Berkley Center

Background: This discussion between Welmoet Boender and Katherine Marshall took place by phone as part of preparation for a June 24, 2008 consultation at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague on "Global Development and Faith-Inspired Organizations in Europe and Africa." In this exchange, Boender describes her work with the Knowledge Center, a collaborative project launched in 2006 by five Dutch faith-based organizations. She outlines the direction of her research, focused especially on Islam, and also speaks about the consciousness being cultivated concerning religion in fragile states.

Can you tell us something about your path and current work? How did you get involved in your organization?

I studied anthropology and Islamic studies at Leiden, and finished my Ph.D. in November 2007. My focus in recent years has been on Muslims in Europe. In my work at the Knowledge Centre, which I joined in May 2006, issues of religion and development come up mostly in the context of development cooperation.

How does the Knowledge Centre work, and how long has it been operating?

The Knowledge Centre was founded in 2006. It is a cooperative venture led by five Dutch nongovernmental organizations. They are ICCO, which has Protestant roots; Cordaid, a Catholic organization; the SEVA network, which is Hindu; the Islamic University of Rotterdam; and Oikos (my own organization), which is an ecumenical organization. I came from one of the members of the coordinating group.

What inspired the Knowledge Centre, and what kinds of issues are on the agenda?

It is very much built on the idea that it is important to reflect on ideas linking religion to development, in the [Global] South, but also in northern countries.

Religion as a theme has come up from all sides in development cooperation. It came up in relation to what one’s identity as a member of a faith means in current times, with such strong processes of secularization afoot. What does it mean for the organizations, for the individual, for staff, for the institutions’ policies, and in general for their approach and philosophy of action? Second, the group wanted to reflect on what religion means for partner organizations in the south, in terms of relationships between different kinds of institutions working together across various dimensions. Third, the question arises in relation to the identity of donor organizations: who are their traditional partners? Do they look primarily to those with similar ties or outlook: thus Catholic groups looking to Catholic organizations as partners? Do they share the same visions and outlook? Are there any difficulties in communication or in visions of what the groups are working towards? Are there any difficulties in understanding each other? And for staff members there are questions: do you need to be Catholic to work for a Catholic organization (the answer is no), but if you are, or are not, how do you present yourself?

So, the five organizations decided that it was important to cooperate with each other in addressing these questions. The first task has been to organize moments of reflection—that generally means debates and conferences where several partners can sit around a table with others facing similar challenges. Besides organizing these meetings, we reflect ourselves, write articles, and attend or organize academic conferences. Perhaps most important, we try to be a mediating link between academic science and practical fields, going in a two way direction. If we organize a meeting, we can invite scholars, and link their work to the practical experience of staff of field organizations, and the other way around.

Staff working in the organizations feel a crucial need to be informed. They face stark working pressures, as they have to meet the requirements and demands of implementing projects, and showing measurable results. It is hard to find time to look to the inspirational side: to ask and reflect on why we do what we do, how can we deal with the complexities we constantly meet, and find spiritual sources of inspiration and practice. We have to find moments when we can think about the work and issues in a more philosophical way. So that is one urge: a wish to meet and reflect. At the Knowledge Center, we call each other brokers in knowledge and reach out to find people working on similar functions and issues. A good example is a meeting this afternoon, a roundtable conversation involving NGOs and others interested in failed or fragile states. Those involved feel that it is important that they share their experience, seek practical advice, and reflect on the ideas and inspiration of others working in the same areas.

We try to organize fairly regular meetings, and often not with the same audience. Another example of a recent meeting was an encounter with the Christian Democrat Party. We had a conversation with them on a range of issues. Our role was to facilitate the talks and help to mediate ideas and perhaps tensions.

Can you say more about your current research?

I was at a conference last weekend to present a paper on Islamic development associations within diaspora communities. One of my interests at the Knowledge Centre is the institutionalization of the process of forming and developing Islamic development organizations in the Netherlands.

There are few professional Islamic development organizations in the Netherlands. Islamic Relief is one such organization. These organizations are not firmly rooted in the Dutch development sector yet. But I expect this to change rather fast in the coming years. One incentive is that there is a need for established organizations who can reach both the migrant communities and people in the south, thus functioning as an intermediary between organizations here and in the Muslim world.

Right now, though, most Muslim communities in the Netherlands are still dealing with rather mundane, practical issues, struggling for equal opportunity and to find their place in the society. Many are still at a low socioeconomic level, so the priority is to improve that before reaching out. But there are enormous amounts of remittances of migrant communities. And Islamic social ethics provide ample starting point for a well-developed vision on development, also in the modern world.

Most of the money goes to families and relatives in the areas of origin of the migrants. The larger organizations, like Islamic Relief, are today seen in the context of terrorism measures, and that is something they and we have to deal. Of course, they have to meet the normal criteria of transparency in the Netherlands. But they know that in current times of strong security measures, everything they do will be very closely checked. So Islamic development organizations have to go through normal processes of institutionalization, but at the same time, they seem to be in a special, not very easy position.

I also think that it is of immediate relevance how Dutch development organizations address Islamic organizations, especially in the Muslim south. What kinds of opportunities are there for partnerships and interactions, what kinds of contacts? What kinds of predicaments arise when Islamic and non-Islamic associations work together? If they do interact, what kinds of organizations do they work with?

Can you highlight some of the findings and dilemmas?

An important finding is that there is relatively little concrete cooperation between Dutch NGOs and Islamic NGOs. But there are many relevant questions. For example, when do you accept an organization as a partner? How do you deal with organizations that are part of a social movement, for example the Muslim Brotherhood? Should you cooperate with them or not? Or, going a step further, what about Hamas or Hezbollah? They are part of political movements, but they also have charitable organizations that reach the grassroots, which traditional partners often do not. So the issues of with whom do we talk and how do we get involved have immediate and practical relevance. I work on an article which is based on interviews with staff members of Dutch NGOs, focusing on the areas where they worked. These included the Palestine territories, Morocco, and some areas of Africa.

What kinds of activities do you find are of most interest and most useful?

Our agenda has focused on several topics. A first topic was a reflection on how religion can serve as an instrument for sustainable development. What visions of sustainable development circulate within different religions, and how can development organizations take account of these when drawing up their policies? As we did so, we found it was important to do much listening, to find out both opinions and feelings. Then in the second year, we focused more on religion and modernity. We organized several debates on the topic, though it tends to be a bit abstract. But we wanted to discuss the idea that you see within traditions a modernization process that is not separate from the overall modernization, but very much a part of it. Religions react to modernization, but they also shape it. Now, this year, we are focusing more on religion in fragile states, which tends to be much more concrete.

How are the issues of fragile states emerging in the discussions?

Our aim with this first meeting this afternoon is that different people of various organizations will tell us about their experiences with religion. The backdrop is that the current minister of development, Bert Koenders, has made fragile states a focus point on his agenda. His idea is that we should not only look at countries where things are good, and where there is already good governance. We need to be prepared to take more risks and see what we can do in fragile states, because that is where so many poor people are. Koenders’ policy note says we need to talk to everyone: government, but also civil society. NGOs work in these fragile states and work with civil society organizations. The question emerges as to what happens when you focus explicitly on the roles that religion plays in fragile states, what resources they have, what institutions and actors are involved, and how this affects values, norms, and virtues.

We work by organizing round tables with eight to 10 people, where we can hear and listen. What do they have to tell us? Who are the actors? What are their motivations? And how do they see the roles of civil society? Are religious actors or organizations a distinct party to work with? How do you deal with the highly politicized role that religion may play in fragile states? There are also a host of issues that turn around identity, like, how does one articulate and reflect on the identity of one’s own organization? Do you talk about it or keep quiet?

How much agreement is there on which states are fragile and which are not?

Indeed, we need to tread carefully on that subject. The minister has nominated nine countries, though obviously there are more. At the meeting this afternoon those countries will be the focus. They are Afghanistan, Burundi, Congo, Guatemala, Sudan, the Palestinian territories, Kosovo, Pakistan, and Colombia.

Does Oikos, the organization you are attached to, have involvement in fragile states?

Oikos is an ecumenical organization which has as its central task to strengthen the grounding and foundation for development cooperation in the Netherlands. Its focus is thus on the [Global] North, through education and research, and it tries to convey the relevance and importance of development. We need the Dutch population to be interested in development cooperation and therefore to know why it is relevant. We organize activities, for example on climate change, and underscore what it means for you, as a citizen, in terms of personal behavior, economic issues, etc. Other issues include globalization at large and fair trade.

Oikos also has projects on the area of migration and development. And we have a project called Dialogue for Peaceful Change. The tools were originally developed in Northern Ireland, and involve a dialogue method, and modules of training of trainers.

What issues do you think it would be most useful for our consultation in The Hague to focus on?

The issue of Islamic organizations and their work will clearly come up as they present important and immediate issues. This is something that cannot be avoided in the next 10 years. NGOs working in the Netherlands and in Europe need to make up their minds what to do with Islamic organizations. If they focus on secular or Christian groups, they might reach too little and too seldom to the grassroots in Muslim countries.

The issues of religion in the fragile states are also a live and important topic, worth an exploration.

We should also look to the outcomes of the Soesterberg II international conference, "Transforming Development," organized by the Knowledge Center last year. We notice that many development notions are based on a Western assumption to take development as a secular process. We think it is too limited to only look at material dimensions. Development also include immaterial dimensions. And in these immaterial dimensions, religion and spirituality often play an important role. We have called this integral development. It takes the indivisibility of the human person as point of departure. It was the challenge of Soesterberg II for donor and partner organizations to look and discuss together what this means for communication and strategies.

We should not generalize about all these matters too far. For example, it is obviously not necessarily true that because a religious actor is involved, they can be trusted. But, we also know that if we do not include religion in our observations, analysis and actions, we complicate the situation even more.