balkan black box

True Believers? The political Renaissance of religion and cultural identity

Short lectures and panel discussion
Veranstaltung in englischer Sprache (ohne Übersetzung)

Münzsalon, Mi, 31.10.2007 um 20:00 Uhr

Guests: Boris Buden (Berlin), Azra Akšamija (Cambridge/USA), Klaus Buchenau (OEI, Berlin), Zoran Terziæ (IFK Vienna & Berlin)

It is estimated that currently less than 15% of the worldwide population identify with secular or non-theist views, whereas well over 50% are associated, for example, to either Islam or Christianity. While religious faith is very often "personal" and does not articulate itself politically, there is a strong tendency that politics increasingly adopts religious or cultural justifications. The consequence of this development particularly in the US, the Arab world, and in Eastern Europe has been a new conservatism, fundamentalism, and/or nationalism, accompanied by increasing xenophobia and religious-based hatred, instigated conflicts, revisionist historiographies, and generally an increased orientation towards exclusivist cultural values. Are these phenomena just temporary and escapist side-effects of global capitalism? Or are they deeply routed in the socio-cultural fabric of contemporary societies? Or do they (and to what extent) indicate a major strategic shift in geopolitics?

PROGRAM:

18:00-20:00 Film screenings from the DividedGod Projekt (www.pozitiv.si/dividedgod/)

20:00-22:00 Short lectures & panel discussion

Bildungswerk Berlin

Veranstaltet vom Bildungswerk Berlin der Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung

Realisiert mit Mitteln der Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin