Bonner Querschnitte 41/2014 Ausgabe 327

(Bonn, 19.11.2014) Der Präsident des Internationalen Rates der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte hat eine Gastvorlesung über den Vorteil der Religionsfreiheit für eine Gesellschaft (“The Advantages of Religious Freedom for Minorities for Society – Lessons from Global experience”) an der New Bulgarian University, Sofia, gehalten. Damit eröffnete er das Symposium “Balkans and the Rights of Minority Groups: International legislation, social practices and state policy”. Schirrmacher verwies auf Forschungen, die belegen, dass der Schutz der Religionsfreiheit für Minderheiten eine friedlichere Gesellschaft hervorbringe und wirtschaftliche Vorteile habe, während die Unterdrückung von Minderheiten eine Gesellschaft insgesamt gewaltbereiter machen könne und durch die oft gute Bildung der Minderheiten und ihre wirtschaftlichen Kontakte der Gesellschaft nützten, wenn sie frei entfaltet werden dürften.

In dem Symposium prallten die Gelehrtenmeinungen bulgarischer Gelehrter aufeinander, da der Leiter der historischen Abteilung der Bulgarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (“Institute for Historical research, Bulgarian Academy of Science”), Prof. Dr. Valery Stoyanov, minutiös die schlechte Lage der Muslime in Bulgarien in den letzten 100 Jahren nachzeichnete und nachwies, dass die meisten Muslime bis in die Gegenwart in die Türkei abgedrängt worden seien (“Models of state policy in regulating of the minority problems”), während der Vorsitzende der Historischen Fakultät der New Bulgarian Society, Prof. Dr. Lachezar Stoyanov, der Meinung war, die Muslime müssten dankbar sein, dass sie in Bulgarien mehr Freiheiten hätten als in der Türkei und ein Land wie Bulgarien aufgrund seiner Geschichte berechtigt sei, so zu verfahren, wie es derzeit verfahre (“Bulgarian constitutions, political institutions and the religious rights”).

Im Rahmen der Gastvorlesung traf Schirrmacher auch den Großmufti von Bulgarien, Ahmed Ahmedov, und den Präsidenten des Zentralrates der Juden (Central Israelite Religious Council) und Generalsekretär des National Council of Religious Communities in Bulgaria (NCRCB), Marcel Israel.

Außerdem besuchte Schirrmacher das führende evangelikale theologische Seminar des Landes, Saint Trivelius Institute, Sofia, unter Führung der Akademischen Dekanin, Frau Dr. Kamelia Slavcheva.

The Advantage of Religious Freedom for Minorities

Summary of the special guest lecture at the consultation “Balkans and the Rights of Minority Groups: International legislation, social practices and state policy” at New Bulgarian University, Sofia,  May, 21, 2014

Thomas Schirrmacher

The basic thesis, which is supported by an enormous wealth of examples, statistics, and investigation, is simple: In countries with religious freedom there is much more social peace than in countries without it. Or in other words: The argument of many countries with a dominating majority religion, that they have to keep a check on smaller religions  for the sake of social peace, is contradicted by reality. Restriction of religious freedom is often in the first instance the reason for violent conflicts. Religious homogeneity does not guarantee freedom from conflict, but it apparently encourages tensions.

Particularly noticeable is the study of Samuel Huntington’s theory that assumes violence and unrest are the consequences of a clash of civilizations. This thesis does not do justice to the internal diversity found within religions and cultures, for instance the tension between Sunnites and Shiites within an Islamic country. All of the available figures contradict the thesis that it is the tension between cultures which can cause additional tensions. It is rather in a certain sense the suppression of these tensions in favor of an alleged monoculture in a country which intensifies the tensions.

Religious freedom viewed on the whole has increased in Christian countries in the sixty years from 1945 to 2005 and has decreased in Islamic countries. This means that overall there is less religious freedom in Islamic countries than there was a century ago – and the development still remains regressive. The development within the Islamic countries proves the thesis above:

1. In Islamic countries in which there is almost exclusively no religious freedom, the level of violence and the propensity towards civil war is very high. In Islamic majority religious countries with religious freedom, there is more or less piece, e.g. in Albania or Gambia.

2. Terrorist movements predominantly come from countries without religious freedom. In a few exceptions much less damage is caused in their own countries and they are not active internationally but nationally. E.g. Saudi Arabia totally restricts religious freedom. Yet they do not produce a peaceful, monocultural country, but huge tensions with non-Wahhabite groups, like other Sunnites, Shiites, Muslim among the millions of workers from Asia etc. And Saudi Arabia with its very strict Islam still brought forth global terrorist movements being even stricter, the best known being Al-Kaida.

Literatur

Brian J. Grim, Roger Finke. The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010

Thomas Schirrmacher. Freedom of Religion and European Identity: Collective list of questions for the public hearing by the German Parliament’s Commission for Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid on October 27, 2010. IIRF-Report Vol. 2, no. 10. http://www.freedomofconscience.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/iirf_report_10.pdf

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·        Foto: Thomas Schirrmacher während der Vorlesung