has bred extremism, but i think that the moderation we're seeing is a result of a political opening. not of political repression. >> i think one of the things that's emerged from the conversation is that it's not just the capacity, let's say, of the groups themselves. right? so, okay, the government's illegitimate. it's also the capacity, then, or them vis-a-vis the state. >> sure. >> so johanna already raised the issue about the degree the government can physically repress. they're doing it in rights term, constitutionally, legally, but the question is whether they're going to actually physically then repress as interesting is, johanna, much of your work is looking at the ground up. how are these groups responding to the institutional discrimination they may or may some are privileged. brine, looking top down. a social aspect to it. i'd like to talk to you more about, you have a top-down

story. if there's a policy in place, people are more apt to use that to legitimate the discriminatory action against religious minorities, what about from the ground up? a population saying, no, this is our interpretation of whatever faith it is, how you're supposed to behave in public and then the government has to come in and sort of validate that or say, no, we're going to change the policy that sort of thing. seems to me i actually would, my sense is, probably goes both way, but i'd be curious about the data on that. but so it's sort of the strategic interaction ever the capacity of the groups, the parties, religious actors, and the willingness of them facing these states, and whether the states themselves are actually repressing institutionally or legally or whether they can do it physically. egypt, of course, in february of last year, what were we waiting for? waiting to see is the military coming to mubarak's aid. when the military said, no,

we're not going to do that. they tried. brought in the men on camels that one day and it failed stupendously, but i think that's a very critical variable as to the degree to which the government is willing and capability to repress. so -- i guess we should -- brian did you want to make -- i soshtd of raised 9 issue of the social versus the political? >> i think some of the information on egypt is interesting in that there was a, the mubarak regime repressed certain islamic groups like the brotherhood for a long period of time, and other groups that were deemed either dangerous to the state or heretical in some way. the government was actively repressing selective groups, but at the same time, favoring a certain brachnd of islam within the country, so it was trying to straddle the two worlds being

secularist but also building around itself islamic justifications. so there were also a number of other things that the government would do. it would stand by as a trust is would happen to some of the religious minority, the coptic christians in particular, and if something would happen, the government would be slow to act or to address those grievances. so we saw bans on certain religious group, not on others. favoritism of one, not of others. so it was a very complex situation. sort of -- and in getting to your question about the bottom up versus top down, so i think the government was also trying to win that bottom up support, realizing that many people are, you know -- have an interest in the country reflecting islamic values and so it would accommodate that to an extent. so that interplayed between what the society wants and what the government then enforces, i

think, can go both ways and egypt's an example where it went back and forth between the two. >> okay. thanks. you guy, any last comments before we open it up? >> just in my book i also added the temporal dimension. does repression come early? you know, as groups are forming. versus does it come later when groups have formed these networks, they're well organized. as happened in algeria. election after es lection with millions of people going out there. when the government dime repress that movement, it was quite late from its perspective and in so doing, it actually, despite being a very strong straight, algeria, no one can argue algeria was a weak state. it was a very strong state. it encountered a rather severe insurgency with over 150,000 people killed mostly by the government. but nonetheless. so there's a temple ral dimension to repression as well. >> let's open it up to the audience. i think there's mikes going around. so we'll start here in the front, and if you could introduce yourself.

>> good morning. i'm richard hyde. i'm wondering if you could, professor hafez, could you tell us more about -- sunni and shia modernizers or updaters, or however you wish to characterize them? do they get along well with each other? if so, how? how do they differ from one another and so on? >> what i would say is that i have not looks at the shia counterparts, if you will. but i think this is an area where there are limits on the modernizization or the moderation, i should say, ever the tendency. the [ speaking in foreign language ] tendency, even -- recently goes and says what's happening. bahrain is more sectarian not a

genuine democratic revolution which is very dispinting to me, but that just shows you these are politicians and they have to abide by, you know, their networks of support and now sources of support and so on. but the fundamental divide between sunni and shia i think create as problem in terms of a general unity based on an islamist identity. where you can have a general unity as in this notion that, d i haven't really seen that in the wass tia tendency, but they also avoided it and not necessarily brought it to the forefront arguing that this is a key driver of conflict in the middle east. in much the same way that say wahabist or jihadi selabist would do so. perhaps they don't bring it up, is moderation, maybe. that may not be convincing. >> the gentleman with the

glasses. >> good morning. it's very interesting, what you have said, mr. mohammed, because i really don't like -- if you forget me, forgive me if i disagree with you. i really don't like when we both, islamists, we give excuses for some radical speeches as it's reactions. we have seen this from the selabist and muslim brotherhoods, and i don't know, like, from where this idea came that the muslim brotherhood are not now deal wig the topics. we have watched like the formal [ speaking in foreign language ] saying that i will accept president from tunisia biz muslim and not accepting a coptic president, and also we have seen after a massacre, 20

coptic killed and how we give, like muslim brotherhood giving excuses for attacking the army first which never happened. and, also, i don't understand, also, if -- what this --s it me we, yeah, they are -- like, they are modern even though they are anti-semitic. modern even though they don't accept the religiousri to become, like, equal of the majority? also, i would like to know what's the modern perspective on the religious freedoms. since -- i mean i would love to see the reaction of the muslim brotherhood if a muslim in egypt now decided to convert to christianity. it would be very interesting to see it. as well for the selafist.

so that's my question. >> very good. >> these are all excellent questions and i commend you for asking. what i would say is, i do not lump the selafist with the wasafia tendency and said explicitly in my talk, the wasatia presents itself as a critique. essentially wants to revert back to the rightly guided and the [ speaking in foreign language ] the pious founding fathers of the religion, which would mean you would adopt tradition institutions of [ speaking in foreign language ], the subject people and so on. but the muslim brotherhood here, there is debates within the organization, and this is not a unitary organization. there are many within the muslim brotherhood that have abandoned the traditional views that will, you know, found whether the islamic tradition or in the islamist movement and then there are those that hold on to them. look, let me get to your point. are these guys completely

liberal, moderate in the way that we would like to think of them here in the west? of course not. but why judge them by that lens? look it's a the united states. in the -- in 1919, the u.s. was considered a democracy, yet only was it in that year that women actually had universally the right to vote. and, you know, it took another few decades for actually african-americans to have their rights in the united states. so i would say, i would cut egypt some slack with regards to its transition and its moderation, at least in the islamist movement. you have to agree to a, b, c, d and e before i consider you a moderate or at least more moderate than the alternative is an unfair burden to impose on those parties and organizations. but, you know, i also said that they do express anti-semitism which actually is expressed by secular parties, nagsist part t nationalistic parties and that's a result of tension with the

arab israeli conflict. historically condition not one rooted in the islamist movements more generally, i would argue. >> i guess for the panel, the treatment of the cops in egypt, for example, it doesn't bode well for how democracy is proceeding. the cops are -- the oldest population living in egypt precede muslims. so the panel, concerned about the degree to which cops themselves may become extremist. unlikely given that they're a minority and a state apparatus is still in place, but the degree to which religious freedoms are protected, and there's sort of like a canary in the line, if they're rights are abdicated it doesn't bode well how they're seen in the country. >> what rights are being aggregated. churches were bomb under mubarak. this is not something that is relatively new after the transition, and it's not

something that's led by the muslim brotherhood. the selafist yes? the muslim brotherhood saying kill coptic, no, i'm nomt saying that. give me the statements where they say that. okay. >> but the degree to which they're protected as citizens of that state, are they receiving the same -- >> the majority of muslims are oppressed. it's still a military regime. before we judge them on the canary in the mine, look at the general context. >> not judging them. looking at the empirical record and the degree to which how is the government responding to this and then, of course, how is society responding to this, and the degree to which religious freedoms are either being protected or not protected, discriminated against, and what ma means in terms of levels of, you know, concerned about. >> not to belabor the point and i sound a bit defensive. really i think we're holding countries that are quite different from our and level of development, whether it's economic developments,

civilization development, to standards by which we ourselves today in the united states we deny gay rights. we deny rights to women having contraception and certain parties today and individuals that are running for office that would do restrictions on religious freedoms and other freedoms of individuals in this state. so even our society has those problems. now, can we say we're undemocratic or generally not a moderate society? i think we need to be less ethnocentric, i guess. >> i completely agree, mohammed. i would say, it's a matter of degree. it's the relative situation, and i think everywhere it could be better, perhaps. how's that autonomy pup like that? >> absolutely. >> this gentleman back over here on the right. >> mitchell twiner, international religious liberties soeshs office. a question that goes to credibility transparency, reliability. the moderate groups that you referenced, the question is -- to what degree does their

position at opting the variety reflect a true change of heart and mind? do they accept some degree of toleration and diversity and all of those things as the ultimate good or is this simply a tactical grudgingly accepted position that acknowledgement of current reality? >> okay. >> so that, you know, it's a good question. it's frankly an old question. one that has been answered many times before. well -- time will tell, of course. we don't know if these groups are exactly, completely changed their hearts and their minds in that regard, but one thing that we know imperrickly from the historical record is that radical groups can moderate. we have communist groups in europe. many have made historical compromises to be able to fit within the political systems they're in. we've had green parties that started out quite radical and today they're rather, you know -- a stable part of the

governments in europe. we have had, you know, the democratic party here in the united states a party of slavery and jim crowism and i think today we have an african-american president. so i think historically we have evidence that groups can change. and i think that's the case with regards to the wasatia tendency. >> can i expand generally and ask brian. your more recent data shows perhaps you're seeing more repression. right? more restrictions and in particular in the arab world? correct? the data from -- most recent data, 2008, 2009. why do you think that is? we are talking about it understanding that religious freedom needs to be protected and that is one of the most basic freedoms. why are we seeing that, you know, generally speaking, globally speaking? >> well, you're right. reducing -- we do see a decrease in restrictions in the middle east and africa both from the government and social hostilities as well.

some of the factors are very complex. in what's going on. but maybe to simplify a few, many of the governments in the region were suppressing -- political groups, religious groups like the brotherhood, and that was part of the rising restrictions. so it wasn't -- it wasn't a situation where they were trying to close mosques or close churches as much as it was a situation where certain groups were targeted and the restrictions were tightening in those -- in those fields. at the same time, like i mentioned about egypt, that if something happened against religious minorities, the government wasn't as quick to act to protect them. so it was -- this was the context of the restrictions in the region. now, whether that will change is, you know, time will tell.

whether or not the governments will be more responsive to protecting religious minorities, whether they'll be more inclusive in allowing different muslim groups themselves to have a voice in society. these are the types of things we're monitoring and at least the data before arab spring events happened, we saw the tightening. still, it's impossible to know what direction it's going now, but from some countries we're seeing some -- some added restrictions, like i mentioned on the enforcement of the blasphemy law in tunisia, which was a new development. even though the blasphemy law was on the books, it's now more actively enforced, arousing greater social support for that blasphemy law. so these are active issues that -- that still have to play out. >> johanna, you actually look at democracies and many are quite established democracies. what's the lesson learned there? i think one is that you allow

political party formation along sectarian lines. is that not a, an implication of your study? >> well, that's -- that's a bit more complex also, because that touches up on the institutional literature, which is currently going through a bit of a revision, and so that would have been the conventional answer, sort of to push for this and representation and that type of thing, but the literature is a bit divided on that at the moment, and i think that -- that to answer that question we have to think about what the religious cleavages are, ethnic cleavages in society. we have to think about whether there's great polarization or great fragmentation and the institutional recommendations that i think we can make need to take into -- into consideration context, and we immediate to make recommendations, institutional recommendations on a case-by-case basis.

i really don't think that the literature at this time or my research supports any sort of a blanket statement about the most appropriate type of institution to ensure representation that -- that doesn't lead to violence. >> okay. this gentleman over here? >> my name is simon. i'm from the netherlands and i'm a fellow at the berkley center. thank you very much for presenting your research, and i have a particular question for professor birnir about, if i understand your institution correctly, that religious content didn't influence conflict, per se? i was a little surprised by it, by that idea, because there's much research about how religion and even several eliminations influence a democracy.

for example, seems to be more supportive of democracy and even -- they more than islam. and there are also books by kindle who says when does religion become evil? and he describes five elements in religion that can make it more evil in certain cases. so i'm curious what's your conclusion on that point and how the other panelists think about it. >> well, our conclusion is that any religion can be used for violence. and we don't find systemic evidence when we look at countries across time and space that will is -- that one religion is predominantly used for violence. we don't say that -- and that's why we say the content of the religious philosophy is not a

root cause. it's not evident to us that the content of any particular religion is necessarily linked to violence or necessarily going to be used to motivate violence. that doesn't mean that religion isn't used to cause violence on many occasions. and we do say that if conditions are such that it's plausible to frame a conflict in religious terms, then extremists within a group will often use that tool. but they won't just use it within islam. they woept jun't just use it wi christianity. extremists across religions given the proper incentives may use religion as a tool to motivate for violence. >> we have this gentleman in the center.

>> i just want to make a comment, you know, about two things. the first, mohammed, the first time he start his journey, he sent his family to another country. he said go to the king p he's a nice man. he's a christian. he's fair, nice man. and also prophet mohammed met with a jewish guy. we would not have problem with jewish or christian. we're open. we're muslim. even the koran, you can choose what you want. we need to speak loudly about the dictator who is more than 50 years. you know how we use religion. gadhafi said al qaeda. mubarak said al qaeda.

we have to speak loudly about those leaders with which we're receiving here with a red carpet. we give him the tools, money and it keeps coming. this is the truth. -- >> a question for the panel? >> my question, why do we have to protect about this one? why all the information? we talk about this one before enterprising, thank you. >> thank you. any of the panelists want to take that up? >> i can't answer your question. but i can at least say that gathering information and analyzing information from a quantitative point of view which is what i do and it takes a long time to make measures, to analyze them and understand what's going on. so sort of looking back we can see that there was some

indicators that something was going to happen. but we can only see that now that we look back and say look what was happening. predicting the future is very difficult thing to do. but at least at the pugh research center we're developing a growing body of annual measures that we monitor and as we look at those trends over time, perhaps it may be possible to see trends that are warning signs for other areas of danger. so as of us would be hard pressed to predict where the next big problems coming, maybe someone would want to say. but i think that's very, very difficult to do. but with better social science, we may be able to have better indicators. and i think as tom farr began the session saying, religious freedom and restrictions on religion has not been a topic

that is well studied in the academy or in policy deals. so i think that part of what we're doing here is initiating that discussion, having that ten years ago or even a few years ago. thank you for your question and we do hope we can answer it better in the future. >> and if i can just add a little bit to that. because we do develop those types of indicators at the center for international development and conflict management at the university of maryland. but even with -- and we use two developer indicators sort of warning indicators. we use data going back decades and across national sample. but even with those indicators, they're probablistic. when predicting, you always have to take into account the context of the particular case.

the best we can do is provide a prediction about something that might happen in the future. that we can do. there are certain structures or certain types of behavior that make an outcome more or less likely. >> we have time for one for question. this woman here. >> hi, i'm an attorney. i think it's a very provocative thesis that you raise there is the content of the religion does not necessarily inspire the conflict. i think that is legitimate grounds for confusion. there is a general understanding that there is a theological underpinning of jihadism and that when there are schools that are sponsored by governments and that when schools are, you know,

the general public educational system is converted into a more religiously based madrasas that the underpinning of jihad is more strengthened. to the extent that there is repression of these educational reforms that would allow religious based jihadists type schools to flourish, there is perhaps a correlation. i wonder if other people on the panel agree with your thesi a c thesis. >> do you want to take the comment? >> islam and these types of schools can be used as a tools for violence. but that is true for every other religion i looked at in my analysis.

so it's just as likely that you get conflict associates with a division between protestants and catholics and those conflicts often tend to be framed in religious terms as well. that's why we mean religious doctrine may be used as a tool for violence. but we see no difference. that's not unique to islam. that's not unique to cyst antti. across time and space, every religion has had a group that used the content of that religion as a motivator for violence. today the most violent extreme jihadists are out there, often kill themselves while they're killing civilians and they're killing fellow muslims.

jihadists, mostly kill muslims and they kill infidels as it were. in order to get to that, to justify that in islamic terms, they have to engage in a lot of framing and ideological manipulation. to say that islam taken on its, you know, take the text of this islam and you get from that suicide bombings against civilians against fellow muslims, can you not do that. there is nowhere in islam does it say to do that. so i completely disagree with what you're saying and agree with joe anna on that point. you know, most radical islamists don't come out of madrasas, they come out of manufacturing industries. those are the ones we should be after.