In a sacred tug of war

W  hat is Jerusalem? The oldest among cities. Holiest city in Judaism; third-holiest in Islam; very holy in Christianity. Home to the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque. A city destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times, Jerusalem is anything but a mere 125.1 sq km of land.

The land had long since metamorphosed into something supremely sacred and in a conflict over it, adversaries rarely are rational. It is logical, then, that conflict resolution approaches — based on a rational model rooted in pragmatism and realism — have failed here. These ‘rational actor’ models worked well even during the Cold War but, now, when ‘irrational actors’ devoted to ‘the cause’, such as suicide bombers, have come to the forefront, the traditional approach has become redundant. With moral commitments or ‘sacred values’ at play, the ‘actors’ are willing to make extreme sacrifices that are even independent of the probability of success, leave alone material rewards.

This is true in many of the current-day political and other violent conflicts. A team of researchers, funded by the National Science Foundation, USA, has been investigating the role of ethical and religious beliefs, or ‘sacred values’, in motivating human behaviour. “Sacred values must be studied as they form a core part of individual identity and is the root of cultural conflicts. People want to protect what they hold sacred and it leads to irrational behaviour,” says Sonya Sachdeva of Northwestern University, part of the research team. The study found that individuals who hold sacred values are rarely willing to barter them for economic gain. The findings are not startling in one sense, yet they underline an urgent need for a change in the present approach to resolving resource conflicts or countering political violence.

To devoted players like terrorists, sacred values not only charge them to action, but it comes into play even while choosing their targets for strike. Take, for instance, the 9/11 attack. The World Trade Center was picked for its shock value, among other factors. During the Mumbai terror strike too, targets were those that would deliver maximum outrage and fear. The attack in Pakistan where the Sri Lankan cricket team was shot at was engineered to cripple the cultural spirit inspired by the sport. Even the most recent assault on the Lahore police training academy was designed to instill an extreme sense of insecurity. Strike-where-it-hurts is clearly the terrorists’ mantra.

“The reality of extreme behaviour and intractability of political conflict warrants research into the nature and depth of commitment to sacred values,” writes Scott Atran, visiting professor at the University of Michigan, leading researcher of the study.

The research team included scholars from the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, the New School, Harvard University and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. This study, for the first time, showed that the use of material incentives to promote the peaceful resolution of political and cultural conflicts may backfire when adversaries treat contested issues as sacred values. “It’s easy to assume that all players approach the world with similar sets of rational choices but ignoring or disregarding the sacred value frameworks across cultures may exacerbate conflict, with grievous loss of national treasure and lives,” writes Atran.

The research, which began in 2005, studied three areas of conflict — Israel-Palestine, Kashmir and Ayodhya. In each of these scenarios, those interviewed were offered different tradeoffs — taboo and symbolic. “Sacred values are compartmentalised from secular values like economic factors. But when the two domains mingle, the ‘actors’ feel threatened and respond with moral outrage, this is a ‘taboo’ tradeoff,” explains Sachdeva. In contrast, when two sacred values are negotiated, those concerned are less outraged — thus becoming a symbolic or tragic tradeoff.

The team went to the Middle East to probe issues of material tradeoffs and symbolic concessions with leaders of major parties of the Israel-Palestine dispute. They interviewed 601 Israeli settlers, 535 Palestinian refugees, 719 Palestinian students belonging to various political groups and 14 political leaders. They asked participants to respond to a series of proposed solutions involving compromises while measuring their emotional response and their propensity for violence.

They found that most of the participants responded negatively if the proposed solution was an economic trade-off, responded extremely negatively if offered a trade-off along with some substantial material incentive, and responded more positively to a trade-off that also involved a symbolic concession.

“Our research tells us when there is a confrontation involving sacred values, then offers to give up or exchange sacred values for material incentives is taken as a deep insult, which only increases disgust and the moral outrage that inspires violence,” Atran writes.
Regarding the Ram Janmabhoomi/Babri Masjid dispute, the researchers combined experiments, surveys and interviews of Hindu and Muslim participants in Faizabad and Ayodhya in 2007.

“Symbolic tradeoffs were accepted more than taboo, especially among Hindus, as their sense of sacred value is more here since the site is considered as the birthplace of Lord Ram. Muslim participants seem to be more willing to concede the land in exchange of a taboo plus tragic tradeoff,” says Sachdeva.

But in the case of Kashmir, where it is much more religiously charged for Muslims than Hindus, the participants seem to differ on demands ranging from apology, to independence to Kashmir, to equal sharing of the land between India and Pakistan. The research here is still on.

These results demonstrate some of the unique properties of reasoning and decision-making over sacred values. It offers suggestions on how negotiators can reframe their position by demonstrating respect and/or by apologising for what they sincerely regret. It also offers suggestions on how to overcome barriers by refining sacred values to exclude outmoded claims, exploiting the inevitable ambiguity of sacred values, shifting the context, provisionally prioritising values, and reframing responsibility.

Not easy to implement
India has always shown a proclivity for the value model. “We have often allowed our principles to take precedence over hard material interests. Our political tradition since the time of Ashoka has been to put moral issues high on the state’s agenda. In dealing with insurgency or even terrorism, we have never behaved like China did in Tibet or the US in Vietnam or Iraq or Pakistan in Baluchistan,” says Sujit Dutta, senior fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

Defence analyst Uday Bhaskar adds: “If non-state forces were only using sticks and stones to fight battles, the state could have ignored it. But now, they have the considerable force of technology at their disposal and, post 9/11, that is not an option.”
But the sacred value model of strategic thinking is not a sure-shot approach as multiple factors are involved. The questions it raises are many. For instance, in the Swat valley situation, should Pakistan accept all the conditions laid down by the Taliban? Should it draw a line somewhere? Does the state then abdicate all responsibility? Should it use force? These are perplexing questions, says Bhaskar.

Similarly, both Israelis and Palestinians are seeking an apology from each other. “If both want to keep the conflict alive, it becomes an unending debate. Or both India and Pakistan are caught in a conflict which seems hard to resolve because both feel aggrieved for their own reasons and there is no accommodation on either side,” says Dutta.

Despite these issues, experts agree that findings of this study cannot be ignored. Even if the state seems to be losing face, compromises are a better way to handle conflict situations, they say. To paraphrase Bhaskar, if the only response to any conflict situation is to drop a bomb — the American strategy — then you get into a cul de sac.  (With inputs from Malini Nair)