Pluralität im südostasiatischen Islam : extremo oriente lux?

Wenn es um den politisch relevanten Islam geht richtet sich das Forscherinteresse gewöhnlich auf den Kernraum der islamischen Welt: auf die historische ‚Wiege’ islamischer Kultur, auf die arabischen Gesellschaften, die Türkei und Iran. Die dort vorherrschende politische Kultur ist geprägt von Minderheitenkonflikten, religiösem Fundamentalismus und etatistischem Autoritarismus. Insofern ist kaum verwunderlich, dass die islamische Welt insgesamt als wenig vorbildlich im Hinblick auf die Bewältigung von politischer, kultureller und sozialer Pluralität gilt. Gleichwohl gingen gerade von dieser Kernregion in der Neuzeit stets religiöse und politische Reformbestrebungen aus. Letztere gerieten jedoch zugunsten prominenterer Phänomene wie des religiösen Fundamentalismus aus dem Blickfeld sowohl der öffentlichen als auch der wissenschaftlichen Aufmerksamkeit. Genausowenig Interesse zog das islamische Denken und Leben außerhalb des Kernraums, in der südostasiatischen Peripherie der islamischen Welt das Interesse auf sich. Zu Unrecht, denn es könnte sich bei näherer Betrachtung zeigen, dass dort politisches Denken und Handeln welches sich ebenfalls auf den Islam beruft, unter bestimmten Bedingungen die Herausforderungen moderner Pluralität besser bewältigt, als jenes in der arabisch-iranischtürkischen Kernregion. Deshalb exploriert die vorliegende Studie zunächst die charakteristische Problematik hinsichtlich der ordnungspolitischen Bewältigung gesellschaftlicher Pluralität in den muslimischen Gesellschaften Südostasiens. Es wird gefragt, inwiefern sich die islamischen Reformdiskurse in der sog. "Peripherie" des islamischen Orients also in den mehrheitlich muslimischen Staaten Südostasiens (Indonesien und Malaysia), in Beziehung setzen lassen mit jenen in der arabisch-iranisch-türkischen Welt. Erkenntnisleitende Hypothese ist die Vermutung, daß im Vergleich der thematischen Schwerpunktsetzungen der Diskurse in beiden Regionen der südostasiatische, insbesondere der indonesisch/javanische Zugang besser auf die Bewältigung moderner Pluralität vorbereitet, als diejenigen im Zentrum der islamischen Welt ("Modern" meint hier eine soziale und politische Pluralität, jene Pluralität, die sowohl die vorwiegend intrareligiöse Pluralität des arabisch-iranisch-türkischen Kernraumes transzendiert als auch die zumeist inter-konfessionelle der südostasiatischen Peripherie.) Warum? Im Unterschied zur Kernregion überwiegt in der Peripherie die interkonfessionell/ethnische Komponente in der Pluralitätsproblematik. Weil sich die realpolitische Ausgangslage unterscheidet, setzen auch die Reformdiskurse unterschiedliche thematische Schwerpunkte, obgleich beide semantisch auf dieselben juridico-theologischen Konzepte rekurrieren (z.B. šÙrÁ/Konsultation oder iÊtihÁd/freie Rechtsentwicklung). Inhaltlich werden sie mit je unterschiedlichen Bedeutungen gefüllt. Zentrale Erklärungsthese ist, daß aufgrund der unterschiedlichen historischen und zeitgeschichtlichen Ausgangslagen die in der Peripherie erarbeiteten Ansätze einen höheren Grad an Operationalität aufweisen als diejenigen im Kernraum. Diese Ausgangslagen bewirkten eine gründliche Inkulturation des Islam im konfessionell pluralen Umfeld. Sie erzwangen bereits in vormoderner Zeit eine konzeptuelle Reflexion des muslimischen Selbstverständnisses hinsichtlich der Tatsache, weltanschaulich nicht eindeutig dominierende Kultur einer Gesellschaft zu sein - ihr mithin auch keine strikt "islamische" politische Ordnung vorgeben zu können

The Clash Within Civilisations: Islam and the Accommodation of Plurality

The ‘Clash of Civilisations’ is not only imminent but it is already taking place. Contrary to general assumptions, however, for the most part the real clash is not taking place between distinct ‘civilisations’ or cultural entities ("Kulturkreise") but within each of them. Islam or rather, Muslim civilisation is one–arguably the most ‘prominent’–case in point for the struggle with plurality. "Plurality" first of all denotes the general condition of most contemporary societies in the world. As for the empirical part of the paper, the notion of plurality shall not imply a normative predisposition toward the praise of ”pluralism” as a value sui generis. "Plurality" will, however, acquire additional meaning in the theoretical second part of the paper. In the first part, "plurality" denotes the empirical observation of diverging opinions, values, beliefs and interests within contemporary groups, societies, and states. In contrast to traditional societies, conflict over these divergences surpasses the limits of even the most general frame of common reference–be it the religious community, the nation etc. The main question here is whether these divergences are being dealt with peacefully or not, by suppression or by accommodation, by indifference toward public virtues or by public negotiation of morality. The problem is lucidly exhibited by historian M. Talbi (Tunis): "Nous allons vers un pluralisme universel qu"il nous faut penser et que l"on doit apprendre à gérer." The main target is thus: "Tout homme doit accepter le pluralisme, c"est-à-dire la cohabitation pacifique avec autrui sur la base du droit à la différence." Today, the most important pluralist challenge is that of the nominally "secular" public order being questioned by both ever larger and ever more militant groups in Muslim society. This, of course, is only omprehensible against the background of a rather negative balance sheet of the secular project in Muslim societies. In this paper I will argue that the imposition of nationalist, socialist and (to a lesser extent and only recently) liberal secular political systems on Muslim societies has failed to create peaceful political cultures in general and in the long-run, i.e. since the abolition of the caliphate in 1924 up to today. This is mainly due to three inter-linked factors: The strong refutation by secular regimes of the most demands for public recognition of Muslim values or even basic religious ordinances as a public code of conduct in public space. Against the background of serious development-crises and its well known consequences (rural exodus, urbanisation, unemployment) gradually more and more segments of society became politicised. An anti-secular, though not in always militant counter-intelligentsia emerged. Arguably following Gramsci"s model of first attaining ideological superiority before entering in the political arena, this intelligentsia eventually also gained political influence. Islamist ideology attracted attention from those parts of society that so far either had been marginalised (Iran, Algeria, Indonesia). Alternatively, it attracted those, who had merely been instrumentalised against the threat from the political left (Egypt, Turkey) by secularist élites. In any case, this resulted in the establishment of an anti-(or, chronologically: post-) secularist counter public ("Gegenöffentlichkeit") or counter-culture. The very process of secularisation "from above" incited or at least enhanced the ideologisation of political conflict over the question of modernisation. Secularism"s potentially appeasing effect on ideological conflict was thus reversed into that of a catalyst for the eruption of antagonisms into open conflict. Only as the failure of implementing the secularist projects in Muslim societies became obvious and resulted in a material threat to the power of the ruling élites, the latter more or less openly bowed to anti-secularist movements–according to the respective power constellations to various degrees, and at different stages. The results were ambivalent: On the whole, by admitting religious parties to elections or by partially accepting sharÐÝah alongside secular law, the ideological spectrum within the respective society is represented more accurately in the "official" political process. For specific groups, however, this transformation has resulted in an adverse effect, like certain sharÐÝah-stipulations in family law have discriminatory effects on women or sharÐÝah-stipulations in penal law for criminal offenders (Îadd-penalties). The operation of half-heartedly bowing to anti-secularist demands defused political tension and relieved the pressure on ruling élites only for a short term. The (re-)introduction of Islamic law mostly having lacked adaptation to contemporary times, the backlash did not wait for long. As a result, de-secularising political systems end up with the very same problems of accommodating plurality as they did when they were more secular.Not even synthetic political systems have escaped the dilemma: neither traditionalist syntheses of secular and pre-secular constitutional orders (Morocco, Saudi-Arabia), nor modernist ones (Iran) have produced convincing models for a reconciliation of religious legitimacy of government on the one hand and political pluralism, on the other. This clearly establishes the need for innovation in the field of political and legal theory. Contemporary projects overcoming secularist ideology and the deadlocks of both Islamic orthodoxy and Muslim fundamentalism will be presented in the second part of the paper. At this stage, the notion of "plurality" acquires a fuller meaning, not merely denoting the subject–but in addition, the mode of theoretical deliberation within contemporary Muslim political discourse: It will become clear that there exists a variety of approaches that differ from each other in various dimensions. This plurality of political thought concerning contemporary problems of Muslim societies clearly surpasses the popular analytical dichotomisations of "secular" vs. "fundamentalist" and "authentic" vs. "imported". If any at all, alternative categories of conceptualisation will be applied here. The last part of the paper endeavours an evaluation of the said approaches with regard to their potential contribution in dealing with plurality of against the background of the empirical overlook

Cooperation with the Taliban? Promoting civil society engagement in Afghanistan (commentary)

In addition to addressing the extent and cause of the debacle in Afghanistan, the new German Government must urgently consider how to set a new course to prevent further destabilisation of the country

Restriction and modification in Bacillus subtilis: inducibility of a DNA methylating activity in nonmodifying cells

The nonrestricting/nonmodifying strain Bacillus subtilis 222 (r-m-) can be induced to synthesize a DNA-modifying activity upon treatment with either mitomycin C (MC) or UV light. This is shown by the following facts. (i) Infection of MC-pretreated 222 cells with unmodified SPP1 phage yields about 3% modified phage that are resistant to restriction in B. subtilis R (r+m+). The induced modifying activity causes the production of a small fraction of fully modified phage in a minority class of MC-treated host cells. (ii) The MC-pretreated host cells contain a DNA cytosine methylating activity: both bacterial and phage DNAs have elevated levels of 5-methylcytosine. (iii) The MC-induced methylation of SPP1 DNA takes place at the recognition nucleotide sequences of restriction endonuclease R from B. subtilis R. (iv) Crude extracts of MC-pretreated 222 cells have enhanced DNA methyltransferase activities, with a substrate specificity similar to that found in modification enzymes present in (constitutively) modifying strains

Photo-cathodes for the CERN CLIC Test Facility

Since 1993 the CLIC Test Facility (CTF) has used laser-illuminated Tellurium Alkali photo-cathodes as intense electron sources (up to 50 nC in 10 ps), for the Drive Beam of a two-beam accelerator. These cathodes have been produced and tested in our photo­emission laboratory and transported under vacuum to the CTF. They are placed in a 3 GHz RF gun with a 100 MV/m electric field. This RF gun produces a train of 48 pulses, each of 13.4 nC charge and 10 ps length. The CTF Probe Beam has used air­transportable cesium iodide + germanium photo­cathodes in another RF gun, which produces a single pulse of the same duration but with only 1 nC charge. The optical damage threshold in the laser is the main limitation of energy available on the photo­cathode. From an operational point of view, the photo­cathode lifetime is defined to be the time during which the cathode is able to produce the nominal charge with the nominal laser energy. After having recalled the main characteristics of the photo-cathodes tested, this note describes in more detail the performa nce obtained in operation. The possibility of photo-cathode production at the RF gun in a simplified evaporation chamber will also be discussed

Unobserved heterogeneity between individuals in Group-Focused Enmity

Group-focused enmity (GFE) and related research have mostly focused on variable-centred analyses such as structural equation modelling and factor analysis, implicitly assuming that the results apply uniformly to all participants in the sample. Person-centred research questions and analysis methods, which investigate unobserved heterogeneity in the sample, have been lacking in GFE research. Nonetheless, initial evidence exists from research on Islamophobia and GFE that various unobserved latent classes (i.e., subgroups) differing in their average prejudice can be identified within one dataset. In this manuscript, we applied factor mixture modelling to investigate unobserved heterogeneity using the data of the German GFE survey 2011. We found two latent classes of equivalent factor-analytical composition with consistently high versus low expressions of target-specific prejudice. No comparison of latent GFE means was possible. Membership in the high prejudice latent class was associated with higher age, right-wing political orientation, high right-wing authoritarianism and high social dominance orientation. Our findings demonstrate the importance of exploring unobserved heterogeneity in attitudes research and outline how person-centred research can complement variable-centred research in order to understand social-psychological phenomena