Fighting extremism: Muslim societies urged to promote pluralistic values

Liberal democracy is way forward for Muslim nations to be built on egalitarian democratic principles, says journalist.

An academics and a journalist have underscored the need for establishing a democratic egalitarian society based on pluralistic values through civil discourse.

They were giving lectures separately at Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU) and National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) on Thursday, organised by the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) in collaboration with Heinrich Böll Stiftung (HBS), a German foundation.

Dr Shabana Mir, an assistant professor at Millikin University, Illinois, USA, said that the religion could have a multiple roles in politics while sharing the Americas perspective of dealing with the multicultural diverse society.

“Religion should be separated from state affairs. State has nothing to do with the religion in the US as a measure of accommodating the American diversity”, she added.

She said there was a dire need for the development of civil discourse embedded into the universally-acknowledged democratic values ensuring no voice remains unheard.

“A pluralistic discourse is a must to achieve a democratic society”, she stressed.

She clarified that Americans did not believe in religion and that’s why they separated religion from politics.

“Secularism is more consistent with Islamic history than modern Islamic state movements because Islamic history was not fundamentally different from Western societies regarding the relationship between religion and the state”, she added.

Endy Bayuni, a journalist from Jakarta Post, termed liberal democracy as the way forward for Muslim majority nations to be built on egalitarian democratic principles.

He said that Indonesia had risen to the top emerging economies of the world that was not possible without the inclusive approach towards its ethnically diverse society.

He said that the democratic values were taking roots in various Muslim countries, however, the challenges to become modern secular states still needed to be dealt with shared experiences and understanding about the modern democracy based on the notion of equal citizenry.

He said various groups in Indonesia had been attempting to manipulate the constitution and to impose their version of religious dictates in the country.

However, he said, people in general were aware of the consequences of such efforts and raising their voices for the strengthening of democracy in the country

He also highlighted co-habitation and state level acceptance of Indonesian diversity which was a pre-dominantly Muslim majority country through various examples of minorities working on key government positions.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2014.