Christianity, American Foreign Policy, and Baklava

Since the debate last Friday night, I have reflected on the keynote topic: foreign policy. Just a friendly reminder: I am writing from the perspective "how should Christians view this issue" in light of how Christ reveals himself and teaches us in the New Testament.

While often times Jesus is presented as a global capitalist that is concerned primarily with how freedom and democracy are spread throughout the world, I want to challenge this perspective by offering a more biblical approach.

The Way the World Perceives Us Matters for Missionaries
Since I work for an international missionary organization (a group that facilitates the spreading of the message of Christ around the world) I am deeply concerned with the way in which the world looks at America - not because of economic reasons (although this is part of it) nor is it a desire for tourism without harassment. Rather, I am concerned with the way in which the world will receive American missionaries. I am convinced that the way to stop wars and oppression is to spread the love of Christ throughout the globe, but if Christianity is linked with America (God help us) then it will be hard to get this message of love to countries that only receive our bombs or military occupancy (this will be explored more in the post on War and Violence). In this election, the candidate, then, that emphasizes American perception around the world is more appealing to me than the "beat up, take what we want, and ask questions later" position that we have struggled with over the past several years.

Treating People Like Ugly Americans
In Biblical Studies, one of the key areas of study for biblical interpretation is called hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation. In this type of study, we develop an interpretative infrastructure that attempts to build "bridges" that link our culture, customs, and perspectives with the biblical culture, customs and perspectives. In other words, we try to not read the Bible like ugly Americans and instead attempt to see the passages through the eyes of a first-century Jew.

I know what you're thinking, "So what does this have to do with political foreign policy?" Well, if our politicians would take this same tactic in foreign policy negotiations (trying to understand the issues from the eyes of their audience) instead of expecting everyone to see things from our perspective, we may be able to make significant progress in relating to foreign countries.

For example, one of the primary mantras that has been chanted over the past eight years has been, "It is America's responsibility and duty to spread freedom and democracy across the world." Here is the problem: "freedom" and "democracy" do not transcend all cultures. American foreign policy overlooks some key sociological components when trying to push our agenda.

First, Middle Eastern countries are not individualistic but communal based societies. In their world, the sociological currency is "honor" and "shame" (contra, America = "time" and "money"). In their society, they have a deep understanding of their families' honor and they will do anything to protect their names from shame. One of the ways in which shame is incurred to a family name is when the person stands out from their social group. Their job is not to excel, move up, nor stand out, their job is to keep the status quo, which preserves and heightens their family honor. When someone violates this status quo by speaking up or standing out, the rest of the society sees this as a challenge to someone else's honor -- because there is only so much honor to go around, and therefore anyone trying to progress is stealing someone else's honor. This situation can become tumultous and even dangerous for people, because no one knows whose honor is being threatened so everyone will challenge the initiator.

In light of this, there are several problems:

1. Democracy, by definition, is an individualistic phenomenon. The democratic process asks people to express their individual voice in an election. The problem with this system in communal societies is that this practice is seen as a threat to the status quo and therefore dangerous.
2. The way we define freedom, again, is to allow people the opportunity to use their own time to gain money. But, again, in a communal society, time and money are not as important as honor and shame. They will spend all of their time and money to increase their honor, but they will not sacrifice their honor for time and money (This is the reason for suicide bombers. The logic goes like this: "life is terrible because we cannot eat, feed our families, and therefore are shaming our family name. I would rather die than live like this, and the only way to gain honor is to do something fantastic for my family name - i.e., suicide bomb." It is all about honor -- which we do not get).
3. Our wars have shamed not only them as a people, but also their God ("Allah"). The only way in which the person can gain honor back for them and their God, in this situation, is to deal a blow that is more substantial and long-lasting to the last person that inflicted dishonor. Therefore, we have entered into a spiral of violence that will not stop, because we refuse to see this interaction as anything more than a war between governments -- it is bigger than that.
   

Americans can sit back and think that this is idiocy and that "we need to educate these savages on education, economics, government, and simply how to live life the right way," but we have to understand that this attitude in foreign policy is what is incurring more threats and tumultuous relationships. The attitude of arrogance that denigrates civilizations that have existed 10 times longer than we have simply must stop. It is time we end the American perspective, as William Cavanaugh puts it, that "we need to bomb them into higher rationality" and accept that people are simply different-and that is okay. If we took the time to love them and care for them by learning about them, our foreign policy would improve astronomically.

Anti-Terrorism and Pro-Israel?
Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of this foreign policy faux pas: we claim we are fighting a war on terror but hold that Israel is our closest ally.

What I am about to express is the key reason why so many Middle Eastern countries hate America. It is not because we are rich and they are poor. It is not because they are evil and we are good, and well evil hates good. It is not even because they "hate freedom." Rather, the Middle Eastern countries hate us because we support a nation that has been a key agent of terrorism to their brothers and sisters - the Palestinians.

The formation of Israel in 1948 can be described as nothing short of terrorism. The Palestinian nation, who had lived in the land for hundreds and hundreds of years, were warm, welcoming, hospitable people who had sold some of their land (under 6%) to the Jewish people and welcomed them into their territory. This loving spirit, however, was used against the Palestinians as Israel began to plan an assault and takeover of the entire region in what was known as Operation Dalet (dalet = the fourth letter in the Hebrew alphabet). Spearheaded by a Jewish man named Ben-Gurion, the nation of Israel began elaborate plans to not just take the land of Israel, but to wipe out the Palestinian presence altogether.

In 1947, the United Nations turned a blind eye to the injustices against the Palestinians and a deaf ear to the outcries from the Arab world and awarded Israel around 60% of the Palestinian land in what was known as Resolution 181. Israel, however, was not satisfied with only 60%, and began implementing their plan for 100% takeover of the region. This included: midnight raids of Palestinian villages, burning entire communities to the ground, executing key officials of villages, raping women, killing children, planting land mines in house rubble to prevent people coming back, and overall displacing over 800,000 Palestinians through forced evacuation or murder.

By 1948, Israel was permanently occupying the land of the Palestinians, consigning the Palestinians to little or no land at all. Israel, from this day forward, demanded that anyone who would be their ally or would negotiate peace with them must deny the existence of the Palestinian cleansing (this is the reason Ahmadinejad will not acknowledge the Holocaust as occurring). The Arab world saw this as an initiative by the west to wage war against them, and their honor has never been restored since.

The lunacy, then, of America's "war on terror" while teaming with a "nation" that is predicated on terrorism is nothing short of astonishing. Until this foreign policy blunder is rectified in a manner that is fitting for the Palestinian victims, we will not see peace in this world. For people that function off of honor and shame do not forget history -- they fight against it. (For more information see: Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine or his website).

Conclusion
For me, foreign policy is more about treating people the way they deserve to be treated than about American dominance around the world. While we spread Pax Americana I pray that Christ's message will be able to outshine this ethnocentric attempt at imperialism to show the world that true Christianity, not a self-proclaimed "Christian nation", is about love and peace in Jesus Christ for a kingdom that is not of this world.