Pluralism in the World
Senior 6 · General and Religious Studies
Pluralism in the World
Lesson 3 of 3
24 min
In Belfast, Northern Ireland, some streets end at a wall several metres high, topped with steel fencing. On one side live mostly Catholic families who tend to want Northern Ireland to join the Republic of Ireland; on the other, mostly Protestant families who tend to want it to stay in the United Kingdom. The first of these barriers went up in 1969, at the start of the thirty-year conflict known as "the Troubles", in which about 3,500 people were killed. They were called "peace walls" because they stopped neighbours attacking one another.
The Good Friday Agreement of 10 April 1998 ended most of the violence and set up a government shared between the two communities. Yet many of the walls still stand. They show what happens when two communities treat their difference as a frontier rather than as part of one shared society, and how long the damage lasts.
Definition
Prejudice: a negative judgement about people formed because of the group they belong to, before or without knowing them.
Stereotype: a fixed, oversimplified idea about all members of a group.
Discrimination: treating people unfairly because of the group they belong to, for example in jobs, schooling or the law.
Segregation: the separation of groups in where they live, study, work or worship.
Hate speech: speech that attacks or demeans people because of their religion, ethnicity, nationality, sex or another identity, and may incite hostility or violence against them.
Extremism: holding beliefs so absolute that one rejects the rights of others and may justify violence to impose them.
Divisionism: in Rwandan law and usage, spreading ideas that set Rwandans against one another on the basis of ethnic, regional or other differences.
Pluralism can be misunderstood in two opposite directions, and both do harm.
| Rejecting pluralism | Distorting pluralism | |
|---|---|---|
| The mistake | Difference is a threat: "our group" must dominate, convert or exclude the others | Pluralism means "anything goes": every view must be accepted, even calls to hate, and groups may live wholly apart |
| What it leads to | Prejudice, discrimination, forced assimilation, persecution, violent conflict, and at worst genocide | Tolerance of hate speech and extremism; parties built on ethnicity or religion; separate communities that never meet, so mistrust grows |
| Example | Rwanda before 1994; the Troubles in Northern Ireland | Hate messages spread by radio, text message and social media; Belfast's divided neighbourhoods |
Figure 3 shows why both mistakes are dangerous. The psychologist Gordon Allport observed in 1954 that prejudice rises by steps. Hostile talk makes avoidance seem normal; avoidance makes discrimination easier; discrimination makes violence thinkable. Pluralism is the practice that stops the climb at the first step.
Important
Source A: where freedom of expression stops
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), Article 20(2): "Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law."
Constitution of the Republic of Rwanda of 2003 revised in 2015, Article 37: "Freedom of thought, conscience, religion, worship and public manifestation thereof is guaranteed by the State in accordance with the law. Propagation of ethnic, regional, racial discrimination or any other form of division is punished by law."
Both texts protect difference and limit it in the same sentence. Article 37 guarantees freedom of religion and then punishes the spreading of division; the Covenant protects expression elsewhere (Article 19) but requires States to ban incitement to hatred. This answers the "anything goes" mistake: pluralism protects people's right to differ, not a right to attack those who differ. A preacher may teach that his faith is true; he may not urge his followers to drive out their neighbours.
| Case | How pluralism was misunderstood | Consequences | Response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rwanda, from the colonial period to 1994 | The social categories Hutu, Tutsi and Twa were turned into fixed, unequal identities, recorded on identity cards from the 1930s, and used to exclude and then to target Tutsi | Decades of discrimination and exile, propaganda and hate media, and the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi | A single Rwandan identity in law; no "ethnicity" on identity cards; parties may not be based on ethnic group or religion (Article 57); Law N° 59 of 2018 on the crime of genocide ideology (see Unit 1) |
| Northern Ireland, about 1968 to 1998 | National and religious identity used as a boundary; discrimination in housing and jobs; segregated neighbourhoods and schools | About 3,500 deaths; peace walls; lasting mistrust | The Good Friday Agreement (1998): power-sharing government and equal rights |
| Kenya, 2007 to 2008 | After a disputed election, politicians and messages mobilised voters along ethnic lines | More than 1,000 people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced | The National Cohesion and Integration Act (2008) created a commission to fight hate speech and ethnic discrimination |
Warning
Handle the history with care. In Rwanda, write "the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi", never "ethnic conflict". Hutu, Tutsi and Twa were social categories that colonial and later governments turned into rigid "ethnic" labels; the genocide was planned and carried out by an extremist government, not caused by diversity itself.
Tip
Name the mistake, then the consequence. For "explain the consequences of misunderstanding pluralism", first say which misunderstanding (rejecting or distorting), then follow the chain of consequences with an example. Finish with the response that repaired, or could repair, the damage.
Important
Discuss. Should a country ban speech that offends a religion, or only speech that incites hatred or violence? Use Source A and the difference between the two misunderstandings in the table.
BBC News NI: "Cages around houses: Life at Belfast's peace wall" (2021). Families who live beside the walls describe how the walls make them feel, more than twenty years after the Good Friday Agreement. Listen for why some residents still want the walls to stay.
Practice
Further reading
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: Figure 3, the tables, the analysis and the exercises.
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
