Comedy of errors

'Having gone through secular Makerere University in Uganda, I thought that all universities were more or less like that. I was grossly wrong.' As part of 2010's Yogya Summer School, Adrian Jjuuko blogs about his visit to a Quran University in local Central Java.

Ugandans search for common ground in run-up to 2011 elections

´Ugandans have been too engrossed with our differences. We have a history of tribalism that manifest itself in the idea that one has to create strong tribal entities that are able to dominate the othes. We must accept plurality as a fact and a gift and identify the common ground. This is a challenge for our political leadership, but also for each of us here.´ Key note speaker Bisshop Zac Niringiye conveyed this message to the participants of the pluralism knowledge programme conference in Ka...

Online forum on ' Religion, Gender and Politics'

Religion is playing an increasing role in public life across the globe. Polarization and struggles over values seem to have come along. Pluralism Programme associates share their findings on the resurgence of religion in the public sphere and its effect on human rights with researchers and practitioners from AWID, UNRISD and the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Join the debate on openDemocracy.net!

Study of Girls’ Madrasa Education in India

This study is an attempt to look at the nuances of identity formation among Indian Muslim women; notions of identity and selfhood are a result of the intersections of caste, class, religion and gender, among other factors. This paper tries to understand the process of construction of identity of Muslim women through a study of girls’ madrasas. It also attempts to examine binaries such as modernity and tradition, the secular and the religious and, nationhood and religious minority, which deb...

Media and Religious Identity in Contemporary India

The hypothesis behind this paper is that we live in a “hyper-connected” world. Information , for most of us, lies , quite literally, at our fingertips. Television, the internet, newspapers and other media are within easy reach of most of the population regardless , it would seem, of class or even literacy or education. Under these circumstances it seemed a natural enough to question what role the media plays in perceptions of identity and pluralism.

Indonesia: annul religious defamation law

Pluralism Knowledge Programma partner CRCS recommends the Indonesian Constitutional Court to abolish the 1965 law on defamation of religion. The law is still effectively used today to discriminate certain religious groups. Furthermore it is found to be in contradiction with the Constitution. However, most mainstream religious organisations defend the law. CRCS presents its arguments on exploring alternative instruments to deal with religious diversity and potential conflicts.

Rethinking the Secular

Religious difference has been posited as a crucial factor in international conflicts and increasingly challenges existing political settlements that define the relationship between the state and religion. Considering the ways in which politics and religion currently intersect one may argue that religion has become an increasingly important consideration in global politics. In this paper, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im discusses his ideas on Islam and the secular state as presented during the Plura...

The Hidden Dimension of the Secular.

Humanists should reconsider their often anti-religious stance, argue Henk Manschot and Caroline Suransky, researchers of the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme at the University for Humanistics. There is a special relationship between modernity, secularism and humanism. However, the project of modernity has increasingly come under siege. Therefore, modern humanism too is challenged to rethink its own relationship with modernity and secularism.

Instruments for Promoting Pluralism

Pro-pluralism activists in Indonesia tend to be too elitist and limit themselves to intellectual discussions, Farid Wajidi argues. In this working paper, he suggests that the pluralism movement needs to develop new strategies that could also reach common people, youth in particular. As an example, he describes the efforts of the NGO LKiS to create youth communities where high school students can personally experience pluralism instead of only talking about it.

Uganda Riots Revisited.

Violent confrontations rocked Kampala in September 2009. This interview with knowledge programme coordinators Emily Drani and John De Coninck sheds light on the background of the unrest and its possible implications for the work of the pluralism knowledge programme in Uganda.