>> on the day americans pause to honor the memory of martin luther king, the world is boiling over with religious oppression and strife. the world hot spots, and that's the "inside story." >> hello, i'm ray suarez. if you would like to spend a few depressing moments on this king

birthday holiday pull out a map of the world and run your eyes over all the places where people are oppressed or killed becaus e they profess one faith or another, people rivetted over resources and poverty, power, and things people can exclude, fight and kill over. demonstrators in cairo's t an ahrir's square shouted that they were all egyptian. a wild later mobs were killing coptic believers and burning churches. the conflict had far more to do with identity than what the religions teach. when receiving his nobel peace price, he said:

>> 50 years after dr. king spoke those years, religious-related attacks took place in one in every five countries in 2012, hostilities increased in every major region of the world except the americas. the survey found threw quarters of the world's population now lives where overall levels of religious restrictions hostil hostilities were high or very high. the survey pointed to one example, march 2012 rabbi and three jewish school children were killed by islamist extremists. the third of the 200 countries surveyed saw a rise in social

hostility and pressure to conform against those of minority faiths. that was especially found in the middle east and north africa. take a look at the news whether you're a coptic christian in egypt, buddhist ther-- >> i would like to introduce our guests. brian grimm, if you look at the recent history of the world, we lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. hundreds of millions more get to

vote for the governments that run their countries, and yet we see this rise in religious violence. what's going on? >> well, the study has been documenting two types of restrictions of religion around the world looking at government restrictions and social hostil hostilities involving religion. the old paradigm for looking at restrictions and religion freedom were those coming from governments, communist era governments. but with the fall of communities and changes in the world what we've been documents is a rise in social hostilities involving religion. some of the government restrictions let up, then different forces came into play. we're seeing a world that is much more defined by attitudes and actions of people than mega government philosophies that are trying to dictate how the world should be. >> are we talking about hatreds that may have been held down,

suppressed during the time of a authoritarian. >> now, that is the case but as communism lifted it's tight grip on many places then people had to define who they were, and religiousitis were onreligious e of the things that people began to gravitate towards. and then different groups debate what does it mean to be christian, muslim, view or hindu. then you see rai radicalization where some take the agenda to the streets and say this is what it should be. some of those messages are very peaceful. but some can be more extreme. >> he is religious as it was just called an identity marker, it's been that way for a long time, but we see a blossoming, a

resurgence of inter communal violence at a time when it would seem to matter less in a lot of places what actual practices you do, what ac actual believes. >> i think you have to look under the surface. religion is often time masks of other scruggs, regional scruggs, scruggs over resources. sometimes what we call a religious conflict or sectarian conflict is a power conflict playing out in the country. religion because of its power, it's evocative power becomes a way not just the way pool

identify themselves, it's the quickest response, the most evocative response to conflict. where you have these conflicts you look to economic deprivation and war and occupation as root causes that manifest themselves but not at their base theological conflict at all. you're right where you have more democracy you have initial outpouring of prior grievances coming out to manifest themselves and these various countries come forward to mask that we've been oppressed or not had an opportunity to participate. is it a passing phenomena, and we can get back to a different kind of stability to the degree which governments crackdown and only intensify the dislocation,

intensify the oppression and it causes more man fesstation of it to intensify. >> in places where these restrictions have increase china and india are in the mix. when you're adding them to any equation you have half the world. but there is a rush of new hope, new aspiration and new wealth for a lot of people. why shouldn't this erase some of the differences between people rather than heighten? >> that's a great question. in fact, what we're seeing even as societies are modernizing and becoming more educated and obtain more wealth they hold that intensity more.

we found in india they have created new organizations to bring their faith into politics. this is what i would add to what is already been said about why this is happening now. why are we seeing more hostil hostilities and persecution around religion. one reason is that religion is a more important force in public life around the world. in many countries throughout much of the 20th century the dominant were secular. many try to follow their politics along secular lines. but as those faded, people are wealthier but many think of india as a hindu country and

they want that hindu country to be a great country. so you see a melding of their aspiration. right now we may see in india perhaps extreme hindu politician become their prime minister in the elections in may. >> it's interesting that you bring that up because if you think back to the 1950s and those very famous photos taken at their initial meetings, you mentioned naru and sacarno and tito from yugoslavia, all those countries descended in religious chaos, is that in part because those promises failed? if sucarno had delivered and made indonesia a middle class country maybe you wouldn't have

boiling conflict there. if naru had succeeded maybe that hindu show in this matter that you mentioned. >> a lot of data shows that the hindu national movement has a disproportionate of its support among educated middle class indians. the people who are enjoying the fruits of prosperity that naru promised ironically don't support the naruvian agenda. many countries you see people who again are melding a kind of enjoyment of urban life, prosperity and fierce religious identity and political ideology

associated. the muslim brotherhood is another example. many of their supporters are well educated, many of them have scientific backgrounds. they're not the disenfranchised or the wretched of the earth. they're aspiring for a greater life, they're educated and doing well. >> i want to talk more about the muslim brotherhood. we're going to take a short break and we'll look particularly to the middle east and north africa where this bursts forth. this is inside story. were the n

community.

the regime that supports and makes possible a more secular country, and the majority sunni population that comes mostly from rural areas, has flocked into the cities, ranting against the evil ways of the urban community, and has found a message that resonates with masses, and again christians have paid the price. they're viewed as the supporters of the regime, they pay the price there. in egypt you had a secular regime, but you also had a regime that was viewed as having betrayed egyptian honor. i was asked by a reporter during the demonstrations at tahrir square about u.s. unfavorable ratings. the reporter said if we dumped mubarak, i said you got it backwards.

it's not because we supported mubarak. it's because he supported us. in many ways he alienated the people. and the muslim brotherhood were prosperous. they were prosperous but blocked. blocked by cronyism and nepotism and corruption. when they finally got the reins of power they went to excess and overreached and created it. again the christians prayed th e price having supported the takeover on july 3rd. no sooner did the general take over but there was rampage against christian churches, businesses and the christian community in general. there are many reasons why they're in this position in the three countries, but they have paid a bitter price. >> the arab community in the united states is

disproportionately christian, so there is a lot of interest towards the fate of the christians in this part of the world, less is the case of the sunni-shia conflict, it's less understood, but we're not even close to the end of that. >> that's right. here you're seeing a further example of what we were discussing earlier, namely the new empowerment of religious groups that had been suppressed. the shia in iraq had been brutally suppressed by saddam hussein, and under the baathist ideology that leaned towards the islamic towards the end of his regime, but shiites bore the brunt. but this became an opportunity

for shiites to be empowered and have their country back. they're the demographic majority there. and the distrust between these communities is extremely high. some groups benefited from saddam's regime, and others did not. there was natural great attention. you're seeing that all over the middle east in syria as well. this is a sectarian conflict in part because the assad family, who are of the aloeuite sect, which is a very small islamic islamic{^l" ^}sect, and you see pitting of religious groups against each other. they favored other religious groups like the christians, so in the context of that regime breaking down again you're seeing terrible violence and

distrust. this goes back to what you were suggesting earlier, ray, that when you have sort of neat authoritarian governments that control everything you may not see a lot of religious conflict. but underneath those regimes are playing groups off of each other. when those regimes fall you see the intense hostilities that have been found in the pew report. >> to some degree of the arab world it goes back to colonia colonialism. and it put minority groups in charge in order to provide an entree for their christians in lebanon, the aloian in syria, the sunni in iraq, etc. arab nationalism developed as a response in the main as a way of creating an identity that would

transcend religion. the degree to which it worked it brought people together. as it brock down, it broke down precisely because the countries couldn't deliver. as it broke down these other tendencies from below rose to the surface to create some of the difficulties that we see now. >> when we come back from this break we want to talk about whether this is a force that needs to burn itself out in the world or is there a hope to bring those numbers down. this is inside story.

farewell.

>> welcome back to "inside story." i'm ray suarez. we're talking about religious violence and intolerance in the world. a new survey shows three-quarters of the world's population now live in countries where religious restrictions are high, violence or the threat of violence to compel people to

adhere to religious norms is increasing. if you look at the world, central african republic descending into chaos. northern my gee i can't increasingly violent and deadly, problems emerging in kenya, is there any reason to hope we're going to bend the curve down that some of these developments have a better ending? >> i can give a data point and an example. so in our study we also look at the flip side of the coin, the initiatives to try to lower religious restrictions and hostilities, and over the last two years of the study we found that 83% of countries had such initiatives, and the largest share of these initiatives happened in the middle east in north africa. that points to the fact that people understand that this is an issue that needs to be dealt with. an example we've been

documenting the types of initiatives that have been in play. one very interesting one is on the side of businesses. a group of businessmen going into tibet, a region that has had many problems, helping depettetibetans grow their tourt industry, it's empowering strategy rather than a name and shame strategy. very new and innovative things on the horizon. >> timothy shaw, we have to get it right, the world has to get it right in china because so many people in the world are chinese. whether you're talking about muslims in western china. the suppression, the heavy instructions on the catholic church in china, china has a lot to answer for in this regard. >> yes, it does, and the numbers suggest that what china has tried is not working. if the government clamps down hard enough they can lower their

religious tensions but the religious tensions have grown dramatically. we believe the key to religious security and harmony is equali equality. where religious communities are treated unequally before the law there is going to be great insecurity, and brian suggested that in his comments. >> take us out, do you take hope from the findings? >> i take hope. this is dr. king's day. we have a precedent, barak hussein obama, after was elected, 24 states were trying to it pass anti-sharia laws. are we worse off? i don't think so. we're more conscious, more aware and making changes. that is true in the arab world. the fact that we know these numbers. the fact that we know there is a problem and groups are coming together to address the problem

gives me hope that the future is better than the past. we're going through a rocky exposurperiod of exposure and consciousness. >> if we know we're wrong--that is key. people now know there is a problem and they're moving in a different direction. that's the important thing. >> thank you all, that brings us to the end of this edition of inside story. thanks for being with us. the program may be over but the conversation continues. we want to hear what you think about the issues on this or any day's show. you can log on to our facebook page or send us your thoughts briefly on twitter. our handle is a.j. inside story am or reach me directly at ray suarez news. we'll see you for the next inside story in washington. i'm ray suarez.

>> for more than a decade, the world has witnessed seemingly endless violence in afghanistan. many tell me the daily reports of the attacks, and the daily killings have ceased to hold much meaning. but for those living in this land, torn apart by war, there's no more important of a time than now. after years of trying to drive back the taliban, most of the to