Religious Prejudice Research Articles

RESPONSIBILITY FOR РREMEDITATED MURDER COMMITTED OUT OF RELIGIOUS PREJUDICE

In this article, the author analyzed the features of criminal responsibility for premeditated murder committed out of religious prejudice. The author notes that the intentional murder of the head of a religious organization should be recognized as murder in connection with the implementation of a person as specifically assigned by law to him duties, and the сommission of other socially useful actions of a religious nature. Based on the analysis of criminal legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan and explanation of the resolution of Plenum of the Supreme court of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the author has developed relevant proposals of theoretical and practical nature, aimed at improving qualification of premeditated murder motivated by religious prejudice.

God’s Red Son: The Ghost Dance Religion and the Making of Modern America

God’s Red Son: The Ghost Dance Religion and the Making of Modern America

The Effect of Terrorism and Insurgency on the Security of African Nations: An Appraisal

Recently, Africa has been labeled a theatre of war due to incessant terrorist attacks that plagued its landscape. This situation, among others, explains why the continent's development has been slow or stagnated in all spheres, and Africa has been accorded little recognition in the international arena. Against this background, this paper examined the effects of terrorism on the security of African nations. The descriptive method was adopted, and a secondary source of data collection was used in sourcing relevant data. At the same time, content analysis was utilized as a framework for analyzing the data. The paper revealed that though terrorism and insurgency have been issues rooted in history, they have recently become serious challenges to the security of African nations, impacting negatively on African nations and their development. The paper posited that religious prejudice, deprivations, and the feeling of neglect are the underlying factors breeding terrorism and insurgency in Africa. It further averred that though a lot of combative efforts have been made to checkmate the trend of these phenomena in Africa, such have, however, achieved limited success. It is due to a combination of factors ranging from weak leadership to confronting the phenomena, corruption, and the porosity of national borders, which encouraged illegal migration of people that form the core of terrorists'/insurgents militia, and accentuated arms proliferation, among others. The paper is a modest effort in order to arrest this unpleasant situation and extreme religious radicalism, which should be timely nipped in the mud. The security architecture of African nations needs to be re-engineered and directed towards generating employment opportunities for their increasing youth population. Also, collaboration in intelligence gathering and information sharing should be encouraged among African nations to ensure early response to such challenges.

A Persian Perception of Two French Stories

ABSTRACT Modern Persian fiction initially emerged in Iran through translation of western literature, especially from French. The translation movement in Iran was simultaneous with the emergence of Romanticism in Europe; therefore, writers of this literary school are outstanding in translation of western literature into Persian. Using a descriptive, analytic, and comparative method, this article attempts to make a comparison between Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s Le Café de Surate (Coffee House of Surat) and La Chaumière Indienne (Indian Cottage) and Mīrzā Āqā Khān Kermānī’s Haftād o do Mellat (Seventy-Two Nations). Motivated by Pierre’s broad worldview, Kermānī found intellectual and spiritual affinity with his attitude and translated two of his stories into Persian. Despite the popularity of romance stories among Persian readers, Kermānī was not quite successful to sustain the attraction of Pierre’s original stories in his adaptation due to his lack of acquaintance with modern fiction and scientific methods of translation, revolutionary zeal, extreme Iranian nationalism, religious prejudice, and manipulative outlook on literature Nevertheless, his good translation choice and its due time period gave him a special place in the realm of Persian fiction and also introduced de Saint-Pierre’s works to the Iranians.

The effect on judgment of attributing religious affiliation to a terrorist suspect

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects and correlations of the perceived religious affiliation on a fictitious terrorism case. Participants were 402 French adults who completed a questionnaire after reading a scenario involving the arrest of a person (French vs. North African; man vs. woman) wearing an explosive belt. They indicated the level of the perpetrator’s religious affiliation and judged her/him and the act. The participants’ level of social dominance orientation (SDO) was measured and studied along in its two dimensions. The results showed an effect of ethnicity on perceived religious affiliation, which was correlated with judgment and mediated the effect of social dominance on judgment. The implications of this study are discussed in terms of intergroup interactions and religious prejudice.

Facilitators and Barriers to the Use of Sexual and Reproductive Health Services among Adolescents in a Rural Ghanaian District.

Using the Andersen and Newman model, we explored the facilitators and barriers to the use of sexual and reproductive health (S&RH) services by in-school adolescents in Ghana. Thematic analysis of interviews revealed that parental support and a good peer network predispose adolescents to use S&RH services, while religious prejudice predisposes adolescents not to use S&RH services. Adolescent-friendly social clubs, S&RH corners, and well-trained health workers enable S&RH service use while parental disapproval, poor health workers' attitudes, and inconvenience of health facilities inhibit S&RH service use. Adolescents' perceptions of the severity of S&RH conditions create the need for S&RH care, while societal perception of sexual pleasure and perceived side effects of S&RH services are need-based barriers to the use of S&RH services. We recommend that adolescent-focused S&RH interventions should build the competence of health workers, promote religious and community tolerance, and strengthen family relationships that facilitate parent-child S&RH communication.

Dying bodies

Two enormous shifts in history shape Western culture as we know it today: the Protestant Reformation and what historical theologian Ephraim Radner names the ‘Great Transition,’ the health transition that brought modernity its unprecedented low mortality rates and lengthened lifespans. This article explores one geographical location and one specific time – Victorian London – to argue that the lingering effects of the Protestant Reformation and the growing impact of the Great Transition as this relates to the practices and rituals around the dead, particularly the dead child, were partly responsible for the reforms around the dead child in the home. Lydia Murdoch’s account of the rise of the mortuary movement, and her description of the discrimination against Irish Catholics by Protestant elites, forms the foundation for my argument. Rather than limiting the narrative to one of religious and class prejudice, I claim that religious motivation, and not only religious prejudice, worked with growing health reforms in order to bring about these historical shifts.

Can religious social workers practice affirmatively with LGBTQ service recipients? An exploration within the regulatory context

ABSTRACT Tensions between religious freedoms and lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) rights have evolved from debates about sinful deviance to competing equality claims. There is a growing debate, originally in the US, but emerging in the UK, about whether religious social workers, particularly those holding fundamentalist Christian beliefs, can deliver affirmative, anti-oppressive services to LGBTQ people. This is important because over two-fifths of social workers identify as Christian and almost a quarter of UK charities, including those running community and residential care services for older people, are religious organisations. These concerns have been highlighted in a recent judicial review involving a social work student, Felix Ngole, who was expelled by the University of Sheffield for making homophobic comments on his Facebook page. The Court of Appeal ruled the University’s decision was procedurally flawed and had conflated religious prejudice with discrimination. This paper considers 70 online responses to a Community Care article written by Ngole, which highlight divided opinions within the social work profession. It critically interrogates, within regulatory contexts, whether it is possible to be both deeply opposed to LGBTQ people’s lives and yet work affirmatively and anti-oppressively with them. An urgent research agenda is proposed.

Intervention Program to Reduce Religious Prejudice in Education Settings: A Scoping Review

In a plural society, education has an important role in preparing students to be able to live together with differences, including religious differences. Based on the contact hypothesis theory, various intervention programs have been carried out to overcome religious prejudice. This study aims to explore the concept, form, and impact of the interfaith intervention program in reducing religious prejudice in the context of education. The method used was a scoping review following the PRISMA-ScR protocol. Articles were searched online from the SAGE, Science Direct, Scopus, and Web of Science databases. There were six journal articles in the period 2012–2021 that were included based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria set. The results of this scoping review synthesized concepts, forms, and impacts, as well as research methods related to interfaith intervention programs to reduce religious prejudice in the education settings. We discussed the implications and directions for further research in research for the design, implementation, and evaluation of intergroup contact-based learning in education settings, especially higher education.

RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE, ETHNORACIAL LAW AND THE SHIFTING LANDSCAPE OF AFRO-BRAZILIAN RELIGIOUS RIGHTS IN 21ST CENTURY BRAZIL

The legal status of Afro-Brazilian religions has changed dramatically in the past few decades. For much of the 20th century, Afro-Brazilian religions lacked legal recognition as religions. Over the past twenty years, they have become targets and beneficiaries of ethnoracial laws and government institutions fostered by Brazil’s 1988 “Citizens’ Constitution.” Still, most acts of violence on Afro-Brazilian religions fail to reach courts and even fewer are tried using the legal frameworks provided by ethnoracial law. This article examines the structural obstacles that the legal remediation of discrimination against Afro-Brazilian religions has faced over the past two decades. It argues that although religious activists' efforts have contributed to beneficial changes in the legal landscape surrounding religious intolerance, current legal understandings of religious prejudice and discrimination continue to curtail the application of anti-discriminatory law to most attacks on Afro-Brazilian religions. Looking ahead to the 2020s, these obstacles can be expected to be aggravated further by the growing influence of conservative Evangelical Christian agendas on the executive, legislative and judiciary branches of the Brazilian government. Palabras clave: ley contra la discriminación, activismo legal, intolerancia religiosa, religiones afrobrasileñas

Changes in Americans' prejudices during the presidency of Donald Trump.

The presidency of Donald Trump represented a relatively unique event in modern American history, whereby a sitting US president made numerous controversial remarks about minoritized groups yet nonetheless maintained substantial public support. Trump's comments constituted a departure from the egalitarian norms that had long characterized American political discourse. Here, we examine the potential effects of Trump's rhetoric on Americans' attitudes, predicting that these high-profile norm violations may have reshaped the personal prejudices of the American people. In 13 studies including over 10,000 participants, we tested how Americans' prejudice changed following the political ascension of Donald Trump. We found that explicit racial and religious prejudice significantly increased amongst Trump's supporters, whereas individuals opposed to Trump exhibited decreases in prejudice. Further, changing social norms appear to explain these changes in prejudice. These results suggest that Trump's presidency coincided with a substantial change in the topography of prejudice in the United States.

“Euclid” must fall: The “Pythagorean” “theorem” and the rant of racist and civilizational superiority — Part 1

To eliminate racist prejudices, it is necessary to identify the root cause(s) of racism. American slavery preceded racism, and it was closely associated with genocide. Accordingly, we seek the unique cause of the unique event of genocide + slavery. This was initially justified by religious prejudice, rather than colour prejudice. This religious justification was weakened when many Blacks converted to Christianity, after the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The curse of Kam, using quick visual cues to characterize Blacks as inferior Christians, was inadequate. Hence, the church fell back on an ancient trick of using false history as secular justification for Christian superiority. This trick had resulted in a false history of science during the Crusades when scientific knowledge in translated Arabic texts was indiscriminately attributed to the early Greeks, without evidence. This false history enabled belief in religious superiority to mutate into a secular belief in White superiority. After colonialism, and the Aryan race conjecture, the belief in White superiority further mutated into a belief in Western civilizational superiority, openly propagated today by colonial education. Hence, to eliminate racist prejudice, it is necessary to engage simultaneously with the allied prejudices about Christian/White/Western superiority, based on the same false history of science.

Fanatyczni mieszkańcy Czarnobyla? Wielokulturowy obraz XIX-wiecznego miasta w tekstach Ławrientija Pochiliewicza i Konstantina Paustowskiego

The article is an attempt to reconstruct the socio-religious life of the inhabitants of Chernobyl and its external image in the last decades of the Russian Empire on the basis of an analysis of texts by Lavrenty Pochilievich and Konstantin Paustovsky. The multicultural character of Chernobyl in the 19th century was a result of the intolerant policy of the Russian authorities as well as the town's geographic and economic location. Chernobyl's Jewish and Christian residents (Orthodox, Old Believers and Roman Catholics) were an example of symbiosis in the conditions of an autocratic empire, which at the end of the 19th century was Tsarist Russia. History of Chernobyl shows that for centuries the city has been a reservoir of tolerance and a refuge for communities persecuted for reasons of economic and religious prejudice. At the same time, Chernobyl retained the eclectic appearance of a provincial shtetl typical of right-bank Ukraine, with its own customs, differences and mental diversity.

“They are not of our race”: Northern Republican Senators, Anti-Cuban Prejudices, and the American Opposition to Cuban Acquisition in 1859

Which factors do U.S. statesmen consider when incorporating new U.S. territories? Which populations and territories are deemed compatible with the project of the American nation, and which aren’t? At the U.S. Congress in 1859, upon the presentation of Senate Bill 497, U.S. Senators were debating whether to allocate a millionaire sum of money to President James Buchanan in order to acquire Cuba. The Congress debates were divided between Northern Republican and Southern Democrat Senators, of whom the former consistently opposed the annexation of Cuba. The reasons for opposition were various, but this study focuses on the senator’s suggestion that the Cuban population was unfit for self-government. By analyzing the speeches of several Northern Republican Senators, this study analyses how religious, cultural, and racial prejudices against Cubans deterred Americans from annexation. This analysis ultimately reveals that the anti-slavery convictions of Northern Republican Senators extended only to territories where the white American population could predominate, which they deemed impossible in Cuba.

Misunderstandings of the transmission of the Black Death to Western Europe : a critical review of De Mussis's account.

This article aims to critically review de Mussis's report of the events at Caffa. De Mussi says in his account that Tartars catapulted their dead compatriots infected by the plague into the besieged city of Caffa in order to contaminate the Genoese defending the city and that some Genoese galleys fleeing from the city transported the disease to Western Europe. Some historians interpret his report of Tartars catapulting plague-infected bodies as an act of biological warfare, and others do not trust his account as a reliable historical record, while some works rely on his account, even though they do not interpret it as evidence of biological warfare. This article tries to determine whether his account is true or not, and explain historical contexts in which it was made. De Mussi was not an eye-witness of the war between the Tartars and the Genoese in the years of 1343 to 1437 in Caffa, contrary to some historians' arguments that he was present there during the war. In addition, he understands and explains the disease from a religious perspective as does most of his contemporary Christians, believing that the disease was God's punishment for the sins of human beings. His account of the Tartars catapulting their compatriot's bodies may derive from his fear and hostility against the Tartars, thinking that they were devils from hell and pagans to be annihilated. For de Mussi, the Genoese may have been greedy merchants who were providing Muslims with slaves and enforcing their military forces. Therefore, he thought that the Tartars and the Genoese were sinners that spread the disease, and that God punished their arrogance. His pathological knowledge of the disease was not accurate and very limited. His medical explanation was based on humoral theory and Miasma theory that Christians and Muslims in the Mediterranean World shared. De Mussi's account that Caffa was a principal starting point for the disease to spread to Western Europe is not sufficiently supported by other contemporary documents. Byzantine chronicles and Villani's chronicle consider not Caffa but Tana as a starting point. In conclusion, most of his account of the disease are not true. However, we can not say that he did not intentionally lie, and we may draw a conclusion that his explanation was made under scientific limits and religious prejudice or intolerance of the medieval Christian world.

Communication in a Multicultural Virtual Environment for Modern Slovak Students

The necessity of establishing intercultural communication skills in children and young people is growing in the modern world. Expanding, extending the openness and accessibility of the Internet area, where diverse people with varied ideas, interests, and aspirations meet, plays a significant role in this process. Todays youth are aptly referred to as digital aborigines, as they navigate the multicultural internet environment with ease, actively using modern technology that have already become a part of their daily lives. The goal of this study is to investigate the setting of an online multicultural environment from the perspective of Slovak university students, as well as to identify and analyze current problems that university students can see in online discussions about other cultures. A structured interview was used as the primary research approach. The results provide Slovak students perspective on the six most common topics that resonate in connection with different cultures on the current Internet: (1) concerns about ones own safety due to differences of others; (2) misinformation on the Internet regarding the difference of others; (3) cognitive prejudice; (4) religious prejudices; (5) exaggeration; and (6) influencing audience emotions. This paper holds the view that modern young people should develop not only the ability to navigate in virtual reality, but also make daily personal efforts to overcome personal barriers and develop intercultural media literacy, which the authors define as the ability to acquire, in addition to digital competencies, intercultural understanding skills and apply these skills in practice in the process of communication in the Internet environment.

THE NEW WAY OF LIFE OF THE OLD BELIEVERS IN BURYATIA: “LIFE HAS IMPROVED, LIFE HAS BECOME MORE JOYOUS”? (1930s)

Establishment of the Soviet power in Buryatia was another and the most painful factor in the decline of the lifestyle of one of the communities living here – the Old Believers. Having appeared in the region in the second half of the XVIII century, they managed to preserve their religious identity and cultural specifics, although already at the beginning of the XX century researchers noted trends of breaking with the most orthodox traditions and discontinuity of generational ties. In the 1920s, the Bolsheviks skillfully supported the protest wave of young people against the power of their parents, the desire to change their lives by leaving the confines of a closed community, as well as the idea of Old Believers about everyday life (built around the basis of their identity, the Old-Orthodox religion) as about the dark and hopelessly outdated. Already in the 1930s, the messages of the main newspaper of the republic – “Buryat-Mongol Pravda” – reported on the new happy life of not only young, but also elderly Old Believers who had abandoned religious prejudices and were in the forefront of building the Soviet society in the villages of Buryat-Mongolia.
 The article considers the issue on what caused such a change in people’s mentality: the ideological victory of the Soviet propaganda or a socially approved behavior (including cases of active and continued general passive resistance to a new life)? Hence, taking into account the desire of the current Old Believers to return and develop old traditions, the tasks of analyzing the external (everyday) changes of the 1930s in working life and searching for attempts to preserve (for further continuity) the identity of the social group are set.
 The object of the study is the Old Believers’ community of a part of the former Verkhneudinsky uyezd (since the 1930s – Tarbagataisky and Mukhorshibirsky aimaks of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR), the subject is the ideological, cultural and religious processes that took place in their environment during the indicated period.
 As a brief conclusion, it follows that the ideological campaign in Buryat-Mongolia, which continued in the 1930s, had a formal character in the Old Believer districts, which took place in the adoption of changes in the way of life while preserving the foundations of religious identity.

The Identity of the Performances of the 1960s Directed by Valeriu Cupcea

The fruitful activity of Valeriu Cupcea in the 1960s was manifested in the identity of his plays. In the comedy Take, Yanke, and Kadar by I. Popa, this is a union of people overcoming national and religious prejudices. In the socio-psychological drama from the life of a collective farm village The Wheel of Time by A. Lupan, this is the drama of the era, manifested in life situations, in dramatic collisions of the characters in the play. In the philosophical drama about the life and death of A. Levada’s Faust and Death, this is a clash of human destinies, in the struggle of worldviews. The play I Don’t Want You To Do Good For Me Anymore by G. Malarciuc is a satire against favoritism and nepotism. In the play Two Lives and the Third by F. Vidrascu, this is psychological certainty in revealing the spiritual dramas of the heroes. In the play The Crane Feathers by J. Kinoshita this is a poetical and philosophical reading of an old Japanese legend. In the play Eminescu by M. Stefanescu, this is a highly artistic embodiment of the images of Eminescu, Creanga, Alecsandri. In the play Blanduzia’s Fountain by V. Alecsandri, this is the disclosure of the tragic life of a poet who selflessly strives to bring love and goodness to people and dooms himself to death. And others.

Louis Bromfield’s The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg and The Rains Came in Francoist Spain

Louis Bromfield’s The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg and The Rains Came in Francoist Spain Cristina Zimbroianu American writer Louis Bromfield (1896–1956) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1926 for his novel Early Autumn. Born in Mansfield, Ohio, a land that was a rich agricultural community a hundred years before his birth, Bromfield inherited his father’s love of farming. Unfortunately, around 1890, Mansfield developed into an industrial and commercial centre, and agriculture and farming became less important. His father Charles, a Democratic politician, was committed to opposing the city’s activities and maintained close relations with the remaining farmers in the hope that he would one day return to farming (Anderson 15). Charles instilled in his son a distrust of industry and a society that “deprived men of their manhood and made them bankers, bookkeepers and factory hands” (Anderson 15). Industrialization made some people rich and others poor: in the Flats below Mansfield, slums increased significantly, and farmers could barely survive (Anderson 15). In this context, Bromfield enrolled at Cornell to study agriculture after graduating from high school in 1914. However, he dropped out a year later to help when, for financial reasons, the Bromfield family was forced to sell their house in town and move to a farm. His mother, Annette Bromfield, convinced him that life on the farm would lead him “to hard work and oblivion,” so in 1916 he enrolled at Columbia University to study journalism (Anderson 24). Before the end of his studies, however, the United States was at war, and Louis Bromfield decided to enlist in the Army Ambulance Service, organized with the French Army, and travelled to France (Anderson 24). In the First World War, Bromfield served as a driver and interpreter with the French army, and he returned to New York to initiate his literary career in 1924 when he published his first novel, The Green Bay Tree. His early novels (1924–1930) treat the themes of industrialization and transformation from agriculture to industry. As a defender of the Jeffersonian tradition, Bromfield portrays the consequences of industrialism [End Page 455] and materialism on the human being both in his native land and abroad (Anderson). In The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928), Bromfield abandons his early themes, settings, contexts, and characters by introducing a mixture of sensuousness and mysticism that provide intentionally designed intensity and ambiguity (Anderson 56–61). Annie’s death, after having been considered a saint because she was marked by stigmata, and her apparently miraculous life give mysticism to the novel. The Rains Came (1937) is set in Ranchipur, India, and explores humanity’s potential to fight against miseries, poverty, religious prejudices, superstitions, diseases, and natural calamities. This is the first of Bromfield’s novels to introduce a large array of characters from both the West and the East who “battle on the sides of both light and darkness” (Anderson 100). However, the role of the church in The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg and the events of Annie’s life and death may not have been well received by readers in Franco’s Spain, nor would elements of Western modernity such as certain love stories and attitudes about religion have been accepted by Franco’s censors. Thus, the methodology employed for the study of the reception of these two novels in Franco’s Spain is based on context-activated theories, as Janet Staiger presents in her extensive analysis of reception studies, Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema. The context is provided by the political and cultural environment of Francoist Spain, and the censorship apparatus that decided which books could reach readers. Therefore, the aim of this article is to examine the reception of Bromfield’s The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg and The Rains Came in Francoist Spain, focusing primarily on the response of the censors, whose evaluations were crucial in determining whether or not these two novels would be successful in Spain. This discussion involves an examination of the censorship archives located at the Administration General Archives (Archivo General de la Administración) in Alcalá de Henares, particularly the files that reveal whether or not The Strange Case of Miss...

44.2 A COCKTAIL OF RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA: THE SOUTH ASIAN YOUTH EXPERIENCE

44.2 A COCKTAIL OF RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA: THE SOUTH ASIAN YOUTH EXPERIENCE