RALDIFS

Anyone’s “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” affirmed in article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) echoes article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). “[T]he freedom […] to manifest a religion or belief” is subordinated only to “restrictions that are ‘in accordance with law’ […] in a democratic society”, in connection with “public safety”, the “protection of health or morals” and the “protection of the reputation or the rights of others”. This margin for interpretation leaves space to variations in terms of rights and regulations regarding the expression of religion between the European States and the debates within each of them. Several factors help explain the growing vigor of the tensions linked with religion since the 1970s: the contestation over the universality of the rights and the presuppositions that found them; le growing complexity of the religious landscape with international migrations and the pursuit of a non linear movement of secularization; the tendency to reduce societal challenges to representations of identities according to the formula majority/minority; the search for political gain (in electoral terms) and financial gain superseding the application of principles. The challenge is important; it must be faced in its variety of dimensions and through an international perspective. Our project is built to fit the Horizon 2020 action plan. It aims at: 1/ constituting a pluridisciplinary database linking the data accumulated over the course of the last 25 years following the example of the e-corpus (www.e-corpus.org); 2/ developing specific tools for its usage according to the needs of EU citizens and their representatives. 3/ train specialists to societal issues. Our experience enables us to analyze discourses, postures, actors and organizations involved in the problematic concerning religions, religious phenomena non instituted as well as non-religion. Our expertise gives us the means to provides works that anchor the challenges in the long-term perspective and allows useful comparisons thanks to the mastery of the official languages of the EU plus Arabic, Turkish and Persian. Our consortium, given it geographical scope, guarantees that the local realities from Europe’s eastern, western, southern and northern societies will be taken into account. Male/female parity, as is our wish, expresses our attachment to the founding principle of equality, as with our refusal of taboo in our research. Societal and economical cost of the question of religion is almost only perceived through situations of crises and violence. The responses that are given, regarding security for instance, address the symptoms rather than the causes. Since the beginning of this decade, we have made the choice to get out of our research centers and university campuses to get involved and participate in activities of council, training, remunerated or not, that are no longer only conferences or academic publications. Our interlocutors are associations (social welfare, assistance to migrants, sports and leisure activities), school networks, public and private institutions (prisons, hospitals, nursing homes), the media, businesses, elected representatives, civil servants in charge of the cultural heritage. Up until now, our propositions and responses have been issued on a case-by-case basis and uncoordinated on the scale of each State and the EU. We will seize this opportunity to define a perennial partnership model with our respondents in our field of specialty as well as a viable economic model that will serve the general interest and the common good.