HOW BAD is bad? How evil is the Devil? Can God cry for the Devil? Questions not many of us ask because we already know the answers. At least, we think we do.
Some indisputable facts: Osama bin Laden is a crazy Islamic fundamentalist. The Chinese want to take over the world. And building a well in an impoverished Indian village is a good thing.
Or does Wahhabism, the extreme branch of Islam followed by Osama, share common traits with Christianity’s own fringe group, the Southern Baptist Church? Haven’t China’s surplus dollars helped bailout Western financial institutions? And does a feminist-inspired aid policy really make women happier when a well is built in their village?
The answer to the last question is “not always”. In one such case, the 90-minute walk to collect water everyday was the only chance the village women had to get away from their male-dominated oppressive environment. The well took that away from them.
International Relations scholar Stephen Chan posed these questions last week while in Cyprus for a one-off lecture at the University of Nicosia. Chan took time out to speak to the Sunday Mail on moral ambiguity and the relationship between Good and Evil.
The first-born son of Chinese refugees in New Zealand, Chan worked as a student leader, publisher, newspaper editor, international civil servant and martial arts trainer in Africa before hitting London’s hub of alternative academic thought, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies).
His upcoming book The End of Certainty: Towards a New International Relations looks at IR from new multicultural, philosophical and theological perspectives.
“When we look at what we call ‘extreme’ groups of people, very often their foundation of thought is much more sophisticated than say George Bush’s thought. I’m basically trying to remove demonisation from the equation, take fundamentalism and evil out of it, and show the possibility of other ways of thinking so we can have a slightly more sophisticated, sympathetic approach to difference,” says Chan.
“If you’re going to have some sort of dialogue in IR, you can start by understanding the other person. You can’t just demonise them and throw bombs on them.”
Of course, nothing is totally understandable, he concedes.
“Nobody understands Western society completely. At least Chinese people don’t.”
And there is no grand theory to make every one love each other and bring peace to the world either.
“Gone are the days when you had great thinkers changing world systems and stuff like that. Nothing even tries to be that grand now. It takes a lot of vanity to even suppose that possibility.”
But Chan does practise what he preaches, using his methods and knowledge to enhance people’s understanding of each other.
Last year, for instance, he was in China, helping the Chinese understand the mess they got into in Darfur.
“They were asking ‘why does everyone hate us being over there, we’re not doing anything more unusual than any great power would do in our place?’ Well, there’s an element of truth in it, though it’s a bit disingenuous.
“But it heartened me they did that. It shows them wanting at least to begin a process of talking about things they don’t understand,” he said.
Chan will be crossing the bridge next month to speak before a parliamentary committee in London to shed light on the enigma that is China.
“You need dialogue and understanding to figure out where people are coming from. Try to make it comprehensible, even the way suicide bombers think,” he added.
Chan argues without dialogue, without engaging even those we would normally regard as extremists, there can be no peace.
“We’ve got to swallow some pride and talk to those who are often dismissed or demonised. We’ve got to talk to terrorists.”
To really engage the rest of the world, we have to start taking into account their thinkers and writers too. We can’t just impose the West’s enlightenment experience on the rest of the world, he says.
“The study of IR is very Western in its orientation and philosophy. It’s got to transgress these foundations and become more cosmopolitan. If we can have world music and fusion cuisine, why not philosophy?”
Chan gives an example of the 1979 Iranian revolution. “An awful lot of sophisticated intellectual thought went into that, before the revolution got hijacked by the clerical faction, that we know nothing about.”
Through his work, Chan reveals interesting insights into commonalities between the major religions but also their idiosyncrasies and evolving nature.
“I’ve found comparative examples of God and the Devil in other culture’s literature and even in our own intellectual history, where you’ll find much more sophisticated renditions of the devil than currently exists in most mainstream religions today.”
For example, there are elements of ancient Christian thought, the Gnostic tradition, and some elements of Zoroastrian thought from ancient Persia where you can see complex treatments of the God and Devil.
“The two tend to have a dialectical relationship, where you see far more co-dependency between them than just being binary opposites. It’s only the last 100 years Satan has become this evil opposite to God. The Gnostic gospels had this great need for good and evil to live together which is missing today.”
In the earlier scriptures, the binary of good and evil had yet to come out, so fallen angels, or Satan’s gang, were still depicted as beautiful figures, like the other angels. They had yet to become dark, shady reptiles.
Chan takes this to highlight that “sympathy for the devil” is possible and that the lines between good and evil are not as obvious as we think.
“Look at Kennedy’s assassination. A lot of very conservative people in the US didn’t like Kennedy and even applauded his death. If we misunderstand ourselves, our own virtue, how easy it is for other people to misunderstand us.
“There are moral difficulties facing us in solving divisions of the world. If we recognise our flawed decisions, like the Indian well for instance, we’ll recognise that others are not so perfect either,” says Chan.
“And at some point in time, the whole cycle of blame has to come to an end. Just because someone started it first, doesn’t mean it has to continue for ever.”
Justice Albie Sachs was approached in his office one day by a man who had tried to blow him up during Apartheid South Africa, leaving him crippled. The man had come to ask for forgiveness years later. Sachs’ response was a spontaneous gesture of mercy. To paraphrase, Sachs said: “I’d shake your hand if I had a right arm.”
This was an example of “interim mercy”, though it might not have solved all of South Africa’s problems.
Chan reiterates that we are all deeply flawed and divided, but as the ancient scriptures reveal, there’s room for God and the Devil to share a space and have a common dialogue.
“We have to avoid the moral trap where we think we are upright but remain unaware of our effects on the world. Take nothing for granted. Nothing is free. The worse we can do is be satisfied with ourselves.”
