Freedom of Belief as a Human Right Speech delivered
by Prof. Dr. Erwin Scheuch during the "Lasting Love Conference"
August 31st to September 4th at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Berlin Prof. Dr. Erwin
Scheuch is the former President of the German Sociological Association;
former President of the Association of Sociological Research Institutes;
former President of the International Institute of Sociology; former
Executive of the International Sociological Association; Founder of
"Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaften" (Federation for Freedom
of the Sciences); board member of the Social Affairs Unit (England);
former Director of the Central Archive for Empirical Social Research
in Cologne (Germany); President of the Cologne Association for Social
Research; President of the German Association for Communications Research. My trade is sociology and so it should be of no surprise that I am bringing
you bad tidings, which is what sociologists usually do. My topic is
the fight for freedom of religion. I would like to begin by first looking
at the legal statutes. If we look at international accords there should be no problem in this
area. Already in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states
in Article 18 that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion. This right includes freedom to change one's religious
belief and to pursue one's religious teaching in daily worship and observance,
be it alone or in community with others, either in public or private.
The European Convention on Human Rights, the German Constitution in
Article 4, and the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-operation
in Europe) all confirm these lofty principles. What, then, is the problem?
These lofty principles, when brought down to earth, are often modified,
not always with the outright intention of violating them, but in part
also because of varying interpretations according to the conditions.
To a small extent, this variance is also due to conflicts between written
laws and common laws and customs. I shall begin with the last mentioned
reason, because it is unavoidable that certain conflicts will arise
from differences between the two. I thought we can do something about
this, as customary laws are often in clear contradiction to declared
principles. Let us cite the example of multiple marriage. Of course, in Germany this
is not permitted according to law. However, as you know, it is a custom
and even law in other countries, such as in some Muslim states. Here
there is no compromise in sight. It is simply not allowed in Germany.
But what about a Muslim immigrant with four wives, claiming welfare
support for children from his multiple wives? In this case he will be
asked to name one wife and her children. The others are irrelevant by
law. Let us move on to an example where it is more difficult to draw a clear
border line. I refer to the slaughtering according to Jewish or Muslim
religious rules versus animal protection. Animal protection groups tend
to be the most violent advocates of special interests to be found on
our continent. According to religious rules, animals should be slaughtered
by draining the blood from the living animal. This violates animal protection
laws, and German authorities demand that the animal at least be numbed.
In practice not all subgroups comply with this compromise. The conflict
refers to only a relatively small number of people, but is conducted
with a great degree of passion. The majority of Germans deal with the
conflict by simply looking the other way. That is, things occur which
shouldn't occur, but if nobody blows the whistle there is a way of living
with it. Thirdly, there is the call of the muezzin and the ringing of church bells
in the morning despite the notable increase in sensitivity toward noise
in western Europe. What used to be most annoying in earlier times is
dirt and waste, but somehow we greatly reduced this. So now the topic
is noise. Two rights are in conflict over a normal call to worship:
the right to a quiet Sunday and the need of churches to tell the believers
that the service is about to begin. Conscription is a further issue, especially in France. It is not easy to
successfully claim one's conscientious objections there, but for Jehovah’s
Witnesses, conscription is unacceptable. What about the crucifix at
secular schools and the obligation to attend classes? This is not only
an issue in the United States but on the European continent as well.
In Bavaria, which is very Catholic, conflicting views arise among parents.
Some parents removed the crucifix and others hung it up again. I am
not aware of the current state of hanging it up or putting it down.
But the issue is of a highly symbolic meaning in parts of Germany. Oath-taking in Germany has been debated. The socialists of course do not
refer to God in their oaths, while others do so explicitly. Today, both
forms have the same legal status. Muslim girls wearing scarves is another issue. It has a highly symbolic
meaning in France and, by the way, in Turkey, too. In Germany it may
become a source of conflict on a local level. In some communities it
is an issue, in others not. However, girls taking swimming lessons as
part of school instruction is definitely an issue for Muslim communities.
Because we have mixed classes the Moslem community objects to boys and
girls mixing freely in swimming. Some school boards make this part of
school instruction elective, because it does not really touch the main
objective of school education. The way one can handle these cases has to be decided on a case by case
basis, depending on what the issue is about. Some are negotiable, some
are not. Many can be handled on a community level. Fortunately, so far
it has been possible to contain the volume of conflicts originating
from these clashes. It becomes more difficult when the government itself becomes involved in
the issue. Here in Germany, France, Belgium and Austria, which are the
four countries which I have analysed, we find all kinds of problems.
They were voiced on June 14th of this year in the US Congressional Hearing
on European Intolerance. A meeting took place in Washington, and in
the end a resolution was sent to the European countries after it received
more than 160 affirmative votes from American congressmen. America takes
an increasing interest in the way Europe is dealing with religious freedom.
First of all, there are various levels of discrimination against those
religious groupings which are not recognized as a church by the state.
The Americans are puzzled by this, because, if the separation of church
and state were complete, like it is the case in the USA, the issue would
not even arise. The degree of separation is different from country to
country. In the case of Germany and Austria, the separation between
church and state is least developed. Here we have a number of officially
recognized government supported religions, namely Roman Catholicism,
the Lutheran Church, some protestant churches and, to a lesser degree,
the Jews and the Moslems - and that is all. All other religious groups
are not considered churches. That leads to the denial of privileges
which official churches receive - such as tax exemptions, income from
dues collected by the state from all registered church members, and
the qualifications for public contracts. Second, persecution against so called sects and psycho-groups can be observed,
originating from committees that receive state support. The core of
the problem lies in the incomplete separation between religion and state.
These Committees claim they fight against "dangerous sects",
and the claim is translated into a persecution of religious groups and
individuals. In order to illustrate the aforementioned point, I read from the hearing
that I just referred to, beginning with the testimony of Phillip Brumley
of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. France is listing the Jehovah’s Witnesses
as a dangerous sect, because first, it denies blood transfusion. By
the way, if you take this as a definition of a dangerous sect you would
have to outlaw Christian Science, too. But for some reason, France focuses
only on Jehovah’s Witnesses. Jehovah’s Witnesses also annoy the French
feeling of duty towards the state by voicing conscientious objection
against military service. Here is the concrete result of social denial
of a privileged status: If you want to have child custody in France,
it is denied you, if the government can prove you are a Jehovah’s Witness.
In Sweden, the non recognition of churches other than the Lutherans
resulted until recently in the voluntary work of the Jehovah’s Witnesses
being taxed ten times the compensation paid to the volunteer. This is
a sort of near death penalty to this organisation, as this group requires
voluntary work as part of religious commitment. Anthony Corea, representing Scientology, reports on his discrimination
as a musician. He is a jazz musician and his concerts are called off
because they are subsidized with tax money. Most "serious"
concerts in Germany receive some tax money but Anthony Corea was first
considered a scientologist and only second a musician. Craig Jenson,
another Scientologist, founded and leads a company for executive software
that is located in California. Its products are included in Windows
2000. In Germany there is now an executive order to boycott any company
that uses software in which a Scientologist had a hand in manufacturing;
this executive order is enforced in Bavaria and Hamburg. In order to
enforce this boycott, government computers are fed lists of companies
that allegedly employ scientologists. Such companies receive an "S"
as a designation. Whenever in bids in response to tenders the computer
shows an "S" company applying, a contract is rejected or later
annulled. Also, in Germany the state secret service is ordered to keep
scientologists under observation as a subversive organization. There
are in addition attempts to outlaw the entire organization. I might add that there are sorts of fashions in persecuting religious minorities.
The fashion in the early 70ies was "smash the Moonies!"
the Unification Church. That has subsided as the Unification Church
was badly weakened by this persecution. And now, for one reason or another,
two other groups are being persecuted, namely the VPM (a few words about
this later) and the Scientologists. The situation in France is even less acceptable, according to the testimony
of Dr. Jeremy Gunn before the US "House International Relations
Committee" on June 14, 2000. A former foreign minister, Alain Vivien,
was instrumental in a government commission called "Mission-Interministerielle
de Lutte contre les Sectes" (MILS). This demonstrates how close
the political connections are to the very top of the socialist party.
MILS was instrumental in calling the French minister of justice to issue
a circular to all public prosecutors in France encouraging them to press
charges against scientology. Laws are pending which aim at outlawing
"sects". 1993 marks the beginning of the campaign. There was
a raid on the "Children of God" by 200 heavily armed police.
The group was charged with child abuse. Subsequent litigation took time,
as it usually does, and in February this year, finally after seven years,
the "Children of God" were cleared of all charges of child
abuse. But for seven years they had to live with this accusation and
under the constant observation of criminal investigators. In 1996 a report in the name of the Assemblée Nationale by Jacques Guyard
"Les sectes en France" identified 172 groups in need of state
observation. One year later in Belgium, the Enquète Parlamentaire of
the Belgian parliament identified 189 groups as sects. Included in this
Belgian definition of dangerous sects are Southern Baptists, of course
Jehovah’s Witnesses, and interestingly enough, Opus Dei, which enjoys
the open support of the Catholic Church. Another group listed as a dangerous
sect are the Anthroposophists. Just for the record a person of the stature
of Theodor Adorno was an Anthroposophist and thus a member of a "dangerous
sect". Even the current German Minister of the Interior is an anthroposophist.
Consequently, of course, in Germany Anthroposophy is not on the list
of "dangerous sects". Another definition of what is a dangerous cult lists that some members
practice illegal financial transactions, mind control, brainwashing
and display criminal behaviour. Now it so happened that in France Jacques
Guyard himself just received a one year sentence for influence peddling
(trafic d'influence) plus a fine of 100.000 FF. By using the definition
of "dangerous sect" just cited you could put the entire MILS
itself on the list of dangerous sects. The sources of accusations such as the ones mentioned are mostly defectors
of religious groups. Usually there is no attempt to collect counterevidence.
These accusations are accepted literally without any critical analysis. One report summarizes the situation in France as follows: In France the
state shares a common interest with the anti cult movement. The French
parliament recently amended French law to give anti sect groups legal
status for undertaking the prosecution or legal action against so called
sects, thereby providing common ground for private anti sect groups
and official government policy. Before becoming the president of MILS,
Mr. Vivien was the president of one of the two prominent anti sect
groups. This is the difference between Germany and France, as I will
elaborate later. In Germany, too, politicians are part of anti sect
groups. But they are third-rate politicians, while in France they are
top-ranking politicians. In Austria one can observe the same sorts of problems as in Germany. Jehovah’s
Witnesses are denied religious status and one of the highest-ranking
politicians, Dr. Högel, calls them a dangerous sect. In 1979, a definition
was formulated on who can claim to be a church. These are the criteria:
long existence, a large number of adherents, a positive relationship
with the state, and a proper handling of finances. If you put all these
criteria together it translates into the following conclusion: only
the Catholic Church qualifies to be called a church. Subsequent to my presentation, my colleague here will tell you a somewhat
mind baffling case, namely that of Reverend Moon. In 1995 he was not
only denied entry into Germany but his name was put on the "Schengen
list" and now nearly all countries of Western Europe are closed
to him. The ban was issued by the Federal Minister of Interior Manfred
Kanther at the request of the Federal Ministry for Family, Senior Citizens,
Women and Youth. The latter Ministry claimed that the entry of Reverend
Moon would endanger public security and order. From a sociological point
it is highly interesting to note that it was apparently only a single
person who caused this request for an entry ban. Once such a ban is
issued, the authorities try to defend this action even to the point
of purposely protracting the legal processes. For over five years the
case has been pending in various courts of law. Finally, in France, the so called Picard Law (taking its name from the
young French parliamentarian Catherine Picard) is before the Assemblée
National. The objections against this text can be summarized as follows:
There is first of all no attempt to define what is a sect. This, by the
way, is true for the respective commission in Germany as well. This
provides room for arbitrary decisions. Article 1 of the Picard Law provides for the dissolution of a congregation,
if it (1) has "the goal or effect to create or exploit the state of mental
or physical dependency of people who are participating in its activities"
(which really needs more elaboration). (2) the congregation is to be dissolved if it infringes on "human
rights and fundamental liberties" (something to which we can all
agree). (3) the dissolution can be brought about "when this association or
its managers, or de facto managers have been convicted on more than
one occasion for offences such as fraud, illegal practice of medicine
and several other criminal offences". According to the Picard Law, if a court finds two of the three criteria
applicable, the association can be outlawed. As a matter of fact, based on these premises, you could outlaw the Catholic
Church. In every organization there is always someone who goes astray
some time. This is simply the way human organizations work. And what
about exorcism as a technique still practiced in the Catholic church,
that creates a state of mental dependency? Article 8 forbids the establishment of any offices, seat, church, advertisement
or advertising activity by "sects" within a perimeter of 100
metres from a hospital, a home for the elderly, a public or private
institution of prevention, curing or caring, or any school for students
eighteen years or younger. France seems to be the land of bureaucratic
detail, where bureaucrats even measure the distance to other establishments,
to be observed by religious groups in their activities. Articles 10 and 11 create the new crime of "mental manipulation".
The "new religious groups" are presumably dangerous because
they practice brainwashing. I don't know of any academic association
that ever defined what brainwashing is, but I do know what the American
Sociological Association and the Psychological Association said: “We
do not know what it is”. The notion of brainwashing first arose during
the Korean War, where it was used by journalists to explain why some
American soldiers identified with their captors. But since that time
there is the belief that people can be turned around miraculously by
using secret techniques, which nobody has been able to identify. Of
course, there are many people who would like to practice brainwashing:
If you could do it, you would be in business. It is probably the same story with ‘subliminal perception’. Subliminal
perception was claimed in the late 60’s to be a technique for turning
people into objects with no will of their own. Cinema films or television
films would send very short projections of commands, working subliminally,
or being just beneath the threshold of perception. There were messages
flashed onto screens like: Drink X! or: Buy peanuts! Subliminal perception
was at that time a hotly debated topic. In Canada it was demanded that
the practice be outlawed and the United States called for strict regulations.
The good news I can give you here is that it doesn't work. If messages
are subliminal, they won't work. Until scientists come along and prove that brainwashing indeed exists and
is effective, a court's decision on whether a religious group should
be outlawed because of mental manipulation will always be an arbitrary
one. I do know who tries brainwashing, using every technique available
for influencing people who do not realize that they are being influenced:
the political parties. Political parties spend a tremendous amount of
money on specialists who tell them exactly how to behave, how to speak,
what kind of tie to wear and what kind of music to play, in order to
make people vote A instead of B. But I can assure you: in democracies
brainwashing doesn't work! It is, of course, very, very disturbing that
despite the rejection of these theories by all professional bodies,
alleged technologies of brainwashing continue to be portrayed in a certain
type of literature solely for the purpose of providing a base to discredit
new religious groups. Thirdly, the most disturbing development in Germany is the establishment
of bodies with governmental blessing, whose purpose is to observe and
combat religious groups. The Catholic Church, the Protestant Church
- they all have their anti sect experts. And these so called sect
experts have managed to persuade the government, the Christian Democratic
government, to establish an ‘Enquete commission’ to investigate so called
sects and psycho groups. This was all set up by the so called sect
experts, who never tire of publishing their own kind of "educational
and information literature" paid for in part by the state. All
of this is well summarized in a new publication by Felix Flückinger:
"Sektenjagd - die neue Intoleranz". In 1996, the German Federal Parliament, against the wish and advice of
the former minister of justice, Mrs. Leuthäuser Schnarrenberger, set
up a parliamentary commission with the purpose of specifically dealing
with so called sects and "psycho groups". In June 1998, the
commission, which cost the tax payer three million Deutschmarks, submitted
its final report. In view of limits of time I will not repeat all of
the results but only give a brief summary. In its final conclusion, the report states that 7% of Germans are possibly
receptive to the propaganda of psycho groups and religious minorities.
It did not say 7% are members, but 7% could potentially be receptive
to their messages. There are less than 0,5% adherents now. Another conclusion
was that these groups constitute no danger to public life at all. Nevertheless,
the work of this commission continues. As part of the national budget for the year 2000, parliament approved 2.5
million DM for a "model project for prevention in the area of so
called sects and psycho groups". The two main churches, the Catholic
Church and the Protestant Church, have prepared an entire staff, mostly
from among their own sect experts, which is waiting for the moment when
a definition of qualifications for becoming an officially recognised
sect expert will be announced. The Enquete commission on so called sects and psycho groups came to the
conclusion that it is impossible to define what a sect actually is.
And now, the label for potentially dangerous groups has changed to "psycho
groups" - which really is the substitution of one meaningless term
for another of equal meaninglessness. And when one looks deeper into
the report and asks how a psycho group is defined, one gets the answer
that these groups employ "techniques aiming at the manipulation
of other people". I assure you that there is no single technique
mentioned that is not used by industries in selling goods, political
parties in gaining votes, or the two main churches in keeping their
flocks intact. If this is the definition for non permissible behaviour,
we should stop selling consumer goods, close all the churches and outlaw
campaigning for political elections. Recently, together with a colleague of mine, I created a forum for academics
to voice their opinions against these developments by publishing a two-volume
work "The New Inquisitors". The book was first published in
German and has now been translated into English. It features reports
by academics who have experienced degrees of persecution and harassment
themselves. The reason given why critics of sect hunters are being harassed
is a new one. The sect experts argue that they are trying to merely
educate the consumer in order to make him more resistant to influences
that aim at taking away their money. They try to suggest that theirs
is the noble task of alerting the public to dangerous groupings which
are only after their money. We are now countering the arguments of the
“sect experts" with the question, “Why should we practice consumer
protection only in terms of religious teachings and not in all other
areas of life?” After all, free societies are based on the assumption
that adults are able to make choices. And if a choice is wrong, well
that's part of what you pay for being an adult. The parliament of Hamburg appropriated another million Deutsch marks for
the work of "experts" in combating sects, Berlin appropriated
2.2 million, the federal government 2.5 million. These days, you can
make an interesting career out of persecuting new religious movements,
in the name of consumer protection. I have asked myself why we are tolerant towards intolerance? Why do we
permit sect like behaviour against the so called sects? The sect hunters
fulfil all the criteria of the proper definition of a sect. Yes, indeed,
there are some dangerous cults. There is no question that mass suicides
and using poisonous gas in the subways of Japan are indeed dangerous
and criminal acts. These groups are not dangerous as religious cults
but because of their behaviour. But I do not know of even one such attack
in France and Germany, which are the countries that are most active
in fighting sects. The first reason why the public is somewhat disinterested in what is happening
to new religious groups is due to our long tradition of persecuting
religious dissidents, which goes right back to the beginning of Christianity.
It is not restricted, of course, to Christianity, but if you want to
get a feeling of what religious persecution is all about, then look
at the first 400 years of Christianity in Rome, and later at medieval
and post medieval times where you will find relentless and cruel persecution
of the Huguenots, the Baptists, the Karthaeuser and other religious
movements in France and in Germany as well. Here is a second reason why one finds objections towards religious groups
like the Unification Church, or the Swiss based VPM organization: all
of those groups are against the use of drugs and advocate a high standard
of morality, which seems to be offensive to a significant minority within
political life that wants to legalize them. You take a stand against
obscenity in public, but a significant part of the cultural intelligentsia
wants it that way. You stand for family values - but this stand is highly
offensive to a mainly leftist culture. I think you offend these people
by mentioning something like sacrifice and service at a time when you
are encouraged to think of yourself only and when narrow self actualisation
is thought of as being the highest form of human development. If you
dare to scratch the legitimacy of such claims, their proponents will
react violently. I think that a defence of traditional values explains
the intensity with which this sect of sect hunters pursue and harass
religious groups. A third reason for the toleration of intolerant sect hunters lies in the
ability of these sect hunters to mobilize respected organizations for
their own cult, thus enjoying the backing of the social democrats, the
socialists, the Protestant Church and to a significant degree also of
the Catholic Church. I believe only very few top politicians would dare
to object to those sect hunters at a time when a highly overloaded political
agenda forces the political leadership at the very top to concentrate
on only a few issues. In the case of Rev. Moon, it apparently was just
one woman who was able to tell the Ministry of the Interior to impose
the entry ban. Anyway, it was Mrs. Rennebach, the spokeswoman for the Social Democrats
on sect-related issues, who in a press release claimed full credit for
having minister Kanther (CDU) banning Reverend Moon and his wife from
entering Germany. "Manfred Kanther has followed my (!) request
... in a quick and non-bureaucratic manner". In the case of the
aborted population census in Germany when all of Europe participates
as well, it was only one politician who, in a fit of anger, said: we
won't participate. Concerning the Enquete commission on so called sects and psycho groups,
there were seven members of the Social Democratic Party and a few from
other parties who were able to obtain legitimacy for their project in
the name of the entire parliament. How could this be possible? It is
because the top leadership can concentrate on a few issues only, and
they do not want to bother with what they perceive as minor issues.
The strategies for countering such an attitude, of course, would be
to create attention and force the leadership to make something into
an issue of top priority. One of our strategies is to tell the Americans
how different from their own standards the issue of religious liberty
and civil rights is being handled in Europe. At least in the case of
Germany it works. It will probably not have that much of an effect in
France. But here in Germany, when the American government has something
to say, the top leadership will take notice. Thank you for listening. |