[Home] [Programm] [Workshops] [Anmeldung] [Infos] [Impressum] Open
meeting on October 2 and 3, 2005 in Cologne
Open meeting: Leading culture Humanism and Enlightenment ? 1400 The
meeting begins - Introduction (Room “Barcelona”) Migration,
Integration and Religions (Moderation: Gunnar Schedel) “Leading
culture Humanism and Enlightenment or ideological neutrality of the
state ?” (Moderation: Dr Wolfgang Proske) 1600 Coffee break in the Bistro 1630 –
1830 The working groups continue their work 1830 – 2130 Dinner (warm) 1930 –
2130 Public event in “Barcelona”: Forced marriage and murders
of female migrants in Afterwards:
Party in the Bistro 0830 Breakfast Room “Barcelona” 0900 – 1100 Reports from Sunday’s working groups and general discussion 1115 –
1245 Panel discussion “Unite, confessionless of all German states!?”
1400 End of the meeting Leading culture Humanism and Enlightenment While conservative politicians claim a christian-patriotic leading culture (“Values of the Christian occident”) and sometimes call to the arms against “godless and unpatriotic fellows” others are dreaming of the “multi-cultural society” incl. a “naturalization of Islam”. But nei-ther the conservative reanimation of the idea of a “Christian fort Europe” nor the postmodern appeasement politics towards religious and esoteric tendencies will promote the project of an “open society”. Theoretically it should be known that we have nearly no other choice than to bet on that “sup-pressed leading culture” , the leading culture of humanism and Enlightenment that was firmly tied to the historical progress of societies. But the politcal establishment is far from seeing this. On the one hand all the great successes of the modern age are due to the tradition of the Enlightenment (technical know-how, a state being founded on the rules of the law, freedom of speech, etc.). On the other hand the Enlightenment still is an “underground movement”. Mil-lions of people turned their back to the religions in Germany but in politics and in the media they are enormously underrepresented. Today some 32 % of the Germans don’t belong to any religious confession and some 50% say they are “not religious” but neither politicians nor the media take very much notice of that. But what could be done to enforce the enlightening, humanist thinking in social debates? This perspectival question will be in the centre of IBKA’s and GBF’s open meeting “Leading cul-ture Humanism and Enlightenment”. We will discuss topics like “Limits of religious free-dom”, “Leading culture Humanism and Enlightenment”, integrations of migrants and the problem of Islamism”, “missionary work in the east” or “idelological neutrality of the state?” We will also discuss whether it could help to found a “central council of the confessionless”, as GBF recently proposed, to enforce the lobbying for the interests of confessionless people in Germany. Working group: Limits of religious freedom The right of religious freedom is a basic right, so what are the legal limits for religions ? In which cases will the legitimate practising of religions restrict other persons’ rights? Are the basic rights for members of religions granted? Does every community accept democracy ? Can religious laws break general laws? How far are women concerned by ludicrous or crimi-nal religious norms? How can children of members of religious communitys be protected against legal guardians who want to exclude them from an influence from the outside? How do we recognize when normal practising a religion will turn into an essay to force their own rules on the whole country? Is there a collective right of religious communitys to educate their members’ children? Are the groups even entitled to replace governmental education with an education by the religious community (“homeschooling”) ? Which practices of religious communitys are illegal? What can we answer if the religious communitys say that critizizing their inner affairs were none of our business? How can we deal with groups who act as a group on the basis of religious freedom but who don’t allow their members to criticize or leave the group? What can we do when a member of a religious community will e.g. be threatened with murder just because he wants to join a competing religious community? How long can we tolerate the intolerant? Do we need consumer’s protection for religions – far from the commentaries you will hear from professional watchers who are part of competing relig-ions? Prof Dr
Dr Eric Hilgendorf In the statement “state and religion in Germany” the legal conditions that limit and control religious communitys in Germany will be presented. Traditionally this is called “Staat-skirchenrecht”. But nowadays this term is no longer valid as we now have a multicultural patchwork of religions. Some examples will show some problems that exist today in the rela-tionship of state and religion. Prof Eric Hilgendorf teaches criminal law, code of criminal procedure, information law and computer science law. He studied philosophy, newer history and law in Tübingen. In his master’s dissertation he wrote about the development of the parlamentarian freedom of speech. Since 2001 Prof Hilgendorf has held the chair for criminal law, code of criminal pro-cedure, information law and computer science law at Würzburg University. Further topics and experts are: Prof Dr
Armin Pfahl-Traughber Moderation: Dr Gerhard Czermak working group: Migration, Integration and Religion De facto Germany is an immigration country. During the last 40 years several millions of “guest workers”, refugees, emigrants from Poland, Russia etc. have come to Germany and carrying their religion on their backs. Those in power accept more and more the offers of reli-gious communities for a better integration of the immigrants. The Islamic education as offered by several German states is an example as well as it is the money the Central Committee of the Jews gets for its care of the immigrated jews from Russia. This means that all people who come out of one area or who belong to the same community are made part of a religious communtiy without being asked. On the other hand they move the integration problem from the individual person to the organization. Here they ignore the fact that large parts of the newcomers are not religious as well as the question whether (e.g.) a Turkish teenager will or will not be more integrated if he gets two hours religious education a week. In the working group “Migration, Integration and Religion” we will have a look at the reli-gious offers supported by the state. How much do they contribute to the integration of mus-lims and are they covered “missionary work” (as people will just because of their origin be seen and treated as a part of a religious community). Here it will be examined in which parts of the society one can accept or even support the living up of a religious identity because it helps to integrate or where it will collide with the claim of a secular society. One part of the debate will be the term “parallel society”. This describes a real problem: the claim of certain groups to live in a subculture according to their “own law”. In this subculture central human rights are – be it because of tradition or because of religion – not respected. In the actual discussion no one reflects that the people are willing to integrate themselves but they realize that they are excluded. Therefore this term can easily be used to restrict the civil rights of the migrants living in a “parallel society” (no matter whether they do really live there or not). During the discussion we will reflect the secular integration models resp. the difficulties in this part of politics as all secular unions have only some members who are migrants. Possible
questions Example
Dr habil Waldemar Vogelsang / Frank Welker (Trier University) Religious
segretation
Frank Welker (*1975 in Saarbrücken) is an insurance salesman and is studying politics, Ger-man and sociology. He is a member of the interdisciplinary working group “Youth- and media culture”, the society for the scientific research of Parasciences and writes articles for the jour-nal “Materialien und Informationen zur Zeit (MIZ)”. He is mainly interested in religious criti-cism and youth research. Moderation: Gunnar Schedel Working group: Leading culture humanism and enlightenment – a contradiction to the concept of an ideologi-cally neutral state ? Moderation:
Dr Wolfgang Proske Dr Horst Groschopp Humanism
as “Third denomination” Further
topics and experts Werner Schulz (HVD – Berlin): May the state actively communicate values ? The debate on teaching values at school in Berlin Moderation: Dr Wolfgang Proske Evening
event: Sunday, 1930 Introductory statement + documentary film + discussion with Collin Schubert (TERRE DES FEMMES) Parallel or integrated ? In the difficult balancing act between tradition and modern age many migrant women in Ger-many are looking for their way. Not all of them succeed in this. The young women who wish to life self-determined run a high risk within ethnic colonies and they may be punished with forced marriage or even be murdered for reasons of honour. Tradition
and political Islam dominate at the development of parallel worlds and
they influ-ence the women. Lacks in integration policy lead to to a
rollback in the third generation of immigrants, too. Collin
Schubert studied psychology and sociology and works as a psychologist.
She lived three years in Kabul / Afghanistan.
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