Religious Minorities Research Articles

Indian Muslims: (Self-)Perceptions and Voting Trends in 2024

There are two dominant explanations of contemporary Muslim voting behaviour. A section of public commentators reiterates an old argument that Muslims always participate in politics to defeat the BJP. This argument is not entirely incorrect. The BJP did not deviate from its Modi-centric Hindutva-driven campaign. The party relied heavily on an apparent anti-Muslim rhetoric to reach out to its core voters. The failure of the BJP to secure an absolute majority in Lok Sabha, in this sense, is also seen as an obvious outcome of this strategy. It is claimed that the BJP’s attempt to polarize voters on religious grounds encouraged Muslims to vote for non-BJP candidates throughout the country. The second explanation is more speculative. The INDIA alliance has so far tried to avoid any discussion on the overwhelming Muslim support they have received this time. The non-BJP parties, except a few, do not want to publicly acknowledge the fact that their success was almost impossible without active Muslim support. This kind of political reluctance is justified as a strategic silence. There is an assumption that the pro-Muslim gestures of these parties will make the Hindu voters unhappy. Findings of National Election Studies (NES) 2024 take us beyond these popular descriptions of Muslim voting. This survey introduces us to the complexities of contemporary Muslim politics and its electoral manifestations. This article tries to establish a link between Muslim self-perceptions as a religious minority in India and their political behaviour. We ask three basic questions: First, did Muslim communities vote more actively this time than Hindu communities? Second, did they vote as a homogeneous community or as a vote bank? And finally, did they vote basically to defeat BJP?

The Politics of Fear and the Experience of Bangladeshi Religious Minority Communities Using Social Media Platforms

Despite significant research on online harm, polarization, public deliberation, and justice, CSCW still lacks a comprehensive understanding of the experiences of religious minorities, particularly in relation to fear, as prominently evident in our study. Gaining faith-sensitive insights into the expression, participation, and inter-religious interactions on social media can contribute to CSCW's literature on online safety and interfaith communication. In pursuit of this goal, we conducted a six-month-long, interview-based study with the Hindu, Buddhist, and Indigenous communities in Bangladesh. Our study draws on an extensive body of research encompassing the spiral of silence, the cultural politics of fear, and communication accommodation to examine how social media use by religious minorities is influenced by fear, which is associated with social conformity, misinformation, stigma, stereotypes, and South Asian postcolonial memory. Moreover, we engage with scholarly perspectives from religious studies, justice, and South Asian violence and offer important critical insights and design lessons for the CSCW literature on public deliberation, justice, and interfaith communication.

When Rulers Came to Town: Jews, Christians and Urban Processions in Medieval France and the Holy Roman Empire

The festive entry of a monarch into medieval cities was an elaborate social drama involving the whole urban population. This article investigates how Jews were involved in these ceremonies in medieval France and the Holy Roman Empire, refuting previously held assumptions of their forced and marginalised roles. By demonstrating that Jews were actively included in these urban rituals, embracing local customs to welcome Christian rulers and using an array of distinctive objects to express their identity, much like other civic groups, this study argues that medieval Jews were part of an elaborate choreographed performance through which civic belonging was expressed. As Jewish participation spanned both the formal and logistical aspects of these events, medieval urban processions provide an effective case study on how religious minorities were woven into both the social and ceremonial fabric of medieval urban life.

The Return of the Repressed: Political Deportation in the 
Indian Ocean during the Age 
of Revolutions

Abstract Between the second half of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Indian Ocean became a theatre of the global war waged by European imperial states. This article compares how three colonial powers, in French, Danish, and British colonial territories, dealt with interconnected political threats, in a region where the limits of imperial sovereignty and jurisdictions were often blurred and frequently renegotiated. Rather than a formally sanctioned doctrine and legal category, deportation should be understood as a crude tool for solving a variety of problems. Although the forced removal of criminals, religious minorities or political opponents was not a new instrument to the late eighteenth century, it is often ignored that political deportation was also a widely used legal practice in the Indian Ocean during the ‘age of revolutions’. In this region, deportation was used by imperial centres to get rid of political enemies, but also by regional authorities, without referring to metropolitan orders. It was usually not a judicial punishment, but an administrative measure justified in the name of political necessity. This article focuses on three small colonial enclaves, French Reunion, Danish Tranquebar, and British Pondicherry, where a siege mentality and fear of political sedition were omnipresent in this period. Contemporaries believed, with some justifications, that a single conspiracy linked these three colonial theatres, involving the same set of protagonists, who redeployed their projects as they were removed from one place to the next. But in these three sites and societies, deportation raises different issues. Dumping radicals on a foreign shore might have been a short-term fix, but it rarely solved problems in the long term: deportees often returned after some time, which was a direct consequence of the colonial authorities’ reluctance to take irreparable decisions, and of the entanglement of empires and polities in the Indian Ocean.

8.N. Scientific session: Transferability and adaptation of vaccination interventions: Learning from underserved communities

Abstract Removing barriers in the health system that make it difficult for cultural, religious or ethnic minorities to access vaccinations is an urgent concern in order to prevent infectious diseases in the future. Childhood vaccine uptake for MMR and HPV in most underserved communities is lower than in the general population. The project RIVER-EU (Reducing Inequalities in Vaccine uptake in the European region - Engaging Underserved communities) engages the migrant community in Greece, females with a Turkish or Moroccan migration background in the Netherlands, the Ukrainian minority in Poland and marginalized Roma communities in Slovakia to remove health system barriers to vaccination. Barriers include, e.g., lack of culturally and linguistically appropriate information, financial barriers, insufficient capacities, coordination and delivery of health care. Based on a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach we selected and adapted potentially transferable evidence-based interventions in partnership with the communities. First, we pre-selected 6 useful interventions from a realist review on 36 effective vaccine uptake interventions. Second, we assessed them in depth for their transferability. Building a bridge between evidence on interventions and community needs is not an easy task: We involved various stakeholders in a longitudinal process under consideration of contextual conditions in the primary intervention context and the context of the respective underserved community. We co-created knowledge through 25 workshops and 39 interviews or focus groups for decision-making and determining need for adaptation of selected interventions. The aim of this workshop is to present the results of this co-creative process in each country. Special attention is payed to facilitators and barriers for transferability of evidence-based interventions from the perspective of underserved communities, and contextual commonalities and differences that lead to a specific intervention tailoring. This workshop will contribute to an improved understanding of how to consider contextual needs underserved communities have to remove health system barriers to vaccination on the one hand and suitable evidence on interventions to improve their situation on the other hand. The workshop will include five presentations of eight minutes and a questions and answers session to involve the audience. First, an introductory presentation on transferability of interventions for HPV and MMR vaccine uptake to underserved communities in specific contexts will be given. Then each country will present the intervention(s) to address health system barriers adapted to their context. Thereby, we will underline common key elements that have potential for transferability in all countries. After all presentations, we will discuss the need for context-based decision-making on evidence-based interventions and intervention tailoring to improve vaccine uptake for cultural, religious or ethnic minorities. Key messages • Improving vaccine uptake in underserved communities requires local solutions with tailored interventions. Trusted partnerships with various stakeholders are key to reducing health system barriers. • Participatory approaches to evidence-informed decision-making build bridges between evidence on interventions and needs of underserved communities to understand the transferability of interventions.

An Unpublished Manuscript of Hugo Grotius: ‘On Public Partnership with Unbelievers’ (De societate publica cum infidelibus): Introduction, Transcription and English Translation

Abstract This introduction presents an analysis of Grotius’s treatise ‘On Public Partnership with Unbelievers’ (De societate publica cum infidelibus). It was probably written between 1606 and 1609, when Grotius served as a legal advisor of the Dutch East India Company (voc). In his treatise, Grotius explains what kinds of partnerships with non-Christians are permissible under divine and natural law. These include public partnerships, such as treaties and military alliances, but also private associations, such as commercial contracts, marriages and relations of servitude. As we argue in this introduction, De societate can be interpreted as a general treatise on legal partnerships with non-Christians, which relates both to the voc’s policies of treaty and alliance-making in the East Indies and to debates about the legal status of religious minorities in the Dutch Republic.

The French Debate over On the Jewish Question: From an Anachronistic Trial to the Crisis of Secularism

Abstract This article analyses the debate over an ‘antisemitic Marx’ in the French context. Since the republication of On the Jewish Question in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, the French intellectual field has seen continuous conflict between supporters of this ‘thesis’ (Mishari, Kaplan, Birnbaum) and their detractors, who are sometimes militant (J. Aron, Bensaïd) and sometimes academic (De Fontenay, Traverso), including those involved in the Grande édition Marx et Engels (Clochec). First, the article examines at length the French debate which spans over 50 years. Second, building on the insights garnered from this debate, it tackles the limits of materialist criticism of religious views. In light of the contemporary crisis of secularism in France, this problem forces Marxist and critical thinkers (Tosel, Meziane) to reassess the issue of religious minorities and their ‘assimilation’ to the ‘national majority’.

Politicization of the Jewish and Muslim minorities in Poland

With Poland’s political transformation after 1989, religious minorities including Jews and Muslims gained more autonomy and support from the state authorities. At the same time, the liberal democracy principles of religious equality and the state’s neutrality have still not been fully implemented. The paper focuses on this problematic situation, using the concept of politicization to portray the situation of the Jews and Muslims in contemporary Poland, and their relations with the Polish state. It presents four instances of politicization of religious minorities (specifically, Muslims and/or Jews). The research is based on public surveys, interviews with members of the Jewish and Muslim communities, legal documents, and NGO reports. According to the hypothesis of the paper, Muslims and Jews are significantly politicized in the Polish public discourse, and both communities play significant roles in shaping the political identity of the Polish polity. Their roles differ in character due to historical factors and the contemporary international context.

Pastoral Reflection on Depictions of Contemporary Religious Subcultures in Online Discussions: An Analysis of Stereotypes (A Case Study from Slovakia)

In terms of ethnic and religious characteristics, the majority of the Slovak population identifies with Slovak nationality and Christianity. Recent quantitative and qualitative research on the value orientations of Slovaks has revealed negative stereotypical and dismissive attitudes towards “difference”, which is often perceived as “non-Slovak” or “not ours”. In this social, cultural, and religious context, the question arises as to what understanding and tolerance of religious expressions can be expected in the current, often conflict-ridden society and what pastoral challenges arise from this. The aim of the research was to identify whom participants in online discussions consider to be the most “different” from themselves, which specific attributes of other religious subcultures (i.e., those other than the majority Christian) the discussants consider the most “different”, and how they evaluate this “difference”. The research method used was critical discourse analysis (CDA), which focuses on identifying and addressing social issues by analysing how these problems are presented in language—in our case, in written online comments within selected online discussions. The research confirms that the attitude of participants in online discussions towards the differences of other religious groups in the context of Slovakia is often accompanied by suspicion and majority negativism. The research findings point to the need for in-depth research focusing on the meaning and practical possibilities of reducing the social distance of the majority population concerning religious and ethnic minorities.

THE TRAGEDY OF FELIX FRANKFURTER: FROM CIVIL LIBERTIES AND CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST TO REACTIONARY JUSTICE

This article reconsiders the life and record of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. Frankfurter was smart, hardworking, and talented, serving as a great activist lawyer and important law professor in his early career. When nominated to the court, there were high hopes he would follow Holmes and Brandeis in leading a progressive Court that would protect civil liberties and minority rights. However, it was not to be. On the Court Frankfurter became increasingly conservative and ultimately reactionary. In his opinions, he upheld persecution and discrimination of religious and racial minorities, occasionally hindered racial justice and civil liberties efforts, and opposed due process in criminal trials and fairness in elections. Arrogant and dismissive, he constantly fought with his brethren, alienating almost all of them. In the end Frankfurter was far too often on the wrong side of history, liberty and the law, and even legal ethics. The tragedy of Frankfurter is that he abandoned the constitutional rights and protections that he supported from his graduation from law school until he donned his robes. He could have been a great justice. Sadly, he was not.

Exploring the Dimensions of Religious Freedom: A Global and Comparative Analysis

Religion constitutes a fundamental aspect of the cultural and spiritual lives of individuals globally, encompassing an array of traditions, rituals, and practices. Within the context of liberal democracy's evolution, religion emerges as a critical element of political liberty and personal conscience. On an international scale, the right to religious freedom has been established as a core human right, essential for the sustenance of democratic governance. Despite its recognition, the right to religious liberty remains a highly contentious issue. Even in democracies that provide constitutional protections for religious freedom, debates persist regarding the extensive interpretation and implementation of this right, particularly concerning the rights of religious minorities within these nations. This study explores the concept of religious freedom as a globally recognized right, examining its representation and interpretation across various international and regional legal frameworks. Through this analysis, the paper endeavors to provide a comprehensive overview of religious freedom on both a global and regional scale. Furthermore, it delves into the state of religious freedom in various political systems, ranging from democracies such as United States to theocracies and monarchies like the United Kingdom and countries characterized by a strict demarcation between religion and state affairs, exemplified by France's secularist approach.

Redefining Protection: Challenges and Solutions in Safeguarding Religious Minorities within International and Regional Legal Frameworks

This paper examines the challenges in defining and safeguarding religious minorities within international and regional legal frameworks. It explores the main research question of how existing legal instruments and definitions impact the protection of religious minorities and aims to propose recommendations for improving these protections. Through a literature review and critical analysis of international and regional legal frameworks, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and various regional instruments, the paper identifies significant gaps and inconsistencies in current protections. Key issues highlighted include the lack of a universally accepted definition of religious minorities, the limitations of international and regional instruments, and the varying interpretations of religious rights by bodies such as the European Court of Human Rights. The paper concludes with recommendations for clearer definitions, more robust legal provisions, and enhanced international and regional cooperation to better safeguard the rights of religious minorities. The findings emphasize the need for more effective approaches to protecting religious diversity and ensuring proper representation.

What Explains Voting for DENK: Issues, Discrimination or In-group Favouritism?

ABSTRACT Why do ethnic and religious minorities vote for DENK? DENK is the first pro-Turkey and pro-Islam party represented in Dutch parliament, led by Turkish- and Moroccan-origin politicians who openly profess to practicing Islam. Drawing on an original survey (N= 905) among Dutch voters in which we oversampled those with Turkish, Moroccan and Surinamese roots, we put three possible explanations to the test: issues, discrimination and in-group favouritism. Each subsample is religiously mixed and includes Muslims and/or Christians and voters who are not religious. While ethnic in-group favouritism, feelings of belonging in the Netherlands, experiences with discrimination and issues sometimes explain voting for DENK, Muslim in-group favouritism is the decisive factor. These findings contribute to understanding voting behaviour in increasingly religiously diverse European immigration societies.

Doctrine of Hijrah and Emergence of Muslim Communities in the West

The presence of Muslims in the West is not recent; their existence in the West dates back centuries. Like other minority groups, Muslims, as a religious minority, have been influenced by their circumstances. Human migration has impacted the culture, lifestyle, and habits of indigenous peoples, as migrants bring their faiths and religious traditions with them. Historically, migration occurred from the East to the West and vice versa for centuries. However, in the last two centuries, this migration has primarily been from developing to developed countries in search of a better future and employment opportunities. The doctrine of hijrah (migration) in Muslim legal thought, along with the emergence of Muslim communities in non-Muslim regions and their interactions with non-Muslims, has long been a subject of discussion among Muslim jurists. This research explores the formation of Muslim communities in non-Muslim countries and assesses the current situation in light of historical and contemporary discourses. Therefore, discussing classical concepts related to migration and the past and present emergence of Muslims in the West is appropriate. This article analyses various writings of classical and contemporary Muslim scholars on the issues of hijrah and Muslims’ settlement in the West.

Moral responsibility of public servants: the essence and directions of improvement

It is indicated that the moral and ethical side of public servants’ activities is still “terra incognita” for both the national legislator and the scientific community. By comprehending the position of past thinkers, the understanding of the fundamental role of moral and ethical norms in shaping the doctrines of the essence of social responsibility, including such a dimension as moral responsibility, is formed. The choice of one of the ethical norms of behaviour by a public servant is positioned as the quintessence of moral responsibility of public servants. The moral responsibility of public servants is an independent analytical and self-critical activity of a particular public servant based on his/her conscience, as well as on the system of moral and ethical coordinates formed at the level of established and supported by the management practices of daily activities of the staff of a particular public authority, local self-government body, civil society institution, which is embodied in the analysis of their own behaviour and its correlation with the proper moral standard of public servants’ activities. The essence of the moral standard itself is reduced to a model of generally accepted behaviour in Ukrainian society, formed on the basis of administrative and legal legislation, history of the national State-building, moral and ethical values laid down at the level of the principles of public administration, leading trends in scientific and technological progress, acceptable among the population of Ukraine, with due regard for the interests of the main national, racial, linguistic, religious and other minorities. The category of moral and ethical portrait of a public servant is proposed, which is understood as a set of organisational, managerial, institutional, financial instruments and mechanisms for disseminating opinions about a particular public servant and forming social perception at the level of the entire population or a certain part of it (service recipients, representatives of a region, field of activity, organisation) regarding the role, functions, purpose (vocation) and activities of such a public servant in general. In order to introduce high moral standards into the activities of domestic public servants, the following areas of improvement of their activities in the context of moral responsibility are proposed: restructuring of public morality in the context of understanding the activities of whistleblowers; increasing the authority of public authorities; development and adoption of the Code of Ethics for Public Servants at the national level.

Rights of Muslim Minorities in Contemporary India: A Critical Analysis

This paper examines the rights of Muslim minorities in contemporary India. It analyzes their legal status, political representation, and socioeconomic conditions. The study explores challenges Muslims face in areas such as education, religious freedom, and personal security. It also looks at discrimination issues and the unique challenges confronting Muslim women. The paper reviews government policies aimed at protecting minority rights and the role of civil society in advocating for Muslims. By examining these various aspects, this research provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of Muslim minority rights in India. It highlights both progress made and ongoing challenges, offering insights into the complex dynamics of religious minority rights in a diverse democracy

Revisiting dark pasts: the portrayal of Jewish minority and audience responses to the Netflix series The Club

ABSTRACT The Club, a Turkish series exclusively produced for Netflix, challenges the official historical narrative of modern Turkey by depicting the experiences of minorities on the brink of the country’s political upheaval. It highlights the state’s complex relations with its minorities and historical events that are often silenced in the official historical narrative. This study looks at how Turkey’s dark pasts pertaining to its religious minorities are portrayed in The Club and the ways in which its audience respond to these dark pasts. It argues that the audience of The Club recreates the silences about the past, resulting in the denial or rationalization of state violence, while emphasizing a nostalgic multi-cultural past.

Sweden: multiculturalism and specifics of religious freedom’s realization in secular state

Sweden has a long history of being a monoconfessional state. However, in the 20th – 21st centuries the composition of Swedish society has changed, leading the country into a crisis caused by the policy of ignoring the needs of ethnic and religious minorities. In recent years, multidisciplinary research works have been focused on finding a ground of the current social and political destabilization in this country caused by on-going religion- and ethic-based conflicts between its nationals. Some of them suggest that Sweden is not a secular but a clerical state, others – that there is a gap in its legislation.The author of the article offers another point of view, according to which, the Swedish law enforcer distorts the constitutional and legal meaning of the provisions on religious freedom that occurs under the influence of historical specifics of the development of Swedish law, hence the lack of uniformity in law enforcement practice for the implementation of this fundamental human right.The subject of the study is the norms of the legislation of Sweden, including historical legal acts and documents, as well as relevant court cases and key findings of domestic and foreign research works.Objective: to prove the influence of historical specifics of the development of Swedish law on the current legal enforcement practice under which the distortion of the constitutional and legal meaning by the Swedish law enforcement takes place.Methods: the author employs a combination of general (content-analysis, case-study, formal logical method, generalization etc.) and private scientific methods (formal judicial methods, concrete sociological method of studying state and legal phenomena etc).Results: The obtained results demonstrate that Swedish law enforcement has been given an opportunity for a broad interpretation of constitutional norms. The author identifies the distortion of the constitutional and legal meaning in provisions that provide a special status to followers of the evangelical faith, on the one hand, and a partial ban on religious and ethnic minorities from expressing their confessional affiliation, on the other. The analysis of specifics of the development of Swedish law demonstrates the possible ground of the existing constitutional inequality is the historically discriminatory nature of the legislation in relation to followers of other religious cults. These results can be used as a foundation for future research in the field of realization of religious liberty in multicultural states.

Using Positive Psychology to Uplift Minority Youth: The Importance of Sound Conceptualization and Contextualization

As addressed in the critiques related to theory, measurement, and contextualization identified in Van Zyl et al.’s (J Posit Psychol 1–30, 2023) systematic review, positive psychology has failed to robustly conceptualize and assess the contextually nuanced character and virtue development of non-WEIRD samples, particularly ethnic-racial and religious minority youth, such as Muslim American adolescents. The purpose of this commentary was to provide a conceptually sound and contextualized approach to studying virtue development that uplifts minority youth’s lived experiences and does not undermine their development. We presented potential solutions for criticisms of positive psychology related to theoretical underpinnings, measurement, and decontextualized approach and illustrated the utility of these solutions with concrete examples within the context of Muslim American adolescents as an example of a non-WEIRD population. The paper concluded with recommendations for how these strategies could be similarly applied to uplift other ethnic-racial and religious minority youth populations.

Religious, Practical and Future-Oriented Coping Strategies to End Intimate Partner Violence: An In-Depth Examination of Ultraorthodox Israeli Women’s Narratives

Abstract Purpose Much attention has been devoted to the ways in which women have made sense of, worked through, coped with, and recovered from Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), but the insights of survivors affiliated with religious minorities are scarce. The purpose of this study is to advance understandings and practices concerning the coping experiences of Ultraorthodox women (UJW) survivors of IPV. Using descriptive phenomenological methodology, in-depth semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 15 Ultraorthodox Israeli women who identified themselves as survivors of IPV. Methods The research design and data analysis were inspired by a phenomenological approach to document, analyze, and understand these women’s subjective experiences on this heretofore under-studied topic. Shenton’s four criteria were assessed to promote the current study’s rigor and trustworthiness. Results Thematic analysis revealed three core themes and seven related sub-themes: (1) Devoting time to spiritual activities (sub-themes: daily prayers and attending Jewish classes); (2) Finding inspiration in a role model (sub-themes: a woman who survived IPV, a well-appreciated rabbi); and, (3) Planning the future (sub-themes: commitment to a new project, helping other women to cope with IPV, and commitment to the future and well-being of their children). Conclusions An integrative synthesis of the findings reveals two distinctive forms of coping: spiritual-based and practical-based coping strategies, that demonstrate the survivors’ multifaceted perceptions and coping narrative with IPV. The strengths and limitations of this study are addressed along with implications for practice and theory.