Quadriga - Beyond Belief - How Religion Fuels Conflict
Shia and Sunni Muslims have different views on Islam but those differences rarely lie at the bottom of the conflict between the two. It’s usually political and socio-economic tension emerging along religious lines that leads to violence. Policies by the Shia-dominated Iraqi government have caused tensions between the Shia majority population and the minority Sunni and Kurdish Iraqis. Religion can be used to justify violence perpetrated by one group against another.
The conflict in the Central African Republic is another example of where differences of religious opinion are not the cause of violence. And in countries such as Myanmar and Sri Lanka, where Buddhists are in conflict with the Muslim population, the issues at stake are not religious but of power and influence. Even when religion is usually not the cause of conflict it can become a political instrument that leads to an escalation in violence.
How can these religiously-charged conflicts be solved? Could religion even be a tool for peace?
Beyond Belief - How Religion Fuels Conflict
What do you think? Write us: quadriga@dw.de
Our guests:
Alexander Görlach - he holds two doctorate degrees in theology and linguistics. He is the founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of the German debate magazine The European. Previously, Görlach worked for the German national TV station ZDF, the dailies "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", "Süddeutsche Zeitung", "Die Welt", and served as online editor of the political magazine "Cicero". He regularly appears as an analyst on N24 television and lectures on digital change at the Free University in Berlin.
Hamed Abdel-Samad – is the son of a Sunni Imam. At the age of 23, the Egyptian national moved to Germany. He studied political science in Augsburg and English and French at Cairo University. After his studies, he taught at the Institute for Jewish History and Culture at the University of Munich. Since 2009, he has worked exclusively as a freelance writer and journalist. He made a name for himself as a critic of Islam. Following a public presentation in Cairo last month, in which Hamed Abdel-Samad accused the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood of promoting islamic fascism, Sheikh Assem Abdel-Maged of the Gamaa Islamija movement called for the murder of Abdel-Samad on national television.
Martin Gak - received his Ph.D. in philosophy from The New School for Social Research in New York. His area of work is ethics in theory and practice. He wrote his dissertation on the relation between religious morality and secular ethics and the grounds of politics. Based in Berlin, he is a regular contributor to newspapers, magazines and blogs.