washington became Israel’s chief diplomatic benefactor and arms supplier, the Soviet Union embraced the cause of Arab nationalism and Palestinian statehood. In most of the human rights struggles in Asia, Africa and Latin America the US supported dictatorial regimes. In many of the countries sections of churches were in the forefront of these struggles and became highly critical of US policies. In general these churches had the support of the mainline US and Western churches. Thus the Cold War provided several opportunities for churches around the world to affirm the dignity of the human being created in the image of God.

The Soviet Union and the Third World

The Soviet Union succeeded in projecting the impression that it supported Third World causes. But most often such support came from competition with the United States for spheres of influence rather than genuine interest in the people of the Third World. Like the United States the Soviet Union also gave military and political support to a number of authoritarian regimes in the Third World which violated human rights on a massive scale. To some extent at least its positive international profile was utilized by the Soviet Union in camouflaging its internal policy of repression. So in effect the Soviet Union also was responsible for the suffering of people in many Third World countries.

That the Soviet Union’s advocacy of Third World causes was part of its Cold War strategy was evident at the time of a major change in its domestic policies, at a time when the Cold War appeared to be unwinding. Under Perestroika there was a perceptible reorientation of the role of Third World radicalism and of Soviet support for national liberation struggles. The 27th Party Congress made quite different formulations of the historic role of the developing countries, their domestic policies and Soviet Union’s support for these states, from earlier positions. The developing countries are not seen as an important revolutionary force and their role in the demise of capitalism is not mentioned. Moreover the emphasis on the ongoing process of national liberation has been dropped altogether. There are no statements about Moscow’s ‘international duty to support Third World stirrings’. Only ‘profound sympathy’ for the aspirations of the people who have experienced colonial rule is mentioned.(9)

The Cold War – A Religious War?

The Cold War was in many ways a religious war. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower and other American leaders believed that human rights and freedom were endowed by God, that God had called them and that Soviet communism was evil because of its atheism and enmity to people. William Imboden presents an illuminating and insightful account of how mainline Protestant theology not only provided the rhetoric but also helped shape the substance of American Cold War under both Truman and Eisenhower. “The ostensibly secular Cold Warriors became unlikely theologians presenting a new kind of civil religion that was nothing less than a diplomatic theology of containment. This innovative faith arose not in the churches but in the White House itself…They formulated a spiritual theology that provided both a ‘cause’ justifying the Cold War and an ‘instrument’ for winning it.”(10)

The most articulate of these White House Cold War theologians was John Foster Dulles, who during the post-War period played a significant role in the formulation of “Christian” views on war and peace at national and international levels of churches. John Foster Dulles did not hide his religious convictions and its close relationship to his politics. Apparently those at the top echelons supported this position. One of Dulles’ undertakings at this time was the 1951 Treaty of Peace with Japan, signed in San Francisco by the Allied Powers and Japan. Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru refused to sign the treaty due to the described security agreement between Japan and the US, and also because the Treaty omitted the USSR and China. When Dulles learned of this he told Ambassador Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, who was Nehru’s sister “I cannot accept this. Does your Prime Minister realize that I have prayed at every stage of this treaty?” Mrs. Pandit was at a loss for words. For India’s leaders this language was unusual for intergovernmental dialogue.(11)

In Mr. Dulles’ address, A Positive Foreign Policy (May 15, 1952) he explains, “We cannot settle for a ‘containment’ which contains 800 million captive souls’. The soul is the spiritual element of a person, believed to be immortal. If the US’s concern lay in that which is immortal, there would be no political response from a secular state. Dulles argued that containment should be replaced by a policy of liberation; ironically this policy of liberation was achieved through a global system of military alliances.(12)

At a Press Conference in Karachi (May 24, 1953) Dulles finds “its (Soviet Union’s) government is unrestrained by moral principles since its atheistic creed denies the evidence of any such thing as a moral law”. It is questionable to define morality by religion in international relations, as morality is defined as that which is concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour. If politics depends on religion to define right and wrong, then a state is no longer secular.

Dulles turns to St. Paul to help transform U.S. foreign policy in his address, A New Look at Foreign policy, (October 4, 1952). We want to spread our ideals—instead of having to watch while the despots of the Kremlin systematically liquidate love of God, love of country and sense of personal dignity among one-third of the world’s population….We had been thinking too much in terms of mere money, forgetting what St .Paul taught, that however much money we give away, it profiteth us nothing unless we give compassion and consideration.

Dulles explains why the US may have a difficult working relationship with the UN, the parliament of nations.. Dulles states: Whether we like it or not—and I like it—our people are a predominantly moral people, who believe that our nation has a great spiritual heritage to be preserved. We do not feel happy to be identified with foreign policies which run counter to what we have been taught in our churches and synagogues and in our classes in American history(13) Using Dulles’ earlier explanation, moral and religious are interchangeable.

Departing from containment means that the US needed allies for their global system of military alliances, and here we come full circle to Pakistan. Dulles offers interesting insight into the process of choosing US allies. In a radio address on June 1, 1953 Dulles states, “Pakistan is the largest of the Muslim nations and occupies a high position in the Muslim world. The strong spiritual faith and martial spirit of the people make them a dependable bulwark against communism.” On another occasion he said that “Lebanese consider themselves possible bridge between United States and Arab states because of their greater Western orientation and Christian population”.(14)

We now turn attention to two major wars in Asia consequent to or aggravated by superpower intervention. We examine the attitudes of the churches to these wars.

The Korean War

There is a rereading of the Korean War history today. It had been taken for granted as truth that North Korea was the aggressor in the Korean War. The UN Commission on Korea (UNCK) had reported, “The invasion of the territory of the Republic of Korea by the armed forces of the North Korean authorities which began on June 25, 1950 was an act of aggression initiated without warning and without provocation, in execution of a carefully prepared plan.” This is being challenged by several historians like Bruce Cummings who also raise questions about the impartiality of the Commission and the manner in which it investigated. There is evidence to suggest that South Korea struck and North Korea’s invasion was an act of self-defence. Basically the Korean War was a civil war and in such a situation it is difficult to decide who provoked first or who carried the first attack. Both the Soviet Union and the US deserve blame for Korea’s post-war division at the 38th parallel. Disregarding the desire of the Korean people Washington and Moscow each believed that its security required a ‘friendly’ Korea.(15)

Just one week before the invasion, Dulles visited the 38th parallel as roving Ambassador of the US President. The decision by the USA to intervene militarily was taken in fact before the UN Security Council decision.

It was in the beginning of the 1980s that the WCC seriously considered the possibility of bringing back the church in China to the WCC fold. This prompted a close examination of the circumstances that led to the cessation of participation by the Chinese churches which were part of the fellowship at the founding assembly in Amsterdam, 1948. T.C.Chao from China, one of the Presidents of the WCC resigned from the position in protest against the statement of the WCC at the Toronto Central Committee on 13 July 1950. The statement supported the UN’s “police action” against North Korea. The UN Commission on Korea (UNCK) report on which the UN based its decision was totally biased against the North declaring it as the aggressor in the Korean War. Records show that it was John Foster Dulles, at the time special adviser to the US President and deeply involved with the Korean issues who was instrumental in changing the WCC position on Korea from “negotiations” to support for “police action”. Just ten days earlier, the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) had asked the UN to pursue the path of negotiations. There is reason to assume that Dulles wanted to use WCC support as a moral weapon in the propaganda war. The WCC had ignored the voices from China, North Korea and Eastern Europe. This led to a major controversy in the WCC. It also led to a fresh assessment of the WCC by communist governments, especially China and North Korea as an organization following the political policies of the West, especially the USA.

At a conference of church leaders in China, April 16-21, 1951 called by Premier Zhou en Lai, Li Tung Yi, Chairman of the Administrative Yuan Committee on Culture and Education in lengthy speech on the opening day, criticized the WCC. Behind the “so-called Christian slogans, ecumenical and worldwide” he saw the “demonic hand of American imperialism”. The declaration at the end of the conference criticized WCC as “tool of the Wall Street” etc. Chao resigned on 28 April raising his serious objections to the Toronto statement.

Jooseop Keum, a WCC staff member, who has made a thorough study of the Korean War and the WCC position, has concluded that “the origin of the Axis of Evil in the Korean Peninsula was rooted in the notion of police action which was also justified by theologians like Reinhold Niebuhr”.(16)

It was the realization that the Toronto statement was not objective that prompted the WCC to be active in support of efforts for the peaceful reunification of Korea. The WCC had welcomed the joint statement by heads of state of North and South Koreas in July 1972. But the major and intensive engagement of the WCC was in supporting the Korean people in their struggle for human rights against a dictatorial regime supported by the USA in the name of fighting communism. The efforts of the Korean churches even to study, let alone deal with the question of reunification were repeatedly frustrated by repressive measures of the government in the name of threat from North Korea, measures blessed by the USA.

It was against this background that the CCIA organized a Consultation on Northeast Asia with focus on Korea. The Consultation with the theme, “Peace and Justice in Northeast Asia—Prospects for Peaceful Resolution of Conflicts” was held in Tozanso, Japan in 1984. The Consultation recognized that “At the heart of the conflict is the divided Korean peninsula. It has remained one of the most abrasive points in the dividing line between the world’s two major ideological and military blocs and is rapidly becoming the most unstable.” One of the recommendations of the Consultation was to explore possibilities of making contacts with the small Christian community in North Korea.

In November 1985 Erich Weingartner, my colleague in the CCIA and myself visited North Korea. The visit was significant in several ways. It was the first official visit there by any representatives of church or ecumenical body. We got some understanding of the life of Christians there. We could enter into discussions with the North Korean government on the reunification and related issues. Our visit took place at a time when officially the government of North Korea still claimed that there were no church groups or Christians there. We cannot claim that it is our visit which changed the policy of the government. Soon after our visit the government openly acknowledged the presence of a Christian community there and this then led to permission to build churches in Pyongyang and elsewhere.

In September 1986 for the first time representatives of Christian churches from South and North Korea met in Glion, Switzerland. Glion was also the venue of the second direct encounter between North and South Korean Christians in 1988. In June 1989, the Central Committee of the WCC meeting in Moscow adopted a declaration on “Peace and Reunification of Korea”. The declaration began with a confession. “The WCC confesses that it has not always dealt equitably with the Korean question. Mistakes of the past should weigh heavily on the conscience of the ecumenical community and intensify our determination to struggle for peace and reunification of Korea.”

The sad fact is that the tragic division of Korea during the Cold War still continues making the peninsula one of the most militarized and explosive regions of the world. This Cold War legacy is now reshaped by the War on Terror and by naming North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil.

The inter-relationship of the Asian theatre and the Cold War where it became hot and Europe, the home of the Cold War, was illustrated by the Korean War. The growing elites of NATO powers at that time made the mental connection between Korea and Germany at the height of the Korean emergency in the summer and fall of 1950. The long-range geopolitical implications of the war in Korea were felt less on the strife-torn peninsula—where a permanent military stalemate developed in the summer of 1951 roughly along the original political demarcation line separating the North from South—than in the USA and Western Europe. The transformation of the Cold War into a shooting war in Asia led to the militarization of the containment policy in Europe. In September 1950, the Council of NATO Foreign Ministers assembled in New York unanimously adopted a forward-looking strategy for the defense of Western Europe which was to be facilitated by the formation of an integrated military force under a unified command.

The Vietnam War

If on the Korean War the stance of the ecumenical community was questionable, on the Vietnam War churches around the world took a principled stand of opposition to American military intervention there. However the Korean churches opposed the positions adopted by WCC, CCA, WSCF and the NCCCUSA.

For a quarter of a century the Vietnam War dominated the political scene of Asia and provided the theatre for superpower games in the region. The exit of France from Indochina only intensified the civil war there. The entry of the United States began at that time in the form of military aid to South Vietnam but soon became that of a party engaged in an outright war. By 1968 half a million American troops were involved in a destructive and controversial war. By the time of the Paris agreement in 1975 there was a saga of resistance of a small Asian nation against the mighty United States.

Concerns of the Asian churches and people were raised strongly by Dr. D.T.Niles, the first general secretary of the EACC who was also chairman of the WSCF in a meeting with the US Ambassador in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). “I would agree with you that communism has to be stopped. But does it have to be done on Asian soil? Is it because Asian life is cheap?” Preman Niles said, “It was a protest that was based on the premise that the identity and destiny of Asian Christians is with Asians. Asian Christians could not remain unconcerned when colonial power or any other form of power attempted to have an oppressive impact on Asian realities.”(17)

The Bangkok Assembly of the EACC, 1968 adopted a statement on Vietnam War. The statement while asking for a cease-fire and peaceful settlement, expressed the Assembly’s deep concern for the integrity of the country of Vietnam, too long subject to the rule and conflicts of outside powers. It stated that the fundamental nationalism of the Vietnamese people should be allowed to take a powerful part in shaping the peace.

The US churches began to take an active and organized interest in the Vietnam War especially from 1965, the year in which the US directly intervened militarily in the conflict. In the New York Times on April 4 that year, the Clergymen’s Emergency Committee for Vietnam in the name of 2500 clergymen from Protestant churches and Jewish rabbis published an advertisement in which they raised their objections to the attack on North Vietnam. The committee, in which Martin Luther King Jr. and John C. Bennett etc. gave leadership, was largely instrumental in shaping public opinion against US military actions in Vietnam. In a series of resolutions the NCCCUSA urged the US government to negotiate with all concerned parties including the National Liberation Front (Vietcong), stop the bombing of North Vietnam, limit the sphere of attacks to military bases and recognize the right of the Vietnamese people to choose their own government.

The WCC took a strong position on Vietnam War criticizing the US policy. During a visit to Hanoi in early 1981, Jean Fischer and I had a long meeting with the Vietnamese foreign minister Nguyen Co Thach who was enthusiastic in his welcome to the WCC delegation. What the Vietnamese people and government would always remember about the WCC, he said was an open letter WCC General Secretary Eugene Carson Blake wrote in July 1972 to the US President Nixon on the bombing of the dikes in North Vietnam.

Jean Thoravel, the Hanoi correspondent for AFP reported of a US bombing raid that he had witnessed on the morning of July 11, “The attack was aimed at a whole system of dikes”. Another eyewitness was Sweden’s Ambassador to Hanoi, Jean Christophe Oberg who said he had seen bomb-damaged dikes in early June and described the attacks as “methodic”. Two Swedish journalists backed up this charge with their own testimony that they had seen the results of apparently deliberate attacks on the dikes.

After reporting on this, the Time weekly wrote, “More recently Hanoi’s charges have been endorsed by several prominent individuals, whose accusations the Weekly has found difficult to ignore. Blake, General Secretary of the WCC appealed to President Nixon to stop bombing the dikes. Last week he was followed by UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim who declared that he was deeply concerned and pleaded for an end to this kind of bombing”.(18) It may be claimed that it was with the statement of Blake that the world took note of the bombing of the dikes.

If the churches got on the wrong side of China in the Korean War, during the Vietnam War they took a position supporting China’s international role.

The issue of China’s admission to the United Nations was closely related to the Vietnam War. By the 1960s China was no longer a bystander in the Cold War structure erected by the U.S and Soviet Union. China had risen to become an influential power in the Asian region. Though China was generally supportive of the Soviet Union it took independent positions on several issues and encouraged nationalists in Asia especially in Indochina.

China emerged as the biggest supporter of North Vietnam both from an ideological and material standpoint. As such ending the isolation of China was widely perceived as a necessary step to be taken before any resolution of the Vietnam War. This was the position taken by the Church and Society Conference of the WCC (Geneva, 1966). The WCC Central Committee in its resolution on the Vietnam War had stated that China should be given a legal opportunity to become a responsible member of the international community through membership in the United Nations. The CCIA had made the call earlier. The WCC became one of the major international organizations to support China’s membership in the UN. In effect it was a one-China policy.

In discussions with the Chinese authorities on the reactivation of Chinese churches in the WCC, we found that they had taken special note of the WCC’s one-China policy from the sixties.

Conclusion

We have examined in some detail the impact of the Cold War on the Third World and the response of the churches. Defining the Third World is difficult while describing it is less difficult. We have made a geographical as well as a socio-political description. It was a project of emerging people for dignity and freedom. There were suspicions about the project in the West from the beginning. It was seen more as an anti-Western project than one of seeking an independent path in economics and politics. The West’s reaction to the Third World was largely based on this misconception. The refusal, to take sides or join a bloc in the superpower confrontation and instead take a non-aligned position on careful examination of each issue, was considered unacceptable to the West. It is conceded that by the eighties there has been fragmentation and lack of direction for the Non-Aligned Movement. But that does not mean that the claims, aspirations and rights of the Third World need no consideration now; on the contrary. It is therefore necessary to see how the Third World has shaped after the end of the Cold War. In this respect two important issues stand out; globalization and the War on Terror. Both have become projects that undermine the Third World.

Globalization has considerably increased the gap between the rich and the poor within nations and between nations. A development model that emphasizes only growth and has no scope or space for justice is bound to frustrate attempts to give people a dignified life. The domination of poor countries by the rich countries, a characteristic of the Cold War is now institutionalized through new exploitative structures. The churches have either compromised themselves with predatory capitalism or have taken an ambivalent position. The transformation of the state under globalization, abdicating its welfare responsibilities, should be a matter of concern for the churches.

The War on Terror is a war—or series of wars—in the Third World especially in Asia. Its theatre extends from West Asia (Iraq) to Central Asia (Afghanistan) to Northeast Asia (North Korea). Whatever may be the justification given the War on Terror has become a war of conquest and occupation. As John Foster Dulles used Bible to underline US foreign policy assumptions, President Bush used the Bible to justify his imperial adventures. The return of the ‘Christian’ element in US foreign policy at a time when religion has generally become a major factor in international politics should be considered.

From the Third World perspective the United States has emerged as a new empire, a description now academically accepted. “What word but ‘empire’ describes the awesome thing that America is becoming?” asks Michael Igantieff. He describes the military, economic and cultural power of the empire in these words. It is the only nation that polices the world through five global commands, maintains more than a million men and women at arms at four continents, deploys carrier battleships in every ocean, guarantees the survival of countries from Israel to South Korea and drives the wheels of global trade and commerce(19). Military actions of the armed wing of the Empire called North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are today in the Third World far away from its mandated territory.

The empire is supported by a special brand of religion. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in his book The Structure of Nations and Empire (1959) that “empires require gods”. “Dominion is bound to use religious quests for ultimacy and universality as instruments for its power”. The Report of the Church of England Bishops said, What distinguishes it (the American empire) from many other empires in history is the strong sense of moral righteousness is fed by the major influence of the Christian right on present U.S. foreign policy. This has a very worrying political aspect in the way in which Christian millennialism has been taken up by so many evangelical Christians with its apocalyptic overtones and its very clear political agenda in relation to the Middle East. We argue that not only is the political reading of current history in the light of apocalyptic texts illegitimate, but these texts need to be read in a different way altogether, as a critique of imperialism rather than a justification for a particular form of it.(20)

For the Third World the end of the Cold War became the beginning of an Empire.

NOTES

[1] Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “A Dangerous Place”, Atlantic-Little, Brown, 1979

[2] Howard B. Schaffer, “Ellsworth Bunker: Global Trouble Shooter, Vietnam Hawk’, University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

[3] “Vijay Prashad, ‘The Darker Nations – A Biography of the Short-Lived Third World”, Leftword, New Delhi, 2009, P.13.

[4] Visser t’ Hooft, “Memoirs”, S.C.M Press, London 1976, p.239.

[5] Odd Arne Westad, “The Global Cold War”, Cambridge University Press, 2007, P.5.

[6] Ibid, pp. 157-158

[7] Andreas Wenger and Doron Zimmerman, “International Relations from the Cold War to the Globalized World”, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, USA, 2003.

[8] Westad, op.cit, p.316.

[9] Ninan Koshy, CCIA Background Information, “Perestroika, Some Preliminary Comments”. 1988/1, p.13

[10] William Imboden, “Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945-1960; The Soul of Containment”, Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 102-3

[11] Praveen K. Chaudhry and Marta Vanduzer-Snow, “The United States and India – A History through Archives”, Sage, New Delhi 2008, p.29.

[12] Ibid p.30.

[13] John Foster Dulles, “Principle versus Expediency in Foreign Policy”, Missouri Bar Association, St.Louis, Missouri, September 26, 1952.

[14] Praveen K. Chaudhry and Marta Vanduzer-Snow, op.cit. p.30.

[15] Bruce Cumings, “Korean War, A History”, Modern Library, 2010.

[16] Jooseop Keum, “Korean War, The Origins of the Axis of Evil in the Korean Peninsula”, in Sebastian Kim (ed) “Peace and Reconciliation in Search of Shared Identity”, St. John’s University, York, 2008, p.128.

[17] Preman Niles, “Theological and Mission Concerns” in Ninan Koshy (Ed) “A History of the Ecumenical Movement in Asia, Vol. II”, WSCF, YMCA, CCA, Hong Kong, 2004.

[18] Time, “Battle of the Dikes”, August 7, 1972.

[19] Michael Ignatieff, “The Empire, the Burden”, New York Times Magazine, January 3, 2003.

[20] “Countering Terrorism: Power, Violence, Democracy”, A Report by a Working Group of the Church of England’s House of Bishops, September 2005.

 

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Dr. Ninan Koshy, a specialist and commentator on international relations, was former director of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs from 1981 to 1991, and Visiting Fellow in the Human Rights Programme of the Harvard Law School from 1991-1992. He has contributed articles on international affairs and foreign policy to Asia Times Online, Foreign Policy in Focus, The Hindu, and Economic and Political Weekly, among others. He has authored many books, including The War on Terror: Reordering the World (2003), and Under the Empire: India’s New Foreign Policy (2006). He lives in Trivandrum, Kerala.