Author: Daniel Philpott

France, along with other northwest European countries, has long been thought to be ground zero for secularization.  Lately in French cities, however, it’s been tough to find a seat in the pews, reports Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry.  Gobry admits his experience is anecdotal but offers reasons why it might be something more.  Oh mon Dieu!

On the Foreign Policy blog today, Christian Caryl posted a piece, “Religion is Not the Enemy,” where he takes issue with one way of interpreting the Charlie Hebdo violence — that religion is the problem.  He begins by engaging Salman Rushdie:

It was entirely appropriate that one of the first people to weigh in after the Charlie Hebdo massacre was Salman Rushdie, the man who spent years of his life defying a state-sponsored death threat prompted by a presumed act of blasphemy. Though Rushdie isn’t one of my favorite novelists, I’ve always admired his firm stand in defense of the freedom of speech — and I’m glad that the British government had the guts to defend his rights.

By the same token, I don’t in any way dispute his right to make the statement that he issued yesterday — even though I find myself in rather strong disagreement with it. Here’s what he said:

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. “Respect for religion” has become a code phrase meaning “fear of religion.” Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.

Caryl takes issue.  Further down, he writes,

The problem with such arguments is that the ranks of the religious inconveniently include people who have done great good for humankind. Martin Luther King’s nonviolent campaign for justice is unimaginable without his background as a Baptist preacher. The Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis because he denounced the Holocaust and bemoaned the criminality of Hitler’s regime. Fervent Buddhists like Aung San Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama have devoted their lives to the defense of human rights. The Augustinian monk Gregor Mendel believed himself to be doing God’s work as he laid the foundations of modern genetics.

The whole piece is well worth reading!

I wrote recently of what often comes as a surprise to the western popular mind — chauvinistic Hindu governance and violence in India.  Equally surprising is the presence of such a spirit in Buddhism.  Just to the southwest of India, however, on the island of Sri Lanka, one finds exactly that — an aggressive Buddhist nationalism that has governed the island for decades in the name of Sri Lanka being a Buddhist homeland, much as Hindu nationalists view India as a Hindu homeland.  As in India, the dominant religion in Sri Lanka is a strong majority — 74% of the population is of the Sinhalese ethnic group, almost all of their members being Buddhists.  An insightful piece authored by Rohini Mohan was published on the latest manifestations of the phenomenon in this past Friday’s New York Times.  In Sri Lankan Buddhist nationalism, there is little separation of state and sangha (the 30,000 or so monks who make up the religious leadership), while, paralleling India, the state sharply excludes Tamil Hindus and Muslims in matters of education and language.  Sri Lankan monks fashioned a Buddhist nationalism in the late 19th century, in good part in reaction to British colonization and Christian missionaries.  After World War II, Buddhist nationalists emerged as politically dominant and have been so ever since.  Tamils fought back, engulfing the island in thirty years of civil war, ending finally in a victory for the Buddhist state in 2009.  Since then, the government has been inciting violence against Muslims and wrecking their mosques and promulgating a view of culture and history that enshrines Buddhist supremacy.  If this continues, writes Mohan, it will result in “more instability, ethnic polarization and suppression of dissent.”

New Year’s Day is the World Day of Peace in the Catholic Church.  Every year the Pope chooses a theme of peace and justice to commemorate the day.  This time around it is human trafficking.  It is said that today more people are enslaved than at any other time in the history of the world.  An estimated 26 to 28 million people are now in bondage to traffickers in sex and labor, over half of whom are women and children.  The injustice is close to Francis’ heart and one that he has spoken out on numerous times since becoming pope.  It has also been the subject of high level inter-religious conferences.

We’ve been following the case of Egyptian human rights dissident and alum of the Center for Civil and Human Rights Yara Sallam.  She had her sentence reduced to two years — but still, alas, faces two years in prison.  She remains in our thoughts and prayers.

An encouraging story comes from Kaduna, Nigeria, where Muslim youths stood guard to protect Christians celebrating Christmas.  Such stories are not merely heartwarming but are critical to understanding the global profile of Islam and its capabilities for peacebuilding.  The story evokes memories of similar recent episodes around the world, including ones in Egypt, where Muslims encircled Coptic Churches, also at Christmas — and where Christians encircled Muslims in prayer during popular protests in Cairo.

Kaduna is in northern Nigeria, where strife between Christians and Muslims has been intense over the past decade-and-a-half, particularly since sharia law was established in Kaduna State in 2001.  As a result of riots and other violence, Muslims and Christians have migrated to different parts of the city, where they live separately.

Christmas is a good time to remember persecuted Christians and indeed all who suffer the denial of their religious freedom.  Jesus was born into persecution under a king who sought his life for his being who He is.  Christian Caryl of Foreign Policy writes of a black Christmas for Christians of the Middle East.  Meanwhile, India’s aggressive Hindu nationalist group, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, is threatening to move ahead with forced the conversions of Christians and Muslims on Christmas.  In China, the demolition of churches continues.

Here at the Center for Civil and Human Rights, we have spent the fall launching our three-year project on how Christians respond to persecution, Under Caesar’s Sword.  We look forward to a major conference in Rome on the subject in December 2015.  This Christmas provides no shortage of reminders of the relevance of the issue.

One of my favorite writers on religious freedom is Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol.  Check out his courageous and innovative book, Islam Without Extremes.  Today, his analysis appears in the New York Times in a column taking to task Turkey’s powerful president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for the increasingly harsh, closed, and authoritarian Islam that he is imposing on Turkey, especially in education.  The policy of unfreedom is inimical to the economic and political dynamism through which Turkey has prospered as of late.  Secularism, though, is not Akyol’s answer.  For most of the Republic of Turkey’s modern history, it was under the equally closed, authoritarian — and stifling — secular dogmas of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.  Erdogan’s recent direction is sad, for from 2002 to 2010, he led Turkey in the direction of political and economic openness — a prying open of Ataturk’s rigid secularism towards a religiously vibrant liberal democracy.

One of the most colorful dimensions of the new U.S.-Cuba deal to emerge is the role of Pope Francis in brokering it.  His intervention recalls previous ones like Pope John Paul II’s intervention in the Beagle Channel dispute between Argentina and Chile in December 1978.

More commentary has emerged on Pope Francis’s role over the weekend.  John Allen of Crux sees it as manifesting a longstanding papal policy of detente.   Here is a skeptical perspective from Nicholas Hahn.

 

When I mention religious tolerance in contemporary India to people, I still get startled reactions: Isn’t this the land of Gandhi, peace and pluralism?  Yet the latest news is another reminder of a very different picture.  Hindu nationalist forces, whose political party now governs India, have been planning mass “reconversion” ceremonies, including one for Christmas Day intended to “reconvert” thousands of Christians “back” to Hinduism.  Fraud, bribery, and deceit typically accompany the conversions.  Now the government has decided to ban the Christmas conversions for the sake of public order.  See a BBC story here.

Across India’s northern border, religious repression and accompanying violence continues.  See the latest piece of Knox Thames, who is always good on Pakistan.