Religious Minorities and the Anxieties of an Islamic Identity in Pakistan

2019 ◽  
pp. 202-234
Author(s):  
Muhammad Qasim Zaman

This chapter focuses on contemporary Pakistan, now entangled in sectarian strife, though this was not always so. There were religious minorities: the Ahmadis and Shiʻites. The former were heterodox many times over: they did not believe in jihad, and they did believe in a post-Muhammad prophet, Ghulam Ahmad. They were also a successful minority, self-styled modernizers who had carved out for themselves an outsized place in public life in the early postcolonial years. The Shiʻites too had enjoyed success as great landlords in the Punjab and as senior officers in the military. They were, moreover, a minority that did not hesitate to stand up for themselves, protesting when the state treated members as second-class citizens and proudly proclaiming their difference at Muharram festival processions. Ahmadis and Shiʻites may have been resented in certain quarters, but overall, they remained a significant and self-assured public presence in the postcolonial order. It was the Iranian revolution and General Zia's Islamization campaign of 1979 that turned this situation around. Once tolerated minorities were now stigmatized and targeted by blasphemy laws, comparative tolerance giving way to the politics of sectarianism. So, there it is again, the state—this time not colonial but postcolonial—converting difference into discrimination, if not outright persecution.

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 288-309
Author(s):  
Bernardo Brown

Abstract After the military defeat of the Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka, nationalist sectors backed by Sinhala Buddhist ideology turned to religious minorities in search of new enemies of the State. These have included Muslims and Evangelical Christians who are described as foreign intruders that contaminate the traditions of the nation. Catholics have been spared of accusations of proselytism and the introduction of foreign cultures partly due to the Church leadership’s explicit stance against Evangelical missionary activities and its support of Sinhala nationalist discourse. Catholic communities of Sri Lanka thus find themselves in an ambiguous position: incorporated into the national citizenry, yet a visible minority anxious not to become marginalized like other religious minorities.


2018 ◽  
pp. 164-194
Author(s):  
Muhammad Qasim Zaman

This chapter focuses on two Muslim minorities, the Ahmadis and the Shi`a, and some of the contestations around their position in the state. How these communities have fared in Pakistan is part of the story here, with the Ahmadis being declared a non-Muslim minority in 1974 and significant Shi`i-Sunni sectarian violence in the country since the 1980s. The principal concern of the chapter is, however, to explore the anxieties that the existence and activities of these minority communities have generated among the `ulama and the Islamists. In case of the Ahmadis, the anxieties in question have had to do not merely with the peculiarities of Ahmadi beliefs about the Prophet Muhammad, but with Islamic modernism itself. The anxieties generated by the Shi`a have a different locus, and also go beyond Sunni discomfort with particular Shi`i beliefs and practices. Much more than the Ahmadis, the Shi`a have raised difficult questions about what, if any, kind of Islamic law can be given public force in Pakistan, laying bare in the process nagging uncertainties about whether Pakistan can ever fully claim to be an Islamic state.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 157-165
Author(s):  
Mansoor Mohamed Fazil

Abstract This research focuses on the issue of state-minority contestations involving transforming and reconstituting each other in post-independent Sri Lanka. This study uses a qualitative research method that involves critical categories of analysis. Migdal’s theory of state-in-society was applied because it provides an effective conceptual framework to analyse and explain the data. The results indicate that the unitary state structure and discriminatory policies contributed to the formation of a minority militant social force (the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam – The LTTE) which fought with the state to form a separate state. The several factors that backed to the defeat of the LTTE in 2009 by the military of the state. This defeat has appreciably weakened the Tamil minority. This study also reveals that contestations between different social forces within society, within the state, and between the state and society in Sri Lanka still prevail, hampering the promulgation of inclusive policies. This study concludes that inclusive policies are imperative to end state minority contestations in Sri Lanka.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 2363-2380
Author(s):  
S.B. Zainullin ◽  
O.A. Zainullina

Subject. The military-industrial complex is one of the core industries in any economy. It ensures both the economic and global security of the State. However, the economic security of MIC enterprises strongly depends on the State and other stakeholders. Objectives. We examine key factors of corporate culture in terms of theoretical and practical aspects. The article identifies the best implementation of corporate culture that has a positive effect on the corporate security in the MIC of the USA, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Japan ans China. Methods. The study employs dialectical method of research, combines the historical and logic unity, structural analysis, traditional techniques of economic analysis and synthesis. Results. We performed the comparative analysis of corporate culture models and examined how they are used by the MIC corporations with respect to international distinctions. Conclusions and Relevance. The State is the main stakeholder of the MIC corporations, since it acts as the core customer represented by the military department. It regulates and controls operations. The State is often a major shareholder of such corporations. Employees are also important stakeholders. Hence, trying to satisfy stakeholders' needs by developing the corporate culture, corporations mitigate their key risks and enhance their corporate security.


Author(s):  
Е.Ю. Соколов ◽  
А.И. Адаев ◽  
А.А. Фомин ◽  
Л.Г. Магурдумова

In article the importance of use of psychotherapeutic actions of self-control by employees of a dangerous profession is stated during the work in emergency situations. The state of health of fighters who before the direction in business trip were trained previously in self-control methods at different stages of performance of a fighting task, with a condition of group of the military personnel who didn’t pass preliminary training in energy saving methods is compared.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 89-96
Author(s):  
Dilbar Karshieva ◽  

This article demonstrates the great attention and care paid by the state to the military and their families in our country.Social protection of families of military men consists in creating necessary conditions for family members to develop and demonstrate their abilities in socio-economic, cultural, medical and other spheres.


Author(s):  
Iakiv Serhiiovych Halaniuk

The article highlights the author’s approach to improving coopera- tion mechanisms of the State Border Service of Ukraine with public organiza- tions and population. There has been analyzed public control as a means their cooperation and priorities of improving the cooperation, particularly, forms and methods of organizing citizens’ feedback, introduction of the assessment pro- cedure of the efficiency of the SBSU and population and public organization. There have been stated conceptual pillars of the public control development in the SBSU, developed by the author, including public control forms and resource provision. There has been considered a mechanism algorithm of the public par- ticipation in the development of the border administration through submitting petitions or proposals concerning a legally enforceable enactment draft (or the legally enforceable enactment currently in force). There has been represented a mechanism model of discussing legally enforceable enactments and public peti- tions, developed by the author. It is noted that one of the mechanisms of interac- tion of the SBSU with the public is effective public control, which becomes an in- tegral part of ensuring national security and political stability. The conditions of permanence of Ukraine's threats in the border area, and in certain areas and their exacerbation, along with further reforms of the institutes of Ukrainian statehood, cause the problem of establishing and implementing public control in the border area as an important and urgent one.It is proved that public control is intended to determine the correctness of the military-force policy in the border area, the validity of the scale and optimality of the forms of activity of the border guards. In accordance with all this, in the subject area of public control should be: political decisions on issues of border security, including international agreements; the expediency and validity of government programs for the provision and reform of the border authorities of Ukraine, assess- ment of the effectiveness of these programs and the procedure for making changes to them.


Author(s):  
V. Nazarkin ◽  
O. Semenenko ◽  
A. Efimenko ◽  
V. Ivanov

The task of choosing the rational number of power structures is always one of the main priorities of any political leadership of the state. An insufficient number of armed forces is a threat to the national security of the state; an excess number creates pressures on the development of the country's national economy. Today, when the development programs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are being formed in the context of the practical application of their units and subunits to carry out combat missions, questions of choosing a priority approach to the formation (justification) of the rational size of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is an urgent issue. The article proposes a structure for conducting research on the development and implementation of the methodology of military-economic substantiation of the rational strength of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the system of defense planning of Ukraine in the formation of programs for their development for the medium and long term. The main objectives of this methodology are: scientific substantiation of the range of the necessary strength of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the period of the program of their development; the choice of the indicator of the rational size of the Armed Forces of Ukraine according to the years of the program from a certain range of its changes; military-economic substantiation of this number under the influence of various limiting factors. The development and implementation of such a methodology will increase the efficiency of the formation and implementation of development programs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as the efficiency of using public funds for the development of power structures.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-69
Author(s):  
Magdalena Ujma

Abstract An analysis of the relationship between Jan III Sobieski and the people he distinguished shows that there were many mutual benefits. Social promotion was more difficult if the candidate for the office did not come from a senatorial family34. It can be assumed that, especially in the case of Atanazy Walenty Miączyński, the economic activity in the Sobieski family was conducive to career development. However, the function of the plenipotentiary was not a necessary condition for this. Not all the people distinguished by Jan III Sobieski achieved the same. More important offices were entrusted primarily to Marek Matczyński. Stanisław Zygmunt Druszkiewicz’s career was definitely less brilliant. Druszkiewicz joined the group of senators thanks to Jan III, and Matczyński and Szczuka received ministerial offices only during the reign of Sobieski. Jan III certainly counted on the ability to manage a team of people acquired by his comrades-in-arms in the course of his military service. However, their other advantage was also important - good orientation in political matters and exerting an appropriate influence on the nobility. The economic basis of the magnate’s power is an issue that requires more extensive research. This issue was primarily of interest to historians dealing with latifundia in the 18th century. This was mainly due to the source material. Latifundial documentation was kept much more regularly in the 18th century than before and is well-organized. The economic activity of the magnate was related not only to the internal organization of landed estates. It cannot be separated from the military, because the goal of the magnate’s life was politics and, very often, also war. Despite its autonomy, the latifundium wasn’t isolated. Despite the existence of the decentralization process of the state, the magnate families remained in contact with the weakening center of the state and influenced changes in its social structure. The actual strength of the magnate family was determined not only by the area of land goods, but above all by their profitability, which depended on several factors: geographic location and natural conditions, the current situation on the economic market, and the management method adopted by the magnate. In the 17th century, crisis phenomena, visible in demography, agricultural and crafts production, money and trade, intensified. In these realities, attempts by Jan III Sobieski to reconstruct the lands destroyed by the war and to introduce military rigor in the management center did not bring the expected results. Sobieski, however, introduced “new people” to the group of senators, who implemented his policy at the sejmiks and the Parliament, participated in military expeditions and managed his property.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003776862110123
Author(s):  
Roger Finke ◽  
Dane R Mataic

Research on religious freedom has found a vast chasm between constitutional promises and state practices, with constitutional promises being a poor predictor of the state’s support of religious freedom. This research changes the focus from religious freedom to religious equality. We propose that constitutional promises of religious equality will be associated with less discrimination against minority religions and we explore the relationships governance and the promises of religious equality hold with religious discrimination. We find that promises of religious equality are associated with less discrimination. When exploring the interactions between promises of equality and our governance measures, we find constitutional promises of religious equality largely erase the differences in religious discrimination between countries with and without free elections and an independent judiciary. Yet, the reduced discrimination against minority religions does not suggest that the state removes restrictions on minority religions, only that they are equal with other religions.


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