Some may remember that when Vladimir Putin initiated his “special military operation” against Ukraine, one of his earliest supporters was Patriarch Kirill I of the Russian Orthodox Church. What was his perspective? In his first public address following the commencement of what Moscow terms the “special military operation,” he provided a clear answer: he saw it as a “metaphysical war.” In other words, for the Patriarch, it was evident that this conflict represented a battle between Russia defending the fundamental values of its Christian essence, and Western de-Christianization, which sought to spread, through Ukraine, even to this part of Europe, concepts like gay pride, seen as the epitome of evil.
Analyses
Religion
- Ali Kosha 26 February 2024According to a 2022 Gallup survey, Afghanistan is the only country in the world where the vast majority of the population, a staggering 92 percent of men and 96 percent of women, say they face hardships that make their lives sheer suffering. In this realm of agony, the Hazaras bear a disproportionate burden of suffering. And for Hazara women, the burden intensifies further.
- Mujibur Rehman 29 January 2024On January 26, 2024, India celebrated its Republic Day – the day India adopted its current Constitution – with great fanfare, with French President Emmanuel Macron as the guest of honor. “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’ is the major political ideal for France, though each of these terms has little meaning for Indians in the context of rapidly expanding Hindu majoritarianism.
- Ali Kosha 11 January 2024Afghanistan is the only country in the world where women and girls are completely banned from education and from working in most sectors, including NGOs. While the restrictions on women and girls have rightly received some international attention, an important aspect of the Taliban’s oppressive regime that has not received enough attention is their systematic indoctrination of boys, and more recently young girls in some provinces, through the education system.
- Maria Tavernini 26 September 2023The murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen and a prominent Sikh separatist leader in the western province of British Columbia who was shot dead on June 18, 2023 by two masked gunmen outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara (temple) in Surrey, near Vancouver, has sparked an international crisis. On September 18th, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau made an incendiary statement to the Canadian Parliament that Ottawa was looking into “credible allegations potentially linking” India to Nijjar’s murder. India has denied any role in the killing.
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- Jocelyne Cesari 16 March 2023Since 9/11, it has gained political traction over Europe and the US to decry all types of ethnic and religious prejudice against Muslims who are not only immigrants but also citizens. In the last decade, the surge of Islamophobia has become worldwide, reaching India, China and even Muslim countries.
- Giancarlo Bosetti 4 January 2023Ratzinger shared with Habermas a “post-secular” vision, namely the idea that for contemporary societies the classical narrative of modernity as secularization, disenchantment and the abandonment of religion to the margins of society, or its confinement to the private sphere, should be discarded. Both saw the value in the possibility that from a dialogue between public reason and faith, both sides could benefit or, going further, that processes of “mutual learning” could be initiated.
- Mohammed Hashas 13 October 2022The passing away of the ‘global sheikh’ closes an epoch of engaged Islam. A portrait of Muslim Brotherhood’s former ideologist by Mohammed Hashas.