Religious tolerance in a country joining EU in 2007
In the past two days a huge debate has been going on in Sofia.
The mayor ( a very show-off person) Borisov requested that the sound of lodspeakers of the city mosque were turned down, as they were disturbing the people living and working around.
This was used by the nationalistic movment "Ataka" to again make proclamations against religious and ethnic minorities.
I am quite annoyed by this, as I really think it is on one side a PR action by Borisov ( who is going to run in the next elections either for a President or for a Prime-minister, and who, screwed up quite a lot as a mayor of Sofia).On the other hand I see that people are angry and filled with hatred and some "nuts",Nazi style leaders as Volen Siderov from "Ataka" use this to create intollerance towards minorities.
I cannot see how they want to create this hatred in a Bulgaria that has lived for centuries in tolerance among different religious and ethnic groups. The best thing to get from all this mess is some PR and political support, yet I do not see it lasting too long.
But my question is - is this the way Bulgaria wants to be positioned as a EU-candidate country?
I believe that country branding is quite important, and noone will consider us serious enough if we say we are "tolerant" and behave like inquisitors from the Middle ages in fact.
posted by Sve @ 8:01 AM
4 Comments:
I think you're quite right that all this noise is detracting the attention from more important issues. Borisov did this in order to detract the attention from the issue about his shares in companies which is not accepted as he's a mayor. And to prove that he's actively doing his job.
Although it's more a PR action, it gives me the impression that ordinary people have just waited for such moment to express their intollerance. A lot of people remember the past. Yes, it's not right to blame the children for their grand-grand-grandparents' sins. And yet it's a reaction to the widely proclaimed policy and way of doing policy of DPS. In a country, where the constitution forbids any parties based on ethnic and religion differences, the way DPS behaves is not accepted. Yes, the other parties don't consist of angels as well, but there's a limit to everything. Bulgarian laws are equal to everyone. That's why parties shouldn't be based on ethnic origin or religious beliefs, and, at the same time, all Bulgarian citizens should have equality concerning religious beliefs. So whether or not accaptable by some minor groups, Muslims have the right given them by the constitution to profess their religion.
Wow, my comments are quite long. As usual. :)))
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