27 September 2004

Abstracts of proposed contributions by Kotor Network members to the European Association for the Study of Religion conference "Religious Tolerance and Intolerance", Santander (Spain), September 2004 (not yet complete):

Cecilie Endresen:
Religious tolerance and secular nationalism in Christian and Islamic discourses in Albania

In Albania, religious tolerance is a part of the national identity. The concept of religious tolerance has been a tenet of Albanian nationalism since it beginning in order to avoid a split between the country’s Sunni and Sufi Muslims (ca. 70%, Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics (respectively ca. 20% and 10% according to the latest, pre-Communist figures). The idea of a strong ethno-linguistic secular sense of transreligious unity is summed up in the old nationalistic slogan "Don't see to the churches or the mosques, the religion of the Albanian is Albanianism!"

This way of thinking religious affiliations as more ephemeral than the national is a conspicuous part of the secular Albanian national identity and also a self-understanding within all the religious traditions in the country. “Albanianism” forms an overarching component in the religious traditions. It is also reflected in the practical policy and statements of religious leaders and politicians and has in times of social unrest been actively used to decrease tension between the communities by appealing to brotherhood and blood relations. An eye-catching feature of what is said or written by lay people or clergy is the emphasis on Albanian concerns, national history, culture, society, language and folklore.

Even discord along religious lines takes the form of nationalism. Significantly, “we” does not refer to the religious community, but to the nation, the group of Albanians. Ironically, it is therefore the agreement on the importance of ethnic unity and religious tolerance that generate most of the religious disagreements, not theological and soteriological concerns. All the communities consider their own tradition the most tolerant and superior in preserving Albanian values, nurturing the people’s distinct ethnic character and guiding the nation on the right path through history. Hence, the nationalism prevailing in almost all the religious rhetorics could paradoxically reinforce religious divisions.

Christian Moe:
“Analysing Attitudes to Religious Others: A Conceptual Framework with Application to Bosnian Muslims”

The first part of this paper sets out a simple conceptual framework for analysing attitudes to religious others. The point of departure is a division into exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism, a typology with some popularity among Christian theologians. I explore the problems and potentials of extending this typology from the theological domain (concerns with ultimate truth and salvific efficacy) to the social and public domains (concerns with, respectively, human relations with religious others in society, and equal treatment of other religions in the public sphere). The heuristic value of this framework lies inter alia in generating hypotheses about the relationships between the various attitudes. Empirical study might focus on the (in)consistency of attitudes to religious others across domains (does e. g. theological exclusivism necessarily make for social and public religious exclusivism?).

In the second part, I will demonstrate how various data on a religious community, that of the Bosnian Muslims, can be mapped onto this framework. The data are drawn from the public discourse of religious figures, and includes examples of the Islamic Community's stance on social issues, such as intermarriage, and on public affairs, such as the legislation on religious communities. The Bosnian Muslims are often perceived (and self-described) as heirs to a particular tradition of religious tolerance and multi-cultural pluralism. This idealised picture is contested, and the reality behind it is necessarily more complex. I will seek to show that the analytical approach outlined above brings some order to this complexity, allowing us to say more precisely what we mean by calling religious actors tolerant or intolerant, and to place the evidence in wider perspective. Beyond this simple application, the model may lend itself to the design of comparative studies using a variety of data and methods.

(Note: An earlier version of this paper was given at the Kotor conference and is included on this site.)

More abstracts to be added.