Transcripts For ALJAZAM Inside Story 20140127

Birthday holiday pull out a map of the world and run your eyes over all the places where people are oppressed or killed becaus because they profess one faith or another, people rivetted over resources and poverty, power, and things people can exclude, fight and kill over. Demonstrators in cairos t an ahrirs square shouted that they were all egyptian. A wild later mobs were killing coptic believers and burning churches. The conflict had far more to do with identity than what the religions teach. When receiving his nobel peace price, he said 50 years after dr. King spoke those years, religiousrelated attacks took place in one in every five countries in 2012, hostilities increased in every major region of the world except the americas. The survey found threw quarters of the worlds population now lives where overall levels of religious restrictions hostil hostilities were high or very high. The survey pointed to one example, march 2012 rabbi and three Jewish School children were killed by islamist extremists. The third of the 200 countries surveyed saw a rise in social hostility and pressure to conform against those of minority faiths. That was especially found in the middle east and north africa. Take a look at the news whether youre a coptic christian in egypt, buddhist ther i would like to introduce our guests. Brian grimm, if you look at the recent history of the world, we lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Hundreds of millions more get to vote for the governments that run their countries, and yet we see this rise in religious violence. Whats going on . Well, the study has been documenting two types of restrictions of religion around the world looking at government restrictions and social hostil hostilities involving religion. The old paradigm for looking at restrictions and religion freedom were those coming from governments, communist era governments. But with the fall of communities and changes in the world what weve been documents is a rise in social hostilities involving religion. Some of the government restrictions let up, then different forces came into play. Were seeing a world that is much more defined by attitudes and actions of people than mega Government Philosophies that are trying to dictate how the world should be. Are we talking about hatreds that may have been held down, suppressed during the time of a authoritarian. Now, that is the case but as communism lifted its tight grip on many places then people had to define who they were, and religiousitis were on religious identities were some of the things that people began to gravitate towards. And then different groups debate what does it mean to be christian, muslim , view or hindu. Then you see rai radicalization where some take the agenda to the streets and say this is what it should be. Some of those messages are very peaceful. But some can be more extreme. He is religious as it was just called an identity marker, its been that way for a long time, but we see a blossoming, a resurgence of inter communal violence at a time when it would seem to matter less in a lot of places what actual practices you do, what act actual believes. I think you have to look under the surface. Religion is often time masks of other scruggs, regional scruggs, scruggs over resources. Sometimes what we call a religious conflict or sectarian conflict is a power conflict playing out in the country. Religion because of its power, its evocative power becomes a way not just the way pool identify themselves, its the quickest response, the most evocative response to conflict. Where you have these conflicts you look to economic deprivation and war and occupation as root causes that manifest themselves but not at their base theological conflict at all. Youre right where you have more democracy you have initial outpouring of prior grievances coming out to manifest themselves and these various countries come forward to mask that weve been oppressed or not had an opportunity to participate. Is it a passing phenomena, and we can get back to a different kind of stability to the degree which governments crackdown and only intensify the dislocation, intensify the oppression and it causes more man fesstation of it to intensify. In places where these restrictions have increase china and india are in the mix. When youre adding them to any equation you have half the world. But there is a rush of new hope, new aspiration and new wealth for a lot of people. Why shouldnt this erase some of the differences between people rather than heighten . Thats a great question. In fact, what were seeing even as societies are modernizing and becoming more educated and obtain more wealth they hold that intensity more. We found in india they have created new organizations to bring their faith into politics. This is what i would add to what is already been said about why this is happening now. Why are we seeing more hostil hostilities and persecution around religion. One reason is that religion is a more important force in public life around the world. In many countries throughout much of the 20th century the dominant were secular. Many try to follow their politics along secular lines. But as those faded, people are wealthier but many think of india as a hindu country and they want that hindu country to be a great country. So you see a melding of their aspiration. Right now we may see in india perhaps extreme hindu politician become their Prime Minister in the elections in may. Its interesting that you bring that up because if you think back to the 1950s and those very famous photos taken at their initial meetings, you mentioned naru and sacarno and tito from yugoslavia, all those countries descended in religious chaos, is that in part because those promises failed . If sucarno had delivered and made indonesia a middle class country maybe you wouldnt have boiling conflict there. If naru had succeeded maybe that hindu show in this matter that you mentioned. A lot of data shows that the Hindu National movement has a disproportionate of its support among educated middle class indians. The people who are enjoying the fruits of prosperity that naru promised ironically dont support the naruvian agenda. Many countries you see people who again are melding a kind of enjoyment of urban life, prosperity and fierce religious identity and political ideology associated. The Muslim Brotherhood is another example. Many of their supporters are well educated, many of them have scientific backgrounds. Theyre not the disenfranchised or the wretched of the earth. Theyre aspiring for a greater life, theyre educated and doing well. I want to talk more about the Muslim Brotherhood. Were going to take a short break and well look particularly to the middle east the state of the union on Al Jazeera America. Join us for complete coverage of the issues facing all of us from health care and immigration to the economy an national security. Were talking with those affected most. Understanding where we are, taking a critical look where were going. There is much progress to report. Immediately after stay with us as we get your reactions live from around the country and across the globe. Dont miss special state of the Union Coverage as only Al Jazeera America can deliver. Right here on Al Jazeera America. Welcome back to inside story. Im ray suarez. On this edition of our program were discussing the rise of religious hostilities in the world. A new pew poll shows one in five countries had religionbased terrorist violence in 2012. And brian grimm, looking over the report it seems that the middle east and north africa were comprising a big share. It may not be a big share of the worlds population, but it was a big share of the worlds problems in that record. In the beginning we were talking about how social hostilities have replaced government restrictions on religion as the dominant force impeding free practice of religion. But the middle east in north africa is Something Different we saw leading up to arab spring the restrictions were tightening even though by our data we saw social hostilities involving religion leveling off. We saw air spring and weve seen violence skyrocketing, syria, iraq, egypt, and other countries. So one of the dynamics that we see as we analyze the data is that we see this relationship between how governments act and how people in society act. What we found that looking at the different ways governments can treat religion there is one type of action that most strongly associated with social hostilities. Most people find this surprising, but if you think a moment its not. When a government favors one religion above others and so others are at a disadvantage, thats the strongest predictor or strongest association with high social hostilities. So from the data seeing this policy of favoritism of one above all the others, its not surprising that we have seen this rise in social hostilities. Jim, the two main motifs, i guess, between islam and sunni and shia, and the increased pressure of christian, that is under tremendous pressure. Whats going on . Well, theyve been under pressure for many years, even before president mubarak was deposed. But in each country its a different factor. In iraq it was the war. And it was the fact that christians had it good under saddam. And when the ethnic cleansing or religious cleansing began by neighborhood, they were the most vulnerable, the sunni shia fight found the christians in the middle, and those who launched that war never considered the victims of it were the Christian Community. The regime that supports and makes possible a more secular country, and the majority sunni population that comes mostly from rural areas, has flocked into the cities, ranting against the evil ways of the urban community, and has found a message that resonates with masses, and again christians have paid the price. Theyre viewed as the supporters of the regime, they pay the price there. In egypt you had a secular regime, but you also had a regime that was viewed as having betrayed egyptian honor. I was asked by a reporter during the demonstrations at Tahrir Square about u. S. Unfavorable ratings. The reporter said if we dumped mubarak , i said you got it backwards. Its not because we supported mubarak. Its because he supported us. In many ways he alienated the people. And the Muslim Brotherhood were prosperous. They were prosperous but blocked. Blocked by cronyism and nepotism and corruption. When they finally got the reins of power they went to excess and overreached and created it. Again the christians prayed th e price having supported the takeover on july 3rd. No sooner did the general take over but there was rampage against christian churches, businesses and the Christian Community in general. There are many reasons why theyre in this position in the three countries, but they have paid a bitter price. The Arab Community in the United States is disproportionately christian, so there is a lot of interest towards the fate of the christians in this part of the world, less is the case of the sunnishia conflict, its less understood, but were not even close to the end of that. Thats right. Here youre seeing a further example of what we were discussing earlier, namely the new empowerment of religious groups that had been suppressed. The shia in iraq had been brutally suppressed by saddam hussein, and under the baathist ideology that leaned towards the islamic towards the end of his regime, but shiites bore the brunt. But this became an opportunity for shiites to be empowered and have their country back. Theyre the demographic majority there. And the distrust between these communities is extremely high. Some groups benefited from saddams regime, and others did not. There was natural great attention. Youre seeing that all over the middle east in syria as well. This is a sectarian conflict in part because the assad family, who are of the aloeu ite sect, which is a very small islamic islamic{ l }sect, and you see pitting of religious groups against each other. They favored other religious groups like the christians, so in the context of that regime breaking down again youre seeing terrible violence and distrust. This goes back to what you were suggesting earlier, ray, that when you have sort of neat authoritarian governments that control everything you may not see a lot of religious conflict. But underneath those regimes are playing groups off of each other. When those regimes fall you see the intense hostilities that have been found in the pew report. To some degree of the arab world it goes back to colonia colonialism. And it put minority groups in charge in order to provide an entree for their christians in lebanon, the aloian in syria, the sunni in iraq, etc. Arab nationalism developed as a response in the main as a way of creating an identity that would transcend religion. The degree to which it worked it brought people together. As it brock down, it broke down precisely because the countries couldnt deliver. As it broke down these other tendencies from below rose to the surface to create some of the difficulties that we see now. When we come back from this break we want to talk about whether this is a force that needs to burn itself out in the world or is there a hope to bring those numbers down. This is inside story. Every sunday night al jazeera welcome back to inside story. Im ray suarez. Were talking about religious violence and intolerance in the world. A new survey shows threequarters of the worlds population now live in countries where religious restrictions are high, violence or the threat of violence to compel people to adhere to religious norms is increasing. If you look at the world, Central African republic northern my gee i cant increasingly violent and deadly, problems emerging in kenya, is there any reason to hope were going to bend the curve down that some of these developments have a better ending . I can give a data point and an example. So in our study we also look at the flip side of the coin, the initiatives to try to lower religious restrictions and hostilities, and over the last two years of the study we found that 83 of countries had such initiatives, and the largest share of these initiatives happened in the middle east in north africa. That points to the fact that people understand that this is an issue that needs to be dealt with. An example weve been documenting the types of initiatives that have been in play. One very interesting one is on the side of businesses. A group of businessmen going into tibet, a region that has had many problems, helping depettetibetans grow their tourt industry, its empowering strategy rather than a name and shame strategy. Very new and innovative things on the horizon. Timothy shaw, we have to get it right, the world has to get it right in china because so many people in the world are chinese. Whether youre talking about muslims in western china. The suppression, the heavy instructions on the Catholic Church in china, china has a lot to answer for in this regard. Yes, it does, and the numbers suggest that what china has tried is not working. If the government clamps down hard enough they can lower their religious tensions but the religious tensions have grown dramatically. We believe the key to religious security and harmony is equali equality. Where religious communities are treated unequally before the law there is going to be great insecurity, and brian suggested that in his comments. Take us out, do you take hope from the findings . I take hope. This is dr. Kings day. We have a precedent, Barak Hussein obama, after was elected, 24 states were trying to it pass antisharia laws. Are we worse off . I dont think so. Were more conscious, more aware and making changes. That is true in the arab world. The fact that we know these numbers. The fact that we know there is a problem and groups are coming together to address the problem gives me hope that the future is better than the past. Were going through a rocky exposurperiod of exposure and consciousness. If we know were wrongthat is key. People now know there is a problem and theyre moving in a different direction. Thats the important thing. Thank you all, that brings us to the end of this edition of inside story. Thanks for being with us. The program may be over but the conversation continues. We want to hear what you think about the issues on this or any days show. You can log on to our Facebook Page or send us your thoughts briefly on twitter. Our handle is a. J. Inside story am or reach me directly at ray suarez news. Well see you for the next inside story in washington. Im ray suarez. Welcome to aljazeera america. Im stephanie cy and here are the stories were following for you. The unrest is spreading in ukraine. Despite concessions from the countrys president , protesters are taking to the streets in a growing number of cities. As negotiators try to understand how to help people devastated by war, people at home are trying to help. Youre tired of looking at a bad rug, you want to throw it out. And he