National discourse of the country colored with religious tenets divides the society and religion based discourse can marginalize the believers of other religions living in the diverse society. The option of free exercise of religion and religious freedoms should be offered to all the citizens by the state, indiscriminately, as a measure of ensuring caring, inclusive and harmonized society as well as equal citizenry. Liberal democracy is the way forward to build the nation on the egalitarian democracy. These were the notions expressed by the speakers from diverse backgrounds including from US and Indonesia during the lectures at University of Peshawar on June 4, 2014 as part of a dialogue series “Governance, Community and Religion (GOCORE)” with Pakistani universities students, intelligentsia, academia and civil society jointly organized by Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) in collaboration with Heinrich Bӧll Stiftung (HBS).

Dr. Shabana Mir, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of Global Studies at Millikin University, USA argued that the States’ attitude to religion must be based on community. She said that the US founding fathers firmly believed that the intertwinement of religion and politics and state religion could be very harmful for the society lived by the multiple ethnic groups while adding that state had nothing to do with the religion in the United States of America as a measure of accommodating the American diversity. “The public schools at the US cannot propagate neither impose upon the students the religious views”, she said while sharing the American experience of dealing with the multi-cultural diverse societies. Dr. Shabana underscored the need for all government actions to be based on the public good, as determined by democratic means. “A pluralistic marketplace of religious law should exist in a separate legal realm parallel to that of government law”, she said while adding that the State attitude to religion must be based on the diversity and communities living in the society. She said that as per the reckoning of some of the American experts, there was a dire need for the separation between religion and politics keeping that the ecclesiasticism could corrupt the state and the state could possibly pollute the church. “The overt pre-dominant purpose of the law should not be religious but it should be rather the public interest”, she said while clarifying that Americans did not believe in religion was more of a myth as there were a variety of perspectives with regard to religion and they did want to marginalize any specific group. Dr. Shabana Mir further added that State was reasonably tolerant and accommodating towards the American diversity while quoting an example of Presidents’ Happy Holidays Wish instead of Merry Christmas. Dr. Shabana also referred to various clauses prohibiting the govt. in setting any religion as official while terming the US State-Religion relation as a ‘shifting porous wall of separation’.

Mr. Endy Bayuni, a prominent journalist from Jakarta Post who writes about the evolving political cultures, Islam, democracy, foreign affairs, economic development, and the changing media landscape termed Liberal democracy as the way forward for Muslim majority nations to be built on egalitarian democratic principles, including guarantees of freedom and basic rights. He said that in the ongoing process of democratization in the country, Indonesia was confronting with many of challenges that were quite familiar in the political arena of Pakistan. He said that the democracy and 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. Further added that the despite many efforts by hardliners to change the discourse of Indonesian state, the people had shown a remarkable commitment with diversity and modern democratic values. He said that Indonesian people had made it clear time and again that they were deeming democracy as the only way forward to keep the integrity of one nation state.

Mr. Endy said various groups in Indonesia had been attempting vigorously 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 hence raising their voice for the strengthening of democracy in the country. “The existence of all religions is constitutionally guaranteed, and so is the right to practice and the right to build houses of worship”, he said while adding that Indonesian founding fathers recognized that the diversity of the nation may be divisive elements in building the nation, but it might also be the one that would help unite and strengthen the nation. Mr. Endy in this presentations 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 govt. positions.

Mr. Imtiaz Gul, Executive Director CRSS said that the National discourse of the country colored with religious tenets divided the society and religion based discourse could marginalize the believers of other religions living in the diverse society. So the discourse on the basis of religion in the society lived by not only the Muslim community but other ethnic groups too, can be extremely harmful for the unity in diversity. He further underpinned the need for equal citizenry and egalitarian democracy while quoting the examples from the constitution of Pakistan in which the fundamental human rights are intrinsically built into. He further argued that the national discourse of the country should be embedded into the universally acknowledged democratic values, secular ideals of democracy of governance and fundamental rights instead of religious tenets. “Our constitution guarantees fundamental rights, social cohesion and equal citizenry”, Gul said.

Prof. Rasul Jan, VC University of Peshawar seconded the speakers on the need for all the citizens to have equal rights and liberty to exercise their religions while appreciating CRSS’s endeavor for social peace and harmony.