Христианско-исламский диалог в Западной Европе

The relationships between threat on one hand and right-wing attitudes and ethnic prejudice on the other were investigated in a heterogeneous sample (N = 588). Specifically, we considered the perception of economic and terroristic threats in terms of their consequences at the societal and personal levels. Previous studies revealed that societal consequences of threat, rather than personal consequences, are related to right-wing attitudes. However, the present results challenge these findings. More specifically, three important results emerged. First, items probing the distinct threat levels loaded on separate dimensions for economic and terroristic threat, validating the distinction between societal and personal threat consequences. Second, consistent with previous research, this study revealed that perceived societal consequences of threat yield strong and robust relationships with all target variables. However, personal consequences of threat were also associated with higher levels of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and ethnic prejudice in particular. Third, societal and personal consequences of threat interacted in explaining the target variables. More specifically, feeling personally threatened by terrorism was only related to higher levels of RWA in the presence of low levels of threat to society, whereas experiencing personal economic threat was only related to higher levels of SDO and ethnic prejudice when high societal economic threat was experienced. In sum, although the perception of societal consequences of threat plays a prominent role in explaining right-wing attitudes and ethnic prejudice, the perception of being personally affected by threat is also associated with higher levels of RWA and SDO, and especially ethnic prejudice.

Hate crime is a problem in many countries around the world. Scholars define hate crimes as unlawful conduct directed at different target groups, which can include violent acts, property damage, harassment, and trespassing (see Hate crime: An emergent research agenda. Annual Review of Sociology 27.1 [2001]: 479–504). Hate crime perpetrators target their victim’s race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, or disability, but also a variety of other characteristics. Several social movements (e.g., the civil rights movement, women’s movement, and LGBT movement) laid the foundation for anti-violence movements and placed the hate crime discourse on the political and legislative agenda. One way to better understand hate crime is to explore how governments in different parts of the world address the issue of crimes motivated by hate or prejudice. Targeted laws and policies transformed hate violence from ordinary to extraordinary crime (see Hate crime policy in western Europe: Responding to racist violence in Britain, Germany, and France. American Behavioral Scientist 51.2 [2007]: 149–165). Different countries implemented hate crime legislation in order to condemn crime committed due to prejudice or bias against an individual or group of people, introducing such legislation during different periods in time. The United States emerged as the leader of hate crime policy approaches, implementing legal responses to prejudice and bias in the early 20th century. The United States was also the first country to circulate the term “hate crime” during the 1980s (see Hate crime: An emergent research agenda. Annual Review of Sociology 27.1 [2001]: 479–504). Europe and the Asia-Pacific region followed suit in implementing their own responses to hate crime. The diversity of hate crime legislation in different countries makes it difficult to combine the legislative contexts under a common framework. A controversial debate exists around the need for a separate set of hate crime legislation. Scholars dispute the seriousness of the hate crime offense, the possibilities of proving motivational aspects of the hate crime, criminalizing hate, and introducing more severe punishments. They also debate the utilization of the civil versus the criminal code, the inclusion of different protected categories under hate crime legislation, the symbolic character of hate crime, and the social and political impact of hate crime legislation. This bibliography reviews key resources on hate crime legislation, including its historical context, its globalization, and the socio-criminological debate around hate crime legislation.

Anti-Muslim hate crime in the United States rose to record highs after 9/11, never reverting to preattack levels. Hate crimes against Muslims, Arabs, and others combined to make 2001 the worst year for overall hate crime since national record-keeping began in 1992. However, after a series of elevated plateaus, hate crimes against Muslims spiked again during the last decade, followed by a decline. Fluctuations in anti-Muslim hate crime correlated with brief periods around domestic terror attacks, overseas conflicts, and statements by political leaders around those events. Moreover, prejudice indicators in surveys relating to Muslims also remain at elevated levels in the two decades following 9/11 as Muslims and others have been maliciously stereotyped as a terror threat and as a looming demographic. Increases correlate to periods when fearful anti-Muslim stereotypes and animus are most widely circulated in mainstream online and political venues, often in the discourse around terror attacks and demographic change.

This book chapter explores some non-conventional applications of the label of “terrorism” and considers calls for continued expansion of the definition of terrorism to encompass crimes that have not traditionally been considered terrorism. Part one briefly lays out the working definition of terrorism on an international level, and the gray areas in which individual nations make their own determinations as to what constitutes terrorism and, on the other hand, what is often considered ordinary crime. Part two focuses on the definitions of terrorism under a number of common counterterrorism statutes in U.S. federal law, and then considers contexts that fall outside of the common usage of terrorism in the context of U.S. law, exploring instances in which gang violence and animal rights-based crimes are treated legally as terrorism. Part three briefly considers the application of the label of “terrorism” in India, where concerns that broad and vague definitions of terrorism, religious bias against Muslims and targeting of disfavored political minorities, combined with extraordinary powers granted to the government to deal with the threat of terrorism, pose a serious risk to due process and the rule of law. Some have called on governments to continue to broaden the reach of counterterrorism law to reach other issues, such as sex trafficking or some hate crimes. The Author concludes that most such efforts are founded in a well-placed sympathy for the victims of crimes, and some are backed by powerful groups with political influence. However, because in many democratic nations terrorism is granted unique legal treatment as an area in which expansive government power with lessened oversight and protection for individual rights is considered acceptable, importing such standards into other contexts is inviting a distortion of the traditional limits on governmental power and would allow for increases in government abuse and overreach.

Assessing Unconventional Applications of the 'Terrorism' Label

While in the last decade the number of Islamist terrorist attacks in Europe was very small, post-9/11, small violent Islamist cells caused and aim at mass casualties. While autonomous and self-generating, they pursue transnational agenda, blurring the distinction between internal and external security, and are viewed by European states and agencies as the most serious terrorist threat, in terms of its destabilizing political effects. Terrorism, however, is hardly the main manifestation of Muslim radicalization in Europe—a process that takes many forms and may be more likely to transform to peaceful protest and forms of violence other than terrorism, ranging from delinquency, vandalism and hate crimes in “failed suburbs” to public disorders and riots. Any links between religious awakening and socio-political radicalization of Muslim youth in Europe and the rise of Islamist terrorism should be treated with caution and are mostly indirect and non-binding: while the main age category for Islamist terrorism suspects is young adults, Muslims are generally younger in Europe than the rest of the population; younger people are deeper affected by moral outrage at the “injustices” against Muslims at levels from local to global and more likely to seek glory through direct violent action.

This article presents results of multivariate and multi-level analyses of data on hate crime victimization from 14 Western European nations. Although the ethnic composition of immigrant communities shows considerable variation across the 14 countries, in all countries self-defined immigrants are disproportionately exposed to hate crimes. The level of hate crime prevalence is positively correlated with the size of the immigrant communities. The results of a loglinear analysis of individual risks of being victimized by hate crime show that young age and migrant status are the most important independent risk factors of hate crime victimization at the individual level. Other important risk factors are residence in a capital or other large city, low income and an outgoing lifestyle. These risk factors resemble those of victimization by common contact crimes. This result suggests that, although the motivations of offenders are different, the distribution of hate crime victimization at the individual level can to some extent be interpreted through general victimological theories such as lifestyle-exposure theory. These analyses were replicated with a multi-level analysis including data at the macro level on the characteristics of 229 European regions. In this analysis, known criminogenic factors of contact crimes at the macro level, such as the proportion of young males, low income and low employment, are included in the models, besides the proportion of migrants among the inhabitants of the region. The results confirm the salience of the previously identified independent risk factors at the individual level. At the macro level, the relative size of migrant communities per region stands out as the most important factor explaining variance in hate crime prevalence. No independent relationships were found between the socio-economic or demographic characteristics of European regions and the extent of hate crime victimization. The latter results confirm findings of similar analyses of data from the USA. They suggest that in Western Europe hate crimes are driven by cultural tensions between traditional inhabitants and immigrants (community defense hypothesis), rather than by the strain experienced by the perpetrators (economic threat hypothesis). The unexpected finding that levels of educational attainment of European regions are associated with higher levels of hate crime victimization cannot be easily interpreted with either of the two hypotheses about the causes of hate crime victimization. It is tentatively interpreted as a measurement artifact resulting from heightened sensitivity to various types of hate crime victimization among better-educated minority groups.

Crime motivated by hate toward social groups and identities is a major social problem. Due to the rise of interethnic, ideological, and religious tensions, the criminal policy relevance of this crime has increased. One compelling question for hate crime researchers has been whether hate crime is different from general crime. In this study, we draw on the most recent available comparative European dataset, the third sweep of the International Self-Report Delinquency Study ( N = 34,871), to explore the extent and correlates of hate crime offending across sampled urban youth populations from 17 European countries. We find that 2.5% of 12–16-year-olds reported involvement in a hate crime. Country rates range from 0.7% to 6.5%, with the lowest figures observed in Western Europe and the highest figures observed in Southeast Europe. The individual-level risk factors of hate crimes tend to be the same as in other offending, thus supporting general rather than specific causation. However, some evidence suggests that some risk factors were particularly strongly associated with committing hate-motivated crimes: disorder in neighborhood, risky routines, discriminatory attitudes, low self-control and propensity to feel shame, lifetime delinquency, male gender, and hate crime victimization. Country-level differences in the studied individual-level risk factors only partly explained the differences between urban youth populations in the prevalence of hate crime, thus indicating national-level contextual effects that should be further explored in future research. As our data are based on city-level samples rather than full national populations, these findings should be interpreted as reflecting differences between urban areas in different countries rather than nationwide patterns.

Since the beginning of islam in the 7th century christians and Muslims have been a permanent challenge for themselves. the confrontation and the closeness which accompany them through the entire history are rooted in the universal and monotheistic character of both religions. From the christian point of view it would be diffcult to talk about interreligious dialogue or at least its modern developments, without the Second Vatican council (1962–1965) and the declaration nostra aetate. The council recognized in it the spiritual, moral and cultural values present in different religions, emphasizing spiritual and moral values between Muslim and christians. For the frst time in the history of the Catholic Church, the council’s fathers offcially called for the co-operation with Muslims. This is the starting point of the real dialogue between Christians and Muslims. This article attempts to describe and analyse – in three parts – some aspects of the dialogical initiatives of Christian-Muslim relations. A greater part of it refers to the Roman Catholic Church, but some examples of interpretation and dialogical initiatives of the Orthodox and protestant churches are included as well. Islam as a point of reference is taken as a whole. After a short introduction containing a general defnition of dialogue and its interreligious form the frst part deals with historical facts which shaped the dialogical attitudes. The selected historical facts build a background for some theological ideas on islam in orthodox, catholic and protestant traditions. The second part focuses on the practical aspects of dialogue – its forms and representative institutions, i.e. the pontifcal council for interreligious Dialogue, World council of churches and Orthodox center of the ecumenical patriarch in chambésy which are engaged in the dialogue on behalf of the main christian churches. The third part offers some ideas concerning aarguments for dialogue, its effciency and quality which might be important for the future of dialogue. The modern history of Christian-Muslim relations shows that the dialogue between adherents of these two largest religions is possible despite that it is not an easy undertaking. the author underlines that there is no alternative to dialogue as there is no better way to defeat prejudices and heal the wounds of the past.

Around the time this book is being written the world is faced with threats of terrorism, random shootings in various public places on a global scale, increased school violence especially in the United States, increased racial, ethnic, and religious tension worldwide as well as global forced displacement of people due to violence and human rights violations. Given this context, this project turns attention to the problematic of the “uprootedness of the modern man” in our age of technological advancement, globalization, and distraction. It introduces an innovative perspective to the study of communication ethics and the larger field of communication studies through an aesthetic ecology framework. The concept of aesthetic ecology refers to an environment that involves material, conceptual, and contemplative elements that are part of the ongoing dialogue between our sensuous and interpretive engagements in/with the world. Each chapter of this book explores an aspect of this aesthetic ecology in facilitating existential rootedness in connection to communication ethics.

Around the time this book is being written the world is faced with threats of terrorism, random shootings in various public places on a global scale, increased school violence especially in the United States, increased racial, ethnic, and religious tension worldwide as well as global forced displacement of people due to violence and human rights violations. Given this context, this project turns attention to the problematic of the “uprootedness of the modern man” in our age of technological advancement, globalization, and distraction. It introduces an innovative perspective to the study of communication ethics and the larger field of communication studies through an aesthetic ecology framework. The concept of aesthetic ecology refers to an environment that involves material, conceptual, and contemplative elements that are part of the ongoing dialogue between our sensuous and interpretive engagements in/with the world. Each chapter of this book explores an aspect of this aesthetic ecology in facilitating existential rootedness in connection to communication ethics.

After collapse of the Soviet Union Central Asia (CA) was not in the focus of academic society and big geopolitical players, Kyrgyzstan not being an exception. But today Russia is back to CA through the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Kyrgyzstan is a member of CSTO and is going to join the EEU. Therefore it is worth of broader analysis. This study tried to understand specifics of Kyrgyz internal and external course of development. It found that internal political process in Kyrgyzstan used to be very problematic. The country suffered a lot from two revolutions, caused by the authoritarian “family rule” of Askar Akaev and Kurmanbek Bakiev. After that Kyrgyzstan decided to change its system of government from presidential to parliamentary (or semi-presidential) model. But this experiment did not bring peace and stability, additionally complicated by ethnic tension between Kyrgyz and Uzbek citizens. Possible recipe of success – bigger socio-economic responsibility of the government, but it is still not in place. After two people revolts Kyrgyzstan was near to become a “failed state”, but orientation towards strategic partnership with Russia and membership in the EEU can help it to survive politically and economically at the expense of Russian geopolitical ambitions, compensate internal political turbulence by external factor of stability. Moreover, close (also institutional) cooperation with Moscow strengthens systemic power of Kyrgyzstan in its relations with the closest neighbors, such as Uzbekistan (not satisfied with the water policy of Bishkek) and Afghanistan (poses real security threat of Islamic extremism and terrorism to Kyrgyzstan). To sum up, for the moment Kyrgyz internal politics is hardly predictable, also because of the parliamentary experiment, but definite external orientation towards Russia and the EEU creates some basis for stable long term development of the country.

This paper provides cross-cultural application of the iceberg model of political extremism 1 conceptualizing hate crimes as reflecting the dangerous base that gives rise to mass casualty right-wing extremist attacks. Evidence is reviewed demonstrating that both offenses are motivated by the same prejudices and that right-wing violent extremists are more likely than other extremists to have engaged in pre-radicalization crime. 2 This discussion goes beyond previous considerations of the iceberg model by applying it across societies and showing its relationship to democratic backsliding. Comparison of the United States with countries in western and east-central Europe is centered on hate crime and far-right anti-government white supremacist extremism. The importance of recognizing hate crimes as a national security issue 3 overlapping domestic violent extremism is demonstrated as are the consequences of current limitations on the availability of data on both problems. 4

Perceptions of civil rights, security and the “war on terror”: East and West compared

© 2017 Societa Editrice il Mulino. All right reserved. Post-secular theory nowadays critiques the secularization notion that religion has increasingly become a private issue. It does so by pointing out how religion has once again become paramount to public and political debate, central to which are assertively voiced critiques of Muslims and Islam. Therefore, in this paper, we analyse cross-national survey data from Western Europe to study the attitudes of the non-religious vis-à-vis religion in general and vis-à-vis Islam in particular. Consistent with privatization theory and inconsistent with the post-secular theory, we find that the non-religious do not contest religion more in the most secular countries. As to anti-Muslim sentiment in Western Europe, however, a markedly different pattern emerges. The non-religious are more intolerant towards Muslims in the most secular countries. Rejections of Islam and of religion generally hence appear driven by different logics. Even though that clearly calls for further in-depth research, indeed anti-Muslim sentiment appears to have more in common with ethnic prejudice and xenophobia than with anti-religiosity in general.