Topics
Pluralism in Hivos' view is accepting diversity and engaging with the other. Pluralism is more than tolerance, it is the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference. Pluralism is not relativism, it does not require leaving identities behind. Yet it requires accepting the rights of others, the right to design one's own life, the right to be different and the right to express one's identity. Promoting Pluralism therefore means opening spaces for dialogue and human equality. It does not mean prescribing any specific way of organising society or political system. In this section you wil find information about pluralism as a concept about specific issues such as gender, civic pluralism and religion. These are central issues to the Knowledge Programme on Promoting Pluralism.
Introduction to Promoting Pluralism
In many places around the world, people are faced with the growth of intolerance. In Western Europe for instance, we observe a resistance to migrant cultures. National identities and the openness of a country to non-Western foreigners are heavily debated. In several countries where Hivos works, partners in civil society signal a rise of fundamentalisms of various sorts. Fundamentalisms can be rooted in religion, ethnic affiliation, nationalism, social class or other value systems....
Civic Pluralism
There are many ways to think and talk about pluralism. ‘Civic pluralism’ may be helpful to find practical solution to approaching diversity in society. Within the Indonesian Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme this concept will be further explored by the academic partners and civil society organisations. This has to result in improved strategies and activities to deal with diversity in society, in such a way that it is conducive to development.
Core themes of the regional team in India
The Indian part of the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme focusses on two themes: "Human Rights, Pluralism and Rethinking of the Secular State" and "Faith and Diversity"
Core themes of the regional team in Indonesia
The Indonesian part of the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme focusses on one theme: religious pluralism.Religious pluralism is not approached as a theological but civic issue, and includes other issues in relation to it such as the issues of gender and ethnicity. The domain of this 'civic pluralism' is politics, not theology.
Women & Fundamentalisms
AWID, the Association for Women's Rights in Development, launched an initiative that focuses on fundamentalism in 2006. The project is entitled "Resisting and Challenging Religious Fundamentalisms: An advocacy-research project". It explores various forms of fundamentalism and the effects on the position, rights and freedoms of women. From all over the world, AWID has gathered examples from women organisations and activists about how they approached the situation in their own countr...
Ethnic and Political Diversity in Uganda
Uganda is an East-African country, bordered by Sudan in the north, Kenya in the east, Lake Victoria as natural border and Tanzania in the south and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the west. With a population of more than 31 million people, the country is the home of over 40 ethnic groups. It is thus not surprising that the people of Uganda think of ethnic diversity when speaking about ‘pluralism’. There is, however, one other important line of thinking when it comes to pluralism in Ugan...
Hivos' partners working on pluralism in Indonesia
Hivos supports civil society initiatives that aim to promote pluralism in practice. Human rights activists, women's organisations and cultural actors work on a wide range of issues. Some of them are: reviving Indonesia's national motto 'Unitiy in diversity', building pluralism within religion, organising a filmfestival on sexual diversity and advancing women's role in politics to advocate for the revocation or religion-based local regulations that restrict women's freedom of expression.
Promoting Pluralism in Indonesia
Pluralism is a heavily debated issue in present-day Indonesia.In the past few years, the media has increasingly reported about different positions in the debates, in response to the growth of religious and social conflicts in the country. Both those who are in favour and those who are against fundamentalist forms of religion have frequently expressed their views.
The Challenge of Pluralism in India
South Asia has been hailed as a region of significant diversity and pluralism for a long time. However, over the last decades, it has also been a hotbed of multiple forms of intolerance, such as religious, ethnic, linguistic chauvinisms and intolerance often manifested in sporadic as well as organised forms of violence. The violence in Gujarat in 2002, for instance, has brought home the concerns about the ease with which mobilisation could be done for genocidal politics.
Members of the India Regional Team
The Regional Teams of the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme are country-based groups of academics and practitioners defining the objectives and the content of the programme. The team is led by the regional coordinator and her/his institution as the core partner of Hivos and Kosmopolis. For India this is the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS) in Bangalore.