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Page content: Autumn 2010 FORUM, the Dutch National Institute for Multicultural Affairs, organizes the project “Human beings as strangers”, on the occasion of the publication, 50 years ago, of Lolle Nauta’s dissertation De mens als vreemdeling (Human beings as strangers). The Lolle Nauta Forum 2010 already anticipates this theme. On Wednesday, 14 April 2010, journalist and publicist Ian Buruma and philosopher and professor of islamic studies Tariq Ramadan visited the Lolle Nauta Forum. They spoke on the theme: The Politics of Us and ThemNowadays we can no longer easily split up the world into I versus the Other, Us versus Them, the Familiar versus the Stranger - since in a globalized world we are all connected. That's why we speak about universal human rights. But globalisation goes together with differentiation and diversity, with the proliferation of specific (national, religious or ethnic) identities. How to reconcile both tendencies? How to deal with unity and diversity in this global context - especially in terms of politics and democracy? Video registration and article in Die Zeit (German newspaper)Video registration: Article Die Zeit [PDF] d.d. 22 april 2010
Politics as Religion - Ian BurumaThe Israeli philosopher Avishai Margalit draws a distinction between politics as religion and politics as economics. One deals in absolute truth, which can be sacred, but also secular (‘scientific socialism’, for example). Politics as economics is more like trade, calculations of costs and benefits, or compromise between different interests. Those who deal in absolute truths often consider politics as economics as ‘nihilistic’, or ‘relativistic’, and thus as corrupt. Compromise in politics as religion is difficult to achieve, because compromise would corrupt the purity of the faith. Dissidents in theocracies, including secular dictatorships based on absolute dogmas, are regarded either as idiots, or as people acting in bad faith. Either way, they must be crushed. Is there a way, nonetheless, for the politics as religion and politics as economics to find some common ground in a liberal democracy? Is compromise possible? This problem, ranging from the example of Dutch Calvinist politics to that of contemporary Islam, will be the core of Ian Buruma’s presentation.
Ian Buruma (The Hague, NL 1951) was educated in Holland and Japan, where he studied Chinese literature, and Japanese cinema. In 1970s Tokyo, he worked with Kara Juro's Jokyo Gekijo and Maro Akaji's butoh dancing company Dairakudakan, followed by a career in documentary filmmaking and photography. In the 1980s, he worked as a journalist, and spent much of his early writing career travelling and reporting from all over Asia. Buruma now writes about a broad range of political and cultural subjects for major publications, most frequently for The New York Review of Books , The New Yorker , The New York Times , Corriere della Sera, and NRC Handelsblad . He writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate. He was Cultural Editor of The Far Eastern Economic Review , Hong Kong (1983-86) and Foreign Editor of The Spectator , London (1990-91), and has been a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington D.C., St. Antony's College, Oxford, and the Remarque Institute, NYU. He has delivered lectures at various academic and cultural institutions world-wide, including Oxford, Princeton, and Harvard universities. He is currently Henry R. Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.
Who is the stranger? - Tariq RamadanWho are the strangers? Who are the members of the family? Who are the members of this ‘we’ we use while talking about ‘us’? The new Muslim presence in the West is questioning both the old definition of ‘our’ identity and our ‘sense of belonging’. Can we talk about our values, about our identities, our religion,or our culture? Globalisation is moving and removing the old points of reference; as we are not sure who ‘we’ are it becomes easier to define who ‘we’ are not. This negative definition of our identity is the open door to potential new conflict, rejection and racism. It is also a straight path to mutual victimisation – a dangerous avenue indeed. Is our neighbour a threat or a chance – could it be that our Muslim neighbour is from the family without ‘us’ knowing it? So who would be the stranger?
Tariq Ramadan (Geneva, CH 1962) holds MA in Philosophy and French literature (The Notion of Suffering in Nietzsche's Philosophy), and PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies (dissertation entitled Nietzsche as a Historian of Philosophy) from the University of Geneva. In Cairo, Egypt he received one-on-one intensive training in classic Islamic scholarship from Al-Azhar University scholars. He taught at the College de Saussure, a high school in Geneva, Switzerland, and held a lectureship in Religion and Philosophy at the University of Freiburg from 1996 to 2003. As from October 2005, he is professor in Contemporary Islamic Studies at St Antony's College at the University of Oxford on a Visiting Fellowship. Beginning September 2009, Ramadan was given a chair in Islamic Studies at Oxford University. He is also teaching at the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. At the same time, he is Senior Research Fellow at Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan). Professor Tariq Ramadan is currently President of the European think tank: European Muslim Network (EMN) in Brussels. Date and time, Location:Wednesday, 14 April 2010, 15.30 - 17.30 hrs, Academy Building, Broerstraat 5, Groningen Admission:€ 4 or € 2 (for students and members of Studium Generale) Reservations (as from Mo 29 March) and collecting your tickets:Studium Generale Groningen, Oude Boteringestraat 13, Groningen, (050) 363 5463, studium@rug.nl
Reserved tickets can be picked up on location until 3.15 p.m. From then on, non-collected tickets will be sold.
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