NEW DIVERSITIES An online journal published by the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity Volume 17, No. 1, 2015 Engaging with the Other: Religion, Identity, and Politics in the Mediterranean Guest Editors: Avi Astor (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) Mar Griera (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) Engaging with the Other: Religion, Identity, and Politics in the Mediterranean 1 by Avi Astor and Mar Griera (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) Historical Trajectories and Ambivalences of Turkish Minority Discourse 9 by Markus Dressler (Bayreuth University) Toleration of Religious Diversity in a Small Island State 27 by Mary Darmanin (University of Malta) Banal, Benign or Pernicious? Religion and National Identity from the Perspective of Religious Minorities in Greece 47 by Effie Fokas (Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, ELIAMEP and Hellenic Observatory, LSE) Authorizing Religious Conversion in Administrative Courts: Law, Rights, and Secular Indeterminacy 63 by Mona Oraby (Northwestern University) Religious Diversity in Italy and the Impact on Education: The History of a Failure 77 by Maria Chiara Giorda (Università di Milano - Bicocca) Completing the Religious Transition? Catholics and Muslims Navigate Secularism in Democratic Spain 95 by Aitana Guia (European University Institute, Florence) Religion and Migration in Morocco: Governability and Diaspora 111 by Ana I. Planet Contreras (Workshop of International Mediterranean Studies (TEIM), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) and Miguel Hernando de Larramendi Martinez (Study Group on Arab and Muslim Societies (GRESAM), Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha) Open forum Producing Interculturality: Repertoires, Strategies and Spaces 129 by Nuno Oliveira (Lisbon University Institute) Shunning Direct Intervention: Explaining the Exceptional Behaviour of the Portuguese Church Hierarchy in Morality Politics 145 by Madalena Meyer Resende (FCSH-UNL and IPRI-UNL) and Anja Hennig (European University Viadrina) Editor: Marian Burchardt Guest Editors: Avi Astor Mar GRIERA Language Editor: Sarah Blanton Layout and Design: Birgitt SIPPEL Past Issues in 2008-2014: “Migration and Development: Rethinking Recruitment, Remittances, Diaspora Support and Return”, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2014 “Social Mobility and Identity Formation”, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2014 “Diversity and Small Town Spaces: Twenty Years into Post-Apartheid South African Democracy ”, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2013 “Female Migration Outcomes II”, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2013 “Language and Superdiversities II”, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2012 “Skilled Migration and the Brain Drain”, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2012 “Language and Superdiversities”, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2011 “Female Migration Outcomes: Human Rights Perspectives”, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2011 “Depicting Diversities”, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2010 “Turks Abroad: Settlers, Citizens, Transnationals”, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2009 “The Human Rights of Migrants”, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2009 “The Conditions of Modern Return Migrants”, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2008 “Citizenship Tests in a Post-National Era”, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2008 © MPI MMG (2015) ISSN-Print 2199-8108 ISSN-Internet 2199-8116 Published by the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity Hermann-Föge-Weg 11 D-37073 Göttingen, Germany Available online at www.newdiversities.mmg.mpg.de Engaging with the Other: Religion, Identity, and Politics in the Mediterranean by Avi Astor and Mar Griera (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) Abstract The Mediterranean has long been a space of encounter between different nations, religions, and cultures. The fusion of national and religious identity in the region has added complexity to current debates regarding the recognition and accommodation of religious minorities. In this introduction, we outline recent scholarship on religious nationalism and the governance of religious diversity in the Mediterranean. We draw upon the articles included in this special issue to highlight the distinctive modalities of the religion-national identity link that exist in the region, and the manner in which these modalities have influenced policies of religious accommodation and strategies of political mobilization among religious minorities. In concluding, we draw attention to the need for more studies that help to connect recent analyses of ethno-religious and political transformations in the Mediterranean with the work of historians and social scientists on the historical constitution and evolution of the region as an interconnected space in which core socio-political and cultural dynamics are shaped by cross-border flows, engagements, and exchanges. Keywords: religion, identity, religious diversity, Islam, Catholic Church, Orthodox Church, secularization, Mediterranean Introduction At the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and the The historical fusion of religion and national Middle East, the Mediterranean is a key space identity in Mediterranean societies has ren- of encounter between distinct nations, cultures, dered current debates more complex regarding and religions (Braudel 1972; Purcell and Horden the recognition and accommodation of religious 2000). While these encounters have, on many minorities. These debates have taken on new occasions, resulted in major conflict and blood- significance in recent years due to the profound shed, they have also generated exchanges in social and political transformations that have information and knowledge that have proven transpired in the region. In Southern Europe, critical to the development of modern civiliza- historically mono-confessional societies have tion. With time, different societies in the region become home to increasing numbers of religious have taken distinct paths in their political, eco- minorities as a result of high levels of immigra- nomic, and socio-cultural development. But tion from neighbouring areas (Pérez-Agote 2010; despite these differences, religion has remained King 2001; Karyotis and Patrikios 2010). In sev- a lynchpin of national identity throughout the eral North African and Middle Eastern countries, region. relations between politics, law, and religion NEW DIVERSITIES Vol. 17, No. 1, 2015 ISSN ISSN-Print 2199-8108 ▪ ISSN-Internet 2199-8116 New Diversities 17 (1), 2015 Avi Astor and Mar Griera have been unsettled and renegotiated as a con- identity commonly contributes to perceptions sequence of the processes set in motion by the and (mis)representations of religious minorities Arab Spring (Roy 2012; Panara and Wilson 2013; as disloyal and unwilling to adopt the values and Lesch and Haas 2012). Moreover, the rise of customs of the national community. In an effort political Islam in Turkey has generated significant to evade such characterizations, religious minor- unease among religious minorities in the country. ities may strategically refrain from pursuing Most analysts of “religious nationalisms” strong forms of political recognition and engag- emphasize their exclusivity toward religious ing in practices that render their religious iden- minorities, whether real or imagined (Ignati- tities visible, instead emphasizing features that eff 1994; van der Veer 1994; Zubrzycki 2006). they share in common with the majority popula- According to Rieffer (2003), the development of tion (i.e. language or political ideology). religious national identities often entails the iden- As an example, Dressler (this issue) shows how tification of “alien others” who are portrayed as the reticence of religious minorities in Turkey a threat to the vitality of the nation. She writes: to seek public recognition and accommodation derives largely from the continued dominance of This tends to create internal moralities that give preference to the needs and interests of those in- Sunni Islam within Turkish imaginings of nation- side the religious national community. One conse- hood, despite the purportedly secular and neu- quence of this preferencing is the common indif- tral conceptions of national identity developed ference or hostility to those outside the religious during the early years of the Turkish Republic. national community (p. 234). Given the historically negative connotations Historical studies, and to an extent contempo- of the term “minority” in public discourse and rary studies, of the Mediterranean in particular the perceived incompatibility between minority are replete with references to how the construc- status and national belonging, Alevis and other tion or fortification of religious nationalisms has religious minorities in Turkey generally refrain entailed the subordination or persecution of reli- from claiming rights on the basis of international gious minorities (Yiftachel 2006; Álvarez-Junco conventions regarding minority rights, as doing 2011; Zeidan 1999; Grigoriadis 2012; Perica so would reinforce their status as (excluded) 2004). minorities. At the same time, they strategically As Barker (2008) argues, the extent to which employ the semantics of international human the form of nationalism present in a given coun- rights discourse when fighting discrimination try may be said to be “religious” does not hinge and exclusion. The complexity of minority poli- on the religiosity of the general populace or the tics in Turkey, Dressler writes, “shows that minor- formal relationship that exists between church ity discourse should not be naively understood and state. It hinges, rather, on whether belong- as a liberating or emancipatory discourse that as ing to a particular religion is part of the national such empowers groups marginalized due to their self-concept and