2013 COUNCIL OF EUROPE EXCHANGE
ON THE RELIGIOUS DIMENSION OF INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE 

“FREEDOM OF RELIGION IN TODAY’S WORLD: CHALLENGES AND GUARANTEES”

(Yerevan, 2-3 September 2013)

PANEL III,
Speech by Mr David POLLOCK, Resource Person,

European Humanist Federation and the British Humanist Association

I referred in my opening remarks to religious conflicts.  These are sometimes not simply religious but also political or ethnic - but the religious colouring often exacerbates the conflict.

What can be done to prevent such religious conflicts? 

We are in this session looking at just one important means: “youth education and awareness-raising on religion and beliefs, dialogue and co-operation among and with religious and non-religious representatives”.

I referred also to partial views of history.  At their worst, the history text books used on each side of a conflict give accounts so different that you would not recognise them as describing the same events. 

In Bosnia Herzegovina, where religion certainly played a part in the civil war, “the existence of three different, exclusive and often mutually-opposed versions of history poses a considerable threat to social cohesion and a shared sense of citizenship” – I quote from the website of the OSCE which has been working for a decade with local experts first to create guidelines and then to produce a “new and substantially improved generation of textbooks”. 

But even in “ordinary” circumstances we all tend to be brought up within our own traditions and so in ignorance of other beliefs and cultures. 

Not only that but we also absorb from our family culture a view of what a belief or religion is.  For example, Christians expect a hierarchical organisation not found in Islam; Protestants expect emphasis on individual conscience while Catholics and Muslims emphasise performance; some see religion as part of private life, others problematically as imbuing and informing every aspect of living. And some religious people see those without religion as lacking morality or at best living on a religious inheritance.

These disagreements and potential misunderstandings can lead to intolerance and the risk of hatred, which may produce results ranging from anonymous comments in internet chatrooms through to physical attacks and the desecration of holy places.

So education must aim at helping us understand that other people are different from us, and that it is legitimate that they should be different.  It is their human right. 

Young people must learn to see themselves as others see them – alien, with false beliefs and strange customs! And so education about human rights is therefore vital. 

Role-playing can be helpful: getting young people to adopt and “act” in the role of other people. I sometimes run a session in schools in which I get pupils to make decisions – in my case about how schools should deal with religion – in ignorance of the role or identity I will later assign them: “So, you want the local priest to give religious instruction – but now I reveal to you that you are in fact a devout Muslim parent: how do you feel about your decision now?” 

For now I want to raise some questions about roles and responsibilities when it comes to education regarding religion and belief – and of course I hope we all take for granted that the relevant subject covers not just religion but also non-religious beliefs. 

Plainly it is the role of both the family and the religious institutions - churches, mosques and so on – to educate young people in or into their religions or beliefs.  This is their right and their duty, and the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees the freedom to do so both of the institutions and of parents.  Such education or instruction cannot be other than committed to the truth of the religion concerned.

When we turn, however, to the public school system provided by the state, different considerations prevail.  It is not the duty of the state to push children into a particular religion or belief.  Indeed, the state has other duties including ensuring that people of different beliefs can live in harmony with each other - which means that it needs to widen the horizons of all pupils so that they know what other people believe and recognise their rights to have different beliefs from their own – and that there is no objective test of truth for any of us.  All our beliefs are unverifiable and largely irreconcilable with each other.

In fact, I want to suggest that it is the responsibility of the State not to use its schools to transmit belief – whether just one national religion or a range of religions or beliefs at the behest of parents.  Instead the state should provide contextual teaching about religions and beliefs without endorsing or aiming to transmit any of them. 

The case for teaching just one religion or belief is similar to the case for teaching just one version of history in Bosnia Herzegovina. 

This division of duties between the state and the public school system on the one hand and the family and religious organisations on the other is implicit in two important documents from European institutions.

(a) The first comes from the OSCE – it is the Toledo Guiding Principles on Teaching about Religions and Beliefs in Public Schools”, published in 2007.  

It was drawn up by an interdisciplinary and inclusive group of international human rights lawyers, academics and educators. It sets out the human rights arguments for teaching about religions and beliefs as against instruction in a single religion or belief:

•           freedom of religion or belief predicates plurality

•           plurality requires tolerance of difference

•           tolerance of difference requires understanding of the beliefs and values of others PLUS engagement with them.

It encourages inclusiveness - in curricula and materials and in the selection of teachers and of pupils in all publicly funded schools.

(b) A year later came the second document: the 2008 guidance from the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers on the Dimension of Religions and Non-religious Convictions in Intercultural Education. 

This says, in summary:

•           Religions and beliefs are part of human culture.

•           Intercultural education is closely related to education for democratic citizenship.

•           It should aim to develop tolerance and respect for the right to hold your own beliefs, and by this means to develop sensitivity to the diversity of religious and non-religious beliefs.

•           It should address sensitive and controversial issues, combat prejudice and stereotypes, and foster skills of critical evaluation and reflection and the ability to analyse and interpret impartially.

•           The essential preconditions for this sort of teaching include:

o         sensitivity to the equal dignity of every individual;

o         the capacity to put yourself in the place of others in order to establish mutual trust and understanding; and

o         co-operative learning in which members of all traditions participate.

If we take these recommendations seriously, it means that the state should take responsibility for delivering an objective, fair and balanced education about religions and non-religious beliefs –sympathetic but not committed – with the aim of helping children to learn objectively about the way religions and beliefs work in society, their history and how they relate to each other – and so to develop an understanding of beliefs and cultures other than their own and the tolerant attitudes that we need in our complex modern societies.

If we ask whether all the arrangements we now have in Europe meet these standards, I think the answer has to be no. 

In particular I suggest that questions have to be asked about publicly funded schools that are run by the churches or other religion or belief organisations, and about religious education in publicly funded schools that is given by such organisations.  Can they realistically be expected to deliver the inclusive, fair and balanced teaching that is required?  Would they want to?

Religion and belief organisations should - of course - be free to teach as they wish outside the publicly funded school system, albeit in some cases they need to have regard to the danger of entrenching prejudices and stirring up hostility or hatred rather than simply teaching their beliefs.  One of the better ways of avoiding this is plainly to cooperate with other religions and beliefs not just in interfaith dialogue but particularly in joint welfare and other projects - because it is much easier to get to know and understand people from different cultures if you are engaged in a shared project rather than simply dialoguing in a vacuum.

Quickly and finally, let me raise another question:  how can young people themselves exert pressure for better teaching of human rights and history in the area of religion and belief? 

It is undoubtedly very difficult for young people to do anything on these lines if they have been taught wrongly from the start. 

But pupils should have a say in the running of their schools.  This provides them with experience in taking responsibility and prepares them for citizenship.  It also provides the schools with invaluable feedback on how well they are doing.

It can be a channel for raising issues about the syllabus if it is unduly narrow or biassed. 

It is more likely, however, that criticism and pressure will come from young people who have just left school.  There are youth parliaments and youth wings of political parties, and all the great variety of student organisations - all of them providing outlets for young people’s voices.

And they can use Article 14 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says

“States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”

- which brings us back to the question about how a state can abide by that Article and still impose confessional religious instruction on school pupils regardless of their own beliefs.

But some of you may have different opinions!

This would mean that education paid for by public funds should not be delivered by the church or other religious organisations, and certainly that the state should not pay religious organisations to run schools that are committed to just one belief.

It should not be a function of the state to teach as true any one belief - especially where (as in my country) religious schools are often attended by children from homes with a variety of beliefs - for all our beliefs are unverifiable and irreconcilable with each other. 

Opponents of this view often quote Article 2 of the first Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights.  In fact it is irrelevant.  What it says is that the state should not interfere with the right of parents to educate their children “in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions”.  This emphatically does not mean state must provide confessional religious education at parents’ behest.