Emily Lange

Beyond being "neutral". Let's build trust

Filed under religionsecularinternational developmentfaith

Neutral?

In a match between Secular vs. Religious, modern Western society often thinks the secular is the more neutral between the two. Not so at all. Both bring their own values and preferred agendas to the table. In her book, Wilkinson chooses to assess the secular contribution to the humanitarian response, which she claims has been understudied. This imbalance has often brought about too much focus on religion, which reconfirms the assumption in many people’s minds that the secular is neutral, more impartial and transparent.

My reading of Wilkinson’s book is also not impartial. I appreciated the way she brought empirically-based criticism and looked at the secular alongside religion and how their dynamics play in humanitarian work. Just as religion and faith-based organisations tend to be scrutinised, it is only intellectually honest to question the secular value system, its actors and their influence. A few reflections:

  • The secular has a strong influence of bias. There is a perception that religion is troublesome, yet all want to be “culturally sensitive” — but what happens when culture includes religion? And so the rebuilding of a church should be funded by the local community, but other cultural items, such as a community hall, can be funded by a development project. Sometimes, faith-based organisations (FBO) are even excluded from humanitarian actors’ listings or typologies, which do not recognise these also strive to adhere to international humanitarian standards.
  • Many secular actors push for a “functional secularism” which sees the secular as the “ideal” playing field and the preferred goal for all humanitarian work. This could make some sense if secularism were, in fact, neutral and impartial — but is it really? And is this really the ideal for all those involved?
  • To many in the Global South, “secularism” does not even make sense as what you believe and how you order your life are more interwoven. What if people’s idea of development and flourishing includes a spiritual dimension?
  • In this way, an insistence on privatising what is culturally shared is sometimes perceived as overlapping with a Western Eurocentric idea, politically motivated, hegemonic and widely misperceived as tolerant. Wilkinson describes a “secular approach” to humanitarian intervention which seems to overlap with Western assumptions which value efficiency over interaction, material over “holistic” aspects, universalist rather than particularist approaches. Coming from Portugal and now living in Germany, I have often reflected on a similar culture shock in work approaches and sympathise with how strange some of the “standard international humanitarian approaches” might be for many beneficiaries of development programmes.
  • Even the history of humanitarianism is Westernised: It does not tend to consider the contribution of Islamic charities or faith-based missions prior to Auguste Comte’s (secularised) “religion of humanity” and the birth of the field of “humanitarianism”.
  • Wilkinson’s fieldwork brought out perceptions from several disaster-affected people in the Philippines that some secular humanitarian actors have a “give and goodbye” approach — short timelines and brief interactions—, whereas faith actors tended to stay longer for the “how are yous?” Some beneficiaries perceived secular humanitarian actors as less neutral, impartial and transparent than faith-based actors.
  • Some responders to Wilkinson’s interviews pointed out that making religion taboo “makes it an issue”, whereas having the freedom to talk about faith/religion would actually not “make it an issue”.
  • One beneficiary said that rather than having more training (religious literacy), they wished for open discussion places where you can ask “stupid questions”, such as, “when / why do you go to church?”
  • Localisation and accountability are the buzz words being pushed onto humanitarian and development agendas in the last few years. Yet these can be hindered by secular bias when local partners and national staff are not taken seriously, not included in the actual planning and adapting of programmes, and when the concerns of a local population are not taken into account — which might include religious/spiritual aspects. Are culture and religion not universal values also? After all, 4 in 5 people in the world hold to some sort of belief system.

Why does this matter?

This matters for all those working in humanitarian and development work, whether they see themselves as faith actors or not, beneficiaries or practitioners. All have values, all are giving something and receiving something. We all bring our own lenses to the table and it would be wonderful to acknowledge this so that we can move onto building bridges.

As Western actors, we need to be much more humble about all the baggage we carry around. Claiming no faith or distancing ourselves from religion will not necessarily help and might actually hinder honest listening and effective response. Religion is certainly not unbiased. And when it is seen to be part of the problem, it also needs to be part of the solution.

As Wilkinson points out, rather than binaries of secular vs. religious, both secular and religious dynamics are at play within humanitarian work, neither will go away, and both have effects on humanitarian work and its recipients.

Discussing this with my colleague Judith Gebbe, at PIRON Global Development, we concluded that perhaps a most valuable contribution in Wilkinsons’ book is to point out that with or without faith, relationship and trust building are what is most valued by beneficiaries, what is most needed, and what could actually make humanitarian response more effective.

This is something all humanitarian actors can listen to and pause to reflect over whether their processes have space for this. This means a shift from activity and productivity to building presence — like slow cooking, it might mean more “slow working”. And here we have to admit that faith actors have a lot to say about building relationships and trust building…

To buy the book: https://www.routledge.com/Secular-and-Religious-Dynamics-in-Humanitarian-Response-1st-Edition/Wilkinson/p/book/9780367188337

Originally posted on LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/beyond-being-neutral-lets-build-trust-emily-lange-p4mve/?trackingId=QMD9QJb995SolZWQhcWnbA%3D%3D