The weekly report on US and International policy
by Edwina RogersÔÇï

 

Islam and the Spread of Individual Freedoms: The Case of MoroccoMorocco
Despite MoroccoÔÇÖs strong Islamic history and heritage, the battle for individual freedoms in the country has been making great (if quiet) strides in the past decade. In a┬ánew paper, Moroccan journalist and human rights activist Ahmed Benchemsi examines the roots of the Moroccan movement for individual freedoms, and addresses continuing challenges to its development and advancement. ÔÇ£To score more successesÔÇöincluding changes at the legal and constitutional levels,ÔÇØ says Benchemsi, ÔÇ£the movement needs to unify, engage in marketing and communication efforts, and most importantly adopt a unified agenda and strategy.ÔÇØ

The Moroccan population is mainly made up of Arabs, a mixture of Arab-Berber and Sunni Muslims of Berber descent. There is also a group of people referred to as the Gnaoua and Haratin, which are a highly mixed or black race of people. There is a Jewish minority group in Morocco and a number of foreign residents of Spanish and French origin. The Berbers, indigenous people of North Africa, have made Morocco home for the last five thousand years. The Arab population found in Morocco today originated from the Arab people who conquered this territory in the 7th and 11th century. There are an estimated 34,343,219 people living in Morocco.

 Moroccan Religious Stats 2014

Christian > Mormon > Congregations 2 2014 130th out of 175
Christian > Mormon > Members 100 2014 154th out of 195
Muslim > Islamist organizations Justice and Development Party 2014
Muslim > Muslim percentage of total population 99.9% 2014 1st out of 184
Muslim > Muslim population 32.38 million 2014 10th out of 177
Secularism and atheism > Population considering religion important 98.5% 2014 6th out of 143
Secularism and atheism > Population considering religion unimportant 1% 2014 140th out of 143

 

Religion’s Impact on Homonegativity

Buddhism is the least homonegative religion, according to a new study in the Journal of Homosexuality. The Buddhist site Lions’s Roar reported on the study and pointed out that PRRI’s┬áAmerican Values Atlas┬áfound that┬á84 percent┬áof Buddhists support same-sex marriage, a rate higher than any other religious tradition.

 Homonegativity Relationship

  • As we want to create only a rough assessment of the religions with respect to their homonegativity, the three aspects are weighted equally for aggregation. This gives a ranking of religions, where Islam is the most homonegative religion, whereas Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism are the least homonegative religions. However, assuming that all religions tend to promote homonegativity,8 atheism constitutes the end of the scale:9
    Islam10
    Catholicism/Protestant Free Churches/Orthodox Christianity11
    Traditional (European) Protestantism
    Hinduism
    Buddhism/Taoism/Confucianism
    Atheism

 

Building on this operationalization of a religionÔÇÖs position toward homosexuality, the influence of an individualÔÇÖs religious affiliation on its Religious Homonegativityhomonegativity can be investigated empirically. A positive association would mean that the positioning of a religion (in its writings, through its leadership, as well as its degree of fundamentalism) is reflected in the attitudes of the individual believer.
The religiosity of followers of those religions that project a negative picture of homosexual people should impinge more strongly on homonegativity than the religiosity of the followers of religions that adhere to a more positive view of homosexuals. A second interaction effect should also occur in relation to religious motivation: the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation may condition the association between religiosity and homonegativity.

To view the full study click here.

 

 

 Secular Impact in India

Non religious people in India amount to only 0.24% of the population.Therefore what influence can such a small minority have?

India’s Census (2001-2011) reveals that 2.87 million are non religious

India Hindu population drops below 80 percent as Muslim ratio rises

Reuters 26/08/2015

India defines itself as a secular socialist republic, a democratic society where no minorities should feel marginalised. But how far does this accord with the reality? Indeed what do Indians even mean when they employ the term ÔÇÿsecularÔÇÖ? Western democracies learn about this secularism from IndiaÔÇÖs small coterie of an English speaking elite. India has an epidemic of groups which I will call English writer forums. Every so often a new species of this bland faceless organism appear among the new wave of aspirant intellectuals. They have several things in common.

 

Secularism means the exclusion of religion, which in India is from public life. The trauma of partition led the countryÔÇÖs leaders to emphasise the common citizenship of its people rather than the religious differences which had to led to the creation of Pakistan. India was therefore to be the diametric opposite of Pakistan. In a diverse country such as this it was not initially without its merits. After all Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia, realised that his diverse island nations with a plethora of languages, beliefs and ways of life could only be held together by a common value system he called Panchasila. The man who deposed him, Suharto, though ruling with an iron fist kept to these principles which some would deem secular because they used loyalty to the nation to override narrow religious tribalism. So India under Nehru was by no means unique in using the model of secularism for nation building. So now in India, almost every party claims it is secular, even the religious ones.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -┬áIndia‘s Hindus have dropped below 80 percent of the population for the first time since independence and media had speculated the previous government deliberately delayed the release of the data because it showed a rise in the Muslim population.

  • Members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party, which swept to power last year, have expressed growing concern about the rising numbers of Muslims.The census data shows that Hindus declined to 79.8 percent of the country’s 1.2 billion people in 2011, from 80.5 percent a decade earlier.The share of Muslims rose to 14.2 percent from 13.4 percent in 2001 – the only major religious group to record a rise. Christians stayed at 2.3 percent and Sikhs fell to 1.7 percent from 1.9 percent. Sakshi Maharaj, a Hindu priest-turned-politician, caused an uproar earlier this year when he said Hindu women should give birth to four children to ensure that their religion survives.In the first census, conducted after Britain carved India and Pakistan out of colonial India in 1947, Hindus accounted for 84.1 percent of the Indian population.
  • The number of Saudi women that have registered to vote in December’s municipal elections, the first time women will be allowed vote in Saudi Arabia’s history.

  • According to local media, women will be able to vote and run in elections held in December of this year, marking a step forward for proponents of women’s rights in a country that has received heavy criticism for its treatment of women.

    “This is something new to women,” an unidentified woman told al Ekhbariya, Saudi state television. “I am pretty sure women will have different opinions and thoughts. I am very happy.”

    Official voter registration begins August 22, and candidate registration begins on August 30, according to a Saudi government website. Both days will mark firsts for women in Saudi Arabia gearing up to participate in elections in December. Women will only participate in elections at the municipal level.

Could the next step be driver’s licenses for Saudi women? Saudi Women Driving Rights