Between Terror and Tolerance: Religion, Conflict, and Peacemaking
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Islamophobia and Religious Intolerance: Threats to Global Peace and Harmonious Co-Existence
Qudus International Journal of Islamic Studies (QIJIS) Volume 8, Number 2, 2020 DOI : 10.21043/qijis.v8i2.6811 ISLAMOPHOBIA AND RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE: THREATS TO GLOBAL PEACE AND HARMONIOUS CO-EXISTENCE Kazeem Oluwaseun DAUDA National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Jabi-Abuja, Nigeria Consultant, FARKAZ Technologies & Education Consulting Int’l, Ijebu-Ode [email protected] Abstract Recent events show that there are heightened fear, hostilities, prejudices and discriminations associated with religion in virtually every part of the world. It becomes almost impossible to watch news daily without scenes of religious intolerance and violence with dire consequences for societal peace. This paper examines the trends, causes and implications of Islamophobia and religious intolerance for global peace and harmonious co-existence. It relies on content analysis of secondary sources of data. It notes that fear and hatred associated with Islām and persecution of Muslims is the fallout of religious intolerance as reflected in most melee and growingverbal attacks, trends anti-Muslim of far-right hatred,or right-wing racism, extremists xenophobia,. It revealsanti-Sharī’ah that Islamophobia policies, high-profile and religious terrorist intolerance attacks, have and loss of lives, wanton destruction of property, violation led to proliferation of attacks on Muslims, incessant of Muslims’ fundamental rights and freedom, rising fear of insecurity, and distrust between Muslims and QIJIS, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2020 257 Kazeem Oluwaseun DAUDA The paper concludes that escalating Islamophobic attacks and religious intolerance globally hadnon-Muslims. constituted a serious threat to world peace and harmonious co-existence. Relevant resolutions in curbing rising trends of Islamophobia and religious intolerance are suggested. -
Country Snapshot Serbia
Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe Volume 39 Issue 5 Article 9 2019 Country Snapshot Serbia Belgrade Open School Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree Part of the Eastern European Studies Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Open School, Belgrade (2019) "Country Snapshot Serbia," Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 39 : Iss. 5 , Article 9. Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol39/iss5/9 This Article, Exploration, or Report is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Country snapshot Serbia By Belgrade Open School The Christian faith has been present in the territory comprising modern Serbia since the Roman period. After the initial spread of Christianity to the area in the 2nd century, religious authority fluctuated between Rome and Constantinople, before Eastern Orthodoxy became established in the late 9th century. Under the medieval Nemanjic dynasty, the Serbian Orthodox Church achieved autocephalous status in 1219, and was elevated to a patriarchate in 1346. Islam was introduced in Serbia with the Ottoman presence in the Balkans from the 14th century onwards. Varying degrees of tolerance between the Orthodox and Muslim populations of foreign and Slavic descent followed. Between 1804 and 1815, a series of Serbian uprisings against Ottoman rule culminated in Serbia gaining autonomy under the rule of Serbian hereditable princes in 1830, and eventually in complete independence in 1878. -
The Rise of Buddhist-Muslim Conflict in Asia and Possibilities for Transformation by Iselin Frydenlund
Policy Brief December 2015 The rise of Buddhist-Muslim conflict in Asia and possibilities for transformation By Iselin Frydenlund Executive summary Violence against Muslim minorities in Buddhist societies has increased in recent years. The Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar are disenfranchised, and many of their candidates were rejected by the official Union Election Commission prior to the 2015 elections. Furthermore laws about religious conversion, missionary activities, and interfaith marriage are being pro- moted to control relations between religions and prevent conflict. The danger, however, is that increased control will lead to more, not fewer, conflicts. Discrimination against religious minorities may lead to radicalisation. In addition minority-majority relations in a single state may have regional consequences because a minority in one state can be the majority in another, and there is an increasing trend for co-religionists in different countries to support each other. Thus protection of religious minorities is not only a question of freedom of religion and basic human rights; it also affects security and peacebuilding in the whole region. Anti- Muslim violence and political exclusion of Muslim minorities take place in the wake of in- creased Buddhist nationalism. This policy brief identifies local as well as global drivers for Buddhist-Muslim conflict and the rise of Buddhist nationalism. It then shows how Buddhist- Muslim conflict can be addressed, most importantly through the engagement of local religious leaders. Introduction Buddhist countries are generally at risk of persecution. But Attacks on Muslim minorities in Buddhist countries have weak state protection of Muslim communities leaves these escalated in recent years (OHCHR, 2014). -
Protestants, Quakers, and the Narrative of Religious Persecution in England
DISCOVERY: Georgia State Honors College Undergraduate Research Journal Volume 2 Article 1 2014 Protestants, Quakers, and the Narrative of Religious Persecution in England Shelby Lohr Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/discovery Part of the History of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Lohr, Shelby (2014) "Protestants, Quakers, and the Narrative of Religious Persecution in England," DISCOVERY: Georgia State Honors College Undergraduate Research Journal: Vol. 2 , Article 1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31922/disc2.1 Available at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/discovery/vol2/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in DISCOVERY: Georgia State Honors College Undergraduate Research Journal by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Quakers, Protestants, and the Narrative of English Religious Persecution In early modern England, religious intolerance reigned supreme. There was a pervading hostility towards religious groups that were not associated with the Church of England, and these dissenting religious groups were regularly persecuted for their differing views. While each sectarian group was unique, there are parallels that can be traced between the persecutions that occurred throughout this period. Among these 16 th - and 17 th -century dissenting groups are Protestants and Quakers, whose responses to persecution are strikingly similar. This essay seeks to trace the commonalities between these two religious groups, with the aim of gaining a more nuanced understanding of religious intolerance in a period hostile to religious nonconformity. First, it is imperative to understand the distinction between Protestants and Quakers as employed in this essay. -
The Myth of Religious Violence
The Myth of Religious Violence The idea that “religion” is peculiarly prone to violence is not based in fact, but is an ideological justification for the dominance of secular social orders, which can and do inspire violence. The myth of religious violence leads us to turn a blind eye to the causes of non-Western grievances against the Western world. Christian Reflection Prayer A Series in Faith and Ethics Scripture Reading: James 4:1-3 Reflection “People can and do commit violence in the name of God,” William Cavanagh admits. Confessing this is a step toward a more humble faith. But he challenges the stronger claim that there is something Focus Article: called “religion” that is more likely to cause violence than what is Religion, Violence, not religion. Seeing through that “myth” is a step toward a more Nonsense, and Power accurate understanding of violence in our world. (Patterns of Violence, Cavanaugh outlines three reasons to be suspicious of the idea pp. 11-19) that religion is peculiarly prone to violence. 4The distinction between “religious” and “secular” is too unstable. The Suggested Articles: “myth” is supported in this way: religious and secular things (that American Religions and is, beliefs, institutions, causes) can be easily distinguished, and the War religious ones are more violent because they are absolutist, divisive, (Patterns of Violence, and non-rational. When counter-examples to this line of thinking are pp. 81-86) raised—e.g., most wars and exterminations are spawned by nation- What Kind of Religion Is alism, totalitarianism, ethnic rivalry, control of resources and markets, Safe for Society? atheist ideologies, and other “secular” causes—some curious fudging (Patterns of Violence, occurs. -
War – Just Or Justifiable? a Christian Orthodox Perspective
Studia Oecumenica 16 (2016) s. 113–122 Sławomir NowoSad Wydział Teologii KUL War – Just or Justifiable? A Christian Orthodox Perspective Abstract Being sent to the world Christianity had to determine its moral assessment of different worldly realities, war and peace among them. While the Western tradition rather early de- veloped a just war doctrine, the East took a different path. War has constantly been per- ceived as evil though in some circumstances necessary and hence justifiable (but strictly speaking neither “just” nor “good”). Both the Greek Fathers and later Eastern authors and Church figures, like Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, would develop their understand- ing of warfare as “irrational” and an obstacle on every Christian’s path to theosis. The Russian Orthodox Bishops’ The Basis of the Social Concept is a rare example of a more elaborated theory of the justification of warfare. Keywords: just war, Christian Orthodoxy. Wojna sprawiedliwa z perspektywy prawosławnej Streszczenie Inaczej niż na Zachodzie, chrześcijański Wschód o wiele ostrożniej formułował teorię wojny sprawiedliwej (ius ad bellum). Widział wojnę zawsze jako zło, jakkolwiek w pew- nych okolicznościach uznawał jej konieczność. W centrum prawosławnej teologii i liturgii jest zawsze pokój jako wyjątkowy i zobowiązujący dar Boży. Angażowanie się w wojnę, nawet jeśli konieczne, staje się przeszkodą na drodze od theosis, która ma być celem dla każdego chrześcijanina. Uznając irracjonalność wojny i niemożliwość jej pogodze- nia z wolą Bożą, teologia prawosławna odnotowała jednak próby określenia warunków jej podjęcia, jak i sposobów ograniczenia jej złych skutków (ius in bello). Wielokrotnie przeciwko niegodziwości wojny wypowiadał się Patriarcha Konstantynopola Bartłomiej, a względnie pełne opracowanie etycznych aspektów wojny dali prawosławni biskupi ro- syjscy w 2000 r. -
A/69/261 General Assembly
United Nations A/69/261 General Assembly Distr.: General 5 August 2014 Original: English Sixty-ninth session Item 69 (b) of the provisional agenda* Promotion and protection of human rights: human rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms Elimination of all forms of religious intolerance Note by the Secretary-General The Secretary-General has the honour to transmit to the members of the General Assembly the interim report of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, submitted in accordance with General Assembly resolution 68/170. * A/69/150. 14-58756 (E) 250814 *1458756* A/69/261 Interim report of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief Summary In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, provides an overview of his mandate activities since the submission of the previous report to the General Assembly (A/68/290), including his reports to the Human Rights Council and on country visits, as well as communications and highlights of presentations and consultations. The Special Rapporteur then focuses on means to eliminate religious intolerance and discrimination in the workplace, a theme which he thinks warrants more systematic attention. The sources of religious intolerance and discrimination in the workplace can be manifold and include prejudices existing among employers, employees or customers, restrictive interpretations of corporate identity or a general fear of religious diversity. After clarifying that the human right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief also relates to manifestations of religious diversity in the workplace, the Special Rapporteur particularly deals with measures of “reasonable accommodation” that may be needed to overcome discrimination. -
The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France Author(S): Natalie Zemon Davis Source: Past & Present, No
The Past and Present Society The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France Author(s): Natalie Zemon Davis Source: Past & Present, No. 59 (May, 1973), pp. 51-91 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/650379 . Accessed: 29/10/2013 12:12 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Oxford University Press and The Past and Present Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Past &Present. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 137.205.218.77 on Tue, 29 Oct 2013 12:12:25 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE RITES OF VIOLENCE: RELIGIOUS RIOT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE * These are the statutesand judgments,which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathersgiveth thee... Ye shall utterly destroyall the places whereinthe nations which he shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: And ye shall overthrowtheir altars, and break theirpillars and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the gravenimages of theirgods, and the names of them out of that xii. -
Religious Tolerance - Intolerance in India
RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE - INTOLERANCE IN INDIA Dr. Xavier Kochuparampil India is the cradle of four world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. Two other world religions, namely Christianity and Islam came to this country in the first century of their existence. For centuries Christians were living in India side by side with the vast majority of non-Christians, mainly Hindus. Though known for centuries as a land of religious tolerance and non-violence, in India communal disharmony, religious intolerance, fundamentalism, and all kinds of violence are on the increase. Why this paradigm shift in the attitude of the Indian people? This short article is an attempt to understand some of the new trends in the realm of communal harmony in India. A Democratic Republic The question of religious tolerance or intolerance depends very much on the encounter between the different religions that co-exist in the same land. For centuries Indians have lived in a religiously pluralistic society. Though all the major religions of the world have their followers in India, Hinduism is the most dominant religion of India with about 80 % of the whole population of about 950 million. Yet one has to acknowledge the fact that the Indian nation is not constitutionally Hindu nation like the numerous Islamic or Christian nations of the world. Constitutionally India remains a democratic sovereign republic where all religions are of equal status. Moreover, the so-called minority communities (religions) do enjoy certain constitutionally granted privileges. Attitude of Tolerance The traditional Hindu attitude to Christianity and Islam was one of tolerance. The existence of the small community of Christians in South India from the very first century of Christianity is the best proof for this attitude of tolerance in Hinduism. -
Religious Violence in Late Antiquity Peter Van Nuffelen
C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/18849243/WORKINGFOLDER/CWHV-V1/9781107120129C25.3D 512 [512–530] 8.8.2019 8:47PM 25 Religious Violence in Late Antiquity peter van nuffelen Late Antiquity and Modernity This chapter is the first in this book to have ‘religious violence’ in its title. Late antiquity, then, seems to mark the introduction of a new type of violence. Such is the conclusion of a leading scholar of late antique violence, Johannes Hahn, who writes: ‘Religious violence as a phenom- enon of public life is indeed peculiar to Late Antiquity’. Hahn attributes this development to the conversion of Constantine and the Roman Empire 1 to Christianity. The flow of recent studies on late antique religious violence and its virtual absence in studies of the classical world seem to confirm that judgement. Yet, is religious violence really a typically late antique and Christian feature? If that were the case, what are we to do with the anti-Christian measures of the Roman state, for example those of Diocletian? What about the anti-Manichaean decrees of this emperor? What about the desecration of the Jewish temple in 168 BCE by the Seleucid King Antiochus IV, and the suppression of the Bacchanalia by the Roman Senate in 186 BCE? The list could be many times longer. Maybe there are, after all, more chapters to be written on religious violence in ancient Greece and Rome. The seemingly obvious nature of the identification of religious violence and late antiquity is reflected in a general lack of definition of what counts as such. Scholars of late antique violence rarely deal with sacralised violence in cult, like sacrifice, which is generally seen to have been marginalised. -
The Violence of Religious Sects
Marco Geuna Machiavelli and the violence of religious sects (New York, Italian Academy, December 7th 2016) 1. Introduction: Contemporary post-secular societies and the possibility of a critique of religion 1. Contemporary democratic societies have for some time been presented as post-secular societies. 1 This newly coined adjective is customarily taken to suggest that the process of secularization, which has characterized western societies since the early modern period, appears to have come to a halt. Indeed, for more than two decades we have had to deal with what some have called the “revenge of God”2, with a return of religions, in particular monotheistic religions, to the forefront of the public sphere. As early as the 1990s, scholars like José Casanova3 and Peter Berger4 called attention to the re-emergence of the need for the sacred and, more generally, to the processes of de-secularization passing through contemporary societies. They analysed the increasingly widespread calls for the de- privatisation of religious faiths advanced in diverse social and political contexts, focusing not only the dynamics of radical Islam but also on more recent developments in evangelical Protestantism and in important sectors of Catholicism in various European and American countries. In the late modern period the religious phenomenon thus seems to have regained the presence and importance in the public scene that over the past two centuries it appeared to have lost. This return of religion to the public sphere has also been investigated, from a normative point of view, by contemporary moral philosophy and political philosophy. In the first instance thinkers critical of liberalism, neo-conservative authors and certain communitarian philosophers5 raised the issue of a need to rework the notion of secularism which, together with the separation of the state and church, was at the centre of the liberal-democratic order. -
Religious Intolerance and Aggression
05-Lundskow-45595:05-Lundskow-45595.qxd 5/20/2008 9:23 PM Page 209 CHAPTER 5 Religious Intolerance and Aggression Introduction In the world today, violence associated with religion, whether on a small or large scale, seems almost like a normal part of life. However, this was not always the case. Conventionally, we believe that the Romans persecuted Christians for their faith, but such is not exactly correct. Rather, the Romans perceived the Christians as a threat to their political hegemony, because the Christians refused to acknowledge the emperors (usually when deceased) as gods. Although it is true that the Christians did refuse to acknowledge the emperors as gods, they were not any more or less disloyal than their pagan contemporaries. By the fourth century, Christians served ably in the imperial legions, and eventually, as presented in Chapter 2, Christianity became the religion of the empire and thereafter reshaped Western civilization. Yet today, we find that religious intolerance and aggression have become part of every major religion. Although a small part, intolerance and violence influence reli- gion beyond their prevalence because they often produce dramatic and horrific acts, such as the destruction of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 (Image 5.1) and the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001. These are among the most infamous events, but there have been many others. We should also not imagine that religious violence takes the form only of terrorism, or that terrorism only takes the form of a quick, one-time event.