Bouldoukian, Elena
(2020)
Nation-State Interference in Religious Affairs.
Master thesis, Master Religion Conflict and Globalisation.
Abstract
The thesis discusses the consequences of nation-state interference in religious affairs, when it overemphasises the religious affiliations of the people who are seeking to cross its borders. It reveals how religion becomes enmeshed with the politics of nation state, and why the latter is engrained in negative stereotypical and harmful assumptions about religion, particularly with regard to Islam. These issues are demonstrated along the three following case studies: The first, covers Iranians who have converted from Islam to Christianity and who were denied refuge by a European court on the basis that their conversion was assumed to be insincere.
The second case study that is set in France, tries to understand the dynamics behind why the nation-state seeks to verify the genuineness of immigrant marriages by placing prospective partner’s feelings and affiliation to secularity under scrutiny. These two cases exemplify well that religion and law share a complicated relationship, where the reasoning for or against acknowledging one’s human right to religious freedom, is based mostly on secular interpretations, as well as on how Christianity and Islam are problematically constructed and hierarchised in the West. The cases also clearly demonstrate the impossibility of the secular nation-state to maintain a strict separation from religious affairs, by its attempts to survey the private sphere, to which it had confined religion thus far, in order to preserve and guarantee national identity.
The final case study looks at German citizenship tests which examine whether people ‘truly identify’ and are compatible with ‘Western values’. The issue falls under the aspect of state securitization in times of globalization, in which religion is used as a strategic political tool to legitimize state measures for keeping people out of their borders. This is achieved by enhancing “us versus them” discourses in which the “religious other” (Islam) is elected as the principle threat to “liberal, western values”, which are rooted in Christianity.
The thesis concludes, that while the increasing awareness to recognize the complexities of religion is encouraging, there is still a lack of tangible and realistic solutions to help avoid the over-emphasis of religious affiliation to be instrumentalized for political gains.
Keywords
Religion, secularism, securitisation, religious freedom, nation-state, islamophobia, (forced) migration, France, Germany, identity
| Type: |
Thesis
(Master)
|
| Supervisors (RUG): |
| Supervisor | E-mail | Tutor organization | Tutor email |
|---|
| McIvor, M.B. | | Faculteit GGW, Cultuurgeschiedenis van het Christendom | M.McIvor@rug.nl | | Wilson, E.K. | | Faculteit GGW, Cultuurgeschiedenis van het Christendom | E.K.Wilson@rug.nl |
|
| Degree programme: |
Master Religion Conflict and Globalisation |
| Academic year: |
2019-2020 |
| Date of delivery: |
27 Nov 2020 11:57 |
| Last modified: |
11 Feb 2022 13:47 |
| URI: |
https://ggw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/556 |
Actions (requires login)
 |
View Item |
