**6. Faith-Based Conflict Prevention**

There have been very few substantive analyses of faith-based violent conflict prevention in the academic literature. Notable exceptions include Hertog (2010), who explores the peace-inculcating values and ethics of religion and the potential of these for violence prevention, and Palihapitiya (2018), who considers faith-based early warning systems. A small number of policy-focused reflections exist (Haider 2016; Perchoc 2016). This is despite the fact that initiatives have long been common at the local level, where religious actors are well placed to respond to early signs of violence and are increasingly being adopted by international faith-based NGOs. National-level religious leaders often have public platforms to raise the alarm as peace deteriorates. Internationally, many larger faith traditions have secretariats and representatives at global institutions, through which they can raise issues on the global stage. As examples, the Holy See is a permanent observer state at the United Nations, and the Anglican Communion also retains a representative to the United Nations in Geneva and New York.

In all of the case studies, respondents evidenced a range of faith-based conflict prevention initiatives. During the conflict in the Solomon Islands, young monks slept on the battle lines in a "middle camp" between warring militias. They provided security at the airport, allowing planes importing vital goods to land and preventing further deterioration of law and order. Church leaders escorted people in danger, providing safe passage and sanctuary. In the aftermath, monks collected weapons on behalf of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), preventing retaliatory gun violence. Church leaders mediated local disputes around land to prevent them spiralling. They brokered interpersonal and communal reconciliation and healing and ran training workshops on non-violent conflict resolution. Churches were instrumental in establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which included a forward-looking set of reforms "designed to prevent a recurrence of violence" (Je ffrey and Mollica 2017). When the governmen<sup>t</sup> refused to release the Commission's report, one Bishop controversially leaked it to the media.

In Nigeria, religious peacebuilding initiatives were mostly led by local faith-based NGOs with strong ties to religious communities. Conflict prevention activities included the formation of conflict early warning and response teams and GPS mapping of violence. One organisation literally counted the costs of conflict with villages (what is the cost of a dead cow, a burned-out building, the loss of a breadwinner). Thinking long term, another organisation ran interfaith youth livelihood programmes, including a residential farm bringing together Christian and Muslim youth from di fferent ethnic groupings in shared dormitories. Women's faith groups ran religious literacy classes with prisoners, pushing back against attempts to justify violence through religious doctrine. A high point for religious peacemakers was the signing of the Kaduna Peace Declaration of Religious Leaders in 2002. Musa (2016) argues that this had an immediate preventative e ffect: when Kaduna's Muslim youth rioted against Nigeria hosting the Miss World Beauty pageant, Christian and Muslim leaders were proactive in quelling violence. A total of 250 people were killed in the Miss World riots; two years previously, the shari'a riots claimed over 2500 lives.

Finally, in Zanzibar, a Joint Committee of Religious Leaders regularly sought to deescalate tensions by dispelling rumours and appealing for calm. An interfaith organisation ran activities to promote peace during elections, improve community policing and enable youth to advocate for peace. They have also set up more than 300 local peace committees throughout the island to monitor peace.<sup>3</sup>

<sup>3</sup> An in-depth analysis of the Committee's work has been conducted by Langås (2019).

In all cases, respondents could identify highly localised indicators of potential violence. These included chieftain disputes, lorries on the road at night (signifying illicit activities and the breakdown of law and order), violence in neighbouring areas, the unexpected arrival of strangers, rumours circulating by SMS, a ban or curfew on motorcycle drivers, adversaries relocating cattle, circulation of leaflets in the market and proselytising during other faiths' religious holidays. Longer term indicators included "irregular" migration (with irregular in this instance referring to migration against customary practices), ethnic segregation/ghettoisation of inner-city areas, the sweeping aside of unaddressed grievances and rapid cultural change/Westernisation. Respondents could also connect these to global triggers, including the Danish cartoon controversy of 2002, in which a Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist, and the fall of Gaddafi in Libya, which increased access to small arms.

In conducting their prevention activities, faith-based actors were found to benefit from three forms of overlapping capital: local capital, on the one hand, and religious and spiritual capital on the other. In this article, local capital refers to the strengths and advantages that local actors may have by virtue of their positioning and proximity to communities. As such, it is an extension of social capital, a term popularised by Putnam (2000) to denote a public good derived from "connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them". In the case studies, local faith-based organisations often utilised local capital—they were quick to pick up on and interpret subtle changes in conflict indicators, given their familiarity with local norms, culture, practices and vernacular. They were also known entities with an existing store of goodwill upon which to draw.

Religious capital refers to the practical contributions made by faith groups based on their resources, while spiritual capital refers to the ethical, theological, scriptural and spiritual values that energise this (Baker 2009). Some definitions combine both forms of capital under the same heading of either "religious" or "spiritual", but there is greater conceptual clarity in separating the two. "The spiritual is associated with the personal, the intimate, the interior and the experiential, contrasted with 'religion', which is associated with the o fficial, the external and the institutional, often picking up negative connotations of the hierarchical and patriarchal along the way" (Guest 2007; Heelas 2002). Of course, a long tradition of philosophers, from Marx (1844) to Weber (1964) to Bourdieu (1987), highlight that the use of religious and spiritual capital is not always benign. Few religious peacebuilding scholars would dispute this—indeed, it is further evidence of the ambivalence of the sacred.

In the case studies, faith-based actors strongly utilised their religious capital. Most had access to well-located premises for meetings and activities. Often, religious leaders had access to other local leaders, including those in politics, media and the aid sector. In Nigeria, some faith leaders had their own TV talk shows. Depending on their circumstances and institutional structures, many leaders could escalate matters to national and international leaders through denominational, ecumenical and interfaith networks. Faith groups also had their own financial resources, which, though small, o ffered a level of stability and continuity.

Critically, faith groups also utilised their spiritual capital. Activities observed by the research team were distinctly value driven, emphasising concepts of justice, compassion and human flourishing and a ffirming these through prayer and the use of religious doctrine, storytelling and symbolism. This was done as a matter of conviction, rather than utility, but nevertheless had the potential to allow people to move beyond their own interests and look at the common good. The use of religious ritual and symbolism was often important for communities—in the Solomon Islands, the hands of former combatants were symbolically washed when they handed over their weapons, signifying a spiritual cleansing that was meaningful for them. Respondents explained how prevention activities were designed to connect at an individual's innermost levels, going beyond the cognitive to enter what some might see as a spiritual realm or what others might see as an emotional or psychological one.

Only church vehicles could pass through the [militia] camps, but once our vehicle was stopped. The priest came back and told me, and I said 'go and tell them that vehicle is a church. If they hold it, they are holding a church'. (Christian faith leader, Solomon Islands).

This readiness to engage more deeply is important, as emotions are an essential part of transforming conflict (Bramsen and Poder 2018). It also gives activities credence: "You need some theological basis, or this is just a governmen<sup>t</sup> agenda" (Christian faith leader, Nigeria).

Of course, faith-based engagemen<sup>t</sup> in conflict prevention is far from perfect. Some religious actors are openly hostile to such initiatives and may even be key conflict protagonists. In Nigeria, respondents explained that hate preaching by religious leaders contributes to violence: "Before preaching was very balanced, but today it can be too extreme" (Muslim faith leader, Nigeria). Nor are faith-based actors immune from the creeping elitism that the wider field of conflict prevention has been charged with. "Interfaith work is all up, up, up, they will continue going up until they meet Jesus! But there are people down there. We need to go much more local. Relationships have to be formed at a local level, between youth" (Christian youth leader, Nigeria). Where faith groups have a middle-class bias, they can also struggle to access those most easily mobilised into violence, who are often youth from poor families. In the Solomon Islands, the monks of the Melanesian Brotherhood were roughly the same age as the militias and, in some cases, had been to school with them, enabling them to build rapport. In Nigeria, however, one civil society leader observed that religious leaders were losing influence over youth, with implications for their prevention work: "The religious leaders aren't following youth, they aren't at the football fields, and youth are major actors" (Civil society leader, Nigeria).
