Videos
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Michael Walzer 11 February 2016Many from my generation believed that religion would disappear – instead it came back – politicized, modern, militant and anti-liberal. So what happened to secular nations as Algeria, India and Israel, where we can observe a violent return of religion, asks Michael Walzer: was it a mistake not to engage critically with religious culture? - 9 February 2016Is there an “Islamic State”? And can religiosity exist without freedom? No!, claims Islamic theologian Adnane Mokrani from Rome’s PISAI Institute and gives a political and historical explanation of why a secular State represents a real opportunity of religious freedom for Muslims
- 9 February 2016Why not have one state with an inclusive idea of citizenship which will include both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews in one state? According to Avishai Margalit, the one-state solution could be an invitation to an unstable state and even to civil war. Modern political philosophy started with Hobbes: the imperative to avoid war, war of all against all.
- 8 February 2016Are religious wars in the Middle East today comparable with the 16th and 17th century’s European religious conflicts? Asks Alberto Melloni from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Has violence among Muslims simply been covered by the political system of the Empire and is now asking for its own place in the scene of history? Or is there, on the contrary, a new violence in this area between Sunni and Shia, Alawites and Wahhabis?
- 3 February 2016Sectarianism in Lebanon is a problem rather than a solution, says Lydia Wilson, a researcher from Cambridge University. This very rigid framework that we see along sectarian lines gives people the feeling that they can’t change anything at social, religious and political level and many are planning to leave because they see no hope, even if they want a change to happen. But now that people’s fear has increased, with the imminent threat from ISIS, they feel protection only by the sect, the community.
- 19 January 2016Neither the neoliberal multicultural inclusive model without solidarity and it’s shallow citizenship, nor a defensive solidarity without the inclusion of immigrants, are useful models. Will Kymlicka, criticizes both neoliberals and conservative social democrats. His idea is that only by encountering real participation and belonging a constructive multicultural society can be created and alienation amongst native citizens be avoided.
- 18 January 2016“There is nothing new about living together, the question today is how to build Nation States that can integrate minorities in a more respectful and inclusive way without undermining social cohesion“, asks the political philosopher Will Kymlicka. But not only minorities have legitimate claims of justice: how can we fulfil these claims without undermining social cohesion?
- 15 January 2016“Shia-Sunna conflict is not the main problem in the Middle East, the main problem is the lack of national unity, the lack of state building and the competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran not for religious but for geopolitical problems” explains Fabrice Balanche from Lyon University. But there is another split: the Maghreb is influenced by Europe and the Middle East and Egypt by the Wahhabi culture from the Gulf, which obstructs democratisation in the Region.
- 15 December 2015Can lessons be drawn from 16th century France and its religious wars to today’s conflicts in the Middle East? The historian Keith Luria from North Carolina State University tells us how the concept of compromise and negotiation helped open up the non negotional character of religious hostility. But it needed an agency of enforcement. Reset-DoC interviewed Professor Luria during our conference “Religious Wars in Early Modern Europe and the Contemporary Islamic Civil War: Reflections, Patterns and Comparisons” held in New York in Fall 2014.
- 10 November 2015In Tunisia, civil society’s intervention following the 2011 revolution was decisive, explains Yadh Ben Achour, who played a crucial role in leading the country’s democratic transition process during these years. The former President of the Haute Instance pour la Réalisation des Objectifs de la Révolution and now member of the UN Human Rights Committee emphasises that « it was precisely thanks to civil society that we adopted one of the most democratic constitutions in the world as far as the protection of rights and freedom is concerned. » Interviewed before the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, Ben Achour spoke to Reset-DoC about the courage to compromise that made Tunisia’s democratic experience a unique example among Arab Spring countries.
