Throughout 2022, GIGA researchers and their collaborators interviewed and surveyed around 2,700 citizens and 56 religious leaders, politicians and other experts in Sierra Leone and Togo. We wanted to find out how to build and maintain peace between different religious groups, or ‘interreligious peace’.
The map shows levels of interreligious peace around the world in 2014. Darker blue countries were more peaceful, lighter blue ones less peaceful. As we wanted to learn more about interreligious peace, we turned to two of the places globally where it works best: Sierra Leone and Togo.
Strong connections foster peace: Friendships, family ties and strong social norms help nurture interreligious peace. As one interviewee put it: ‘it’s a culture now. So, we are practicing it.’
- We found a connection between social norms which value interfaith relations and increased contact between members of different religious groups.
- To our surprise, promoting these norms can lead to both positive and negative encounters. People who don’t support these norms tend to avoid all interreligious contact. They prefer to interact only with peers of the same faith.
Freedom of religion and lived tolerance foster peace: Rights which are protected by the state and lived by the community build interreligious peace. Lived tolerance can take many forms but can be, for example, respecting noise from places of worship. Guaranteeing freedom of religion and belief is crucial, as state discrimination undermines interreligious peace.
Interviewees named ‘religious extremism’ a major threat to interreligious peace. Disrespect, the possibility of stigmatisation and the spread of ideas such as the superiority of one faith above all others can harm the peaceful co-existence of different religious groups.
Sometimes religious leaders only call for peace between respective groups without leading by example, failing to teach tolerance and inclusive religious ideas. We found that advocating for peace alone isn’t enough. According to our global analysis, such calls by religious leaders do not necessarily reduce interreligious violence.
Friendships inspire friendships: Meaningful interactions among different religious groups such as interfaith friendships can increase the openness of others towards engaging in such contact themselves.
The power of positive messages: Exposure to video clips highlighting similarities between religions with a call for cooperation can enhance how much people share, as well as help improve their opinions of someone from a different religious group. The best finding: anyone can be a messenger!
- We initially expected religious leaders to be the most effective messengers, but soon learned that words from someone who isn’t a leader can be just as impactful – sometimes even more so.
- Messages by citizens (non-leaders) seem to be more effective in encouraging people from religious-minority groups to engage in interreligious cooperation.
The power of inclusive religious ideas: ‘We only have one God. It’s everyone’s way of practicing. So, we work together.’¹ One interviewee highlights here how inclusive ideas can foster interfaith friendships, marriages and everyday encounters in the first place.
¹ Authors' translation
- Our research found that inclusive religious ideas, such as that we pray differently to the same god, and knowledge about other religious practices are related to a reduced preference for interacting only with people of the same religion.
- Exclusive ideas, such as the superiority of one faith, are associated with a stronger preference for sticking to religious peers.
- Promoting inclusive ideas works everywhere, not only in neighbourhoods with a high level of everyday interreligious peace.
Collaborators in this research were John Jusu, James B. Vincent, Edem Defly, Kai Analytics, the research teams of the Center for Research and Opinion Polls (CROP) and the Institute for Governance Reform (IGR). Thank you for the successful partnership.
We extend our deepest gratitude to everyone who contributed to this study. Special thanks to the participants in our surveys, many of whom share strong friendships across religious lines.
Stay connected: If you would like to stay in touch and receive updates on future research or news of recent publications, please feel free to reach out to us at Julia.koebrich@giga-hamburg.de or Theodora.benesch@giga-hamburg.de.