Discrimination in The Name of Secularism Assignment Sample

News Articles Portfolio

News 1

Quebec has become the first province in North America to ban religious symbols and wearing of those symbols. The article was titled as this Canadian provinve has complicated relationship with the migrant communities The state has banned muslim scarves on head and other such religious symbols like Kippahs of the jews, turbans of Sikhs, Christian crosses among others.

Critical reflection

Well I see these banning of these religious symbols as inspired by the fact that such symbols are used to create havoc and bigotry by some anti-social elements to feed their vested interests which are against the society. One or two religious groups are more prone to such bigotry and to ban all of these is a commendable step by the state to maintain equality of religion (Turgeon et al 2019). The bill known as the bill 21 named Quebec ban on religious symbols was officially stated as an act respecting the laicity (lay state) of the state which means equality of all the citizens regarding freedom of conscience and religion (Turgeon et al, 2019). It has been alleged that the state has taken populist decision of banning Islamic religious symbols in the veil of secularism as 54% of Canadians views Islam as unfavorable (Mirzazadeh 2005) The question that religious freedom be respected when a state have to save itself from religious riots and rivalry, the state taking the decision to ban all the religions on that aspect is a positive step by the state doing unitary treatment to every religion instead of allowing or banning one or two. I have concluded one more aspect that if such factors of religions be banned which are more prone to incite negative religious sentiments and allowing those which are separate from and do not interfere with the fundamental rights of subjects be selected and banned.

News 2.

 News article in India today stating All India Muslim Personal Law Board has filed application opposing the PIL seeking ban on polygamy, nikah halala (Mathur 2020). It stated that the A public interest litigation, a judicial tool in the interest f public good has been filed in the supreme court of India which seek ban on polygamy and nikah halala has been countered by AIMPLB.

Critical reflection

Supreme court of india in its earlier judgments has ordered for religious practices to be continued in the Muslim law as sharia, nikah halala, polygamy etc. It comes under the fundamental rights of Indian constitution under article 25 which says that all the persons are entitled equally to practice, propagate and profess religious freedom subject to reasonable restrictions. The AIMPLB is a muslim group body which is a self proclaimed Muslim religious law board and claims to protect the sharia law and muslim personal laws. I think that Supreme Court in its earlier judgments has allowed these practices and Indian constitution also gives people their right to practice religious practices comes to the conclusion that Indian law makers believe in positive treatment to religious groups rather than banning all of them like what was done in Quebec, Canada. On the other hand, muslims women in india are against these laws and support other groups for being a pressure group on Muslim boards against these laws as these laws hamper the fundamental rights guaranteed to the Indian citizens under articles 12 to 35, and that these religious laws do not allow muslim women to live their life with fullest potential which is also recommended by UN human rights declaration in 1948.

News 3

A news titled The woman who escaped a polygamous cult – and has converted its HQ into a refuge for such people, about Breill Decker being the 65^th wife of An FLDS cult leader Warren Jeffs and she wants to get rid her town of this cult which was allegedly ruined by this cult for generations. She escaped this system and turned its HQ into a refuge center.

Critical reflection

The cities of Hildale, Utah and Colorado have been the home to the FLDS fundamentalist groups for 3 generations., the group known as Short Creek is a religious group that had been separated Mormon church in 1930 and its members continued to practice polygamy. The woman in the news Briell Decker was married to the cult leader when she was 18 and the 65^Th wife of the leader (Hannaford 2018). In my view such level of polygamy is totally not acceptable even after cries of religious freedom and practicing personal law as this is a sheer abuse of the fundamental rights and natural justice of the women. This cult bans socialization and contact of women with the outside world. While polygamy is banned in all the states of USA. Several raids and legal actions have been taken against the cult which are the raid in the short creek which was the meeting point of the members, april 2008 raid, in which it was found that government officials were also involved with the cult (Paul 2008). In my view, strict action has to be taken by the government to altogether prohibit the activities of the cult and that these practices and groups should be banned from calling cults. Media has been unsuccessful in separating the FLDS from LDS church where several times the word Mormon used by media is confusing for public LDS members were experiencing raids from the police in the confusion of being members of the FLDS (Creigen and Neilsen 2009) .

News 4.

A post in the Washington institute titled “Religion and the Israel-Palestinian Conflict: Cause, Consequence, and Cure”, explains that the Israel Palestinian conflict is a rivalry from many perspectives being it religious, ethnical, historical, national, and the article is limited in explaining religious dimensions of the rivalry and the conflict, with historical events lying on the core and that religion plays the most important role in the actors of this conflict.

Critical reflection

There are several factors which are appropriate to Islam and Judaism which call for main role of religion in this conflict, including the sanctity of the disputed holy sites and the catastrophic tale of both the religions. I have seen that the role of religion in politics has been since centuries, especially after 1990 and certain incidents like 9/11 (Mitchell 2017), it has raised significant questions as to religion is a supporter of peace or conflict. The conflict was started by the jewish immigration and sect conflict in Palestine between Jews and Arabs becoming world’s most intractable conflict while Israel occupying the Gaza strip and west bank. The Muslims are averse to the separation of jews from islam and also flourishing which was evident by making of the state of Israel. I have noted that the United Nations has not been able to reach at a satisfactory solution for both the sects and nations (pij.org 2015).

 In my view Religion based rumors that are propagated by some extremists elements in media to inflame the public and the government has exacerbated these events and an effective solution through negotiations has not been reached till now. Second opinion that I have made is that certain governments are also benefitting from this conflict which needs to be addressed by the United Nations, before rising tensions as were in 2010 between these two nations.

News 5.

An article in the newyork times on 3^rd of july titled black lives matter may be the biggest movement in the history of USA, in which the recent black lives matter campaign has been detailed about which was started when in custody a black person named and around 5 lakh people have came up in nearly 550 places in the united states.

Critical reflection

Black Lives Matter is a movement which advocates for non-violent and civil disobedience in protests against incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against Black people. As it is a decentralized social movement, an organization with the same name exists and is defined as a network of all these decentralized movements in US and Canada (Collins and Mac 2015).

As I read it, the movement was not an immediate response towards the custodial death of a black person named George Floyd, but it was a movement which was into the minds of people for long, death of Mr. Floyd being only the immediate cause, as we know any incident has two causes, immediate and long cause. As I have noticed that black lives matter movement began in 2013 and protests against incidents were going long before it (Collins and Mac 2015).

I think Martin Luther King J. had fought for the black lives whole his life and that the American constitution recognized black lives equal due to his efforts. Still the society needs to be educated as these incidents can only take place when public has an inclination, that is why it is never considered good for a government to recognize a religion as that will automatically give power to the people of that particular religion.

References for Discrimination in The Name of Secularism

Collins, B and Mac, T, 2015 Who really runs blacklivesmatter? Available at https://www.thedailybeast.com/who-really-runs-blacklivesmatter

Creigen, R and Neilsen, M. 2009 Fighting Over mormon: media coverage of the flds and lds. p.5 Available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259850376_Fighting_Over_Mormon_Media_Coverage_of_the_FLDS_and_LDS

Hannaford, A. 2018. The woman who escaped a polygamous cult – and turned its hq into a refuge. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/13/woman-escaped-cult-hq-flds-refuge

Mirzazadeh, T. 2005. Discrimination in the name of secularism: a ban on religious symbols in québec. Global Business and Development Law Journal 28 (2).

Mitchell, S. 2017. The function of religion in the israeli-palestinian conflict. Portland state University p.11-14. Available at https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4948&context=open_access_etds

Paul, A. (2008). Nine more indictments issued against flds members. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20120304185718/http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/nov/12/eight-more-indictments-issued-against-sect/

Pij.org (2015) Religion and the conflict. 20 (4). P. 2-3 Available at https://pij.org/journal/85

Turgeon, L., Bilodeau, A., White, S. and Henderson, A. 2019. A tale of two liberalisms? Attitudes toward Minority Religious Symbols in Quebec and Canada. Available at Mathur, A (2020). Muslim personal law board moves sc against pil seeking ban on polygamy, nikah halala. Available at https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/muslim-personal-law-board-supreme-court-pil-ban-polygamy-nikah-halala-1640481-2020-01-27

Remember, at the center of any academic work, lies clarity and evidence. Should you need further assistance, do look up to our Arts Assignment Help