Rhetoric Race and Religion
About three decades ago in a conference held in Scandinavia, I heard a speaker passionately voicing a forecast made by some futurists.
These futurists, he said, were pretty much convinced that with the spread of secular political ideology and the increasing sharing of scientific technology, the influence and impact of the religions of the world will gradually subside and even that it is likely that these are to vanish from the face of this earth in due course of time.
I remembered that prophecy and how it has proven to be wrong with almost a sense of amusement, while providing a concept note for a significant international conference that was recently organised in order to celebrate 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. This conference ‘On World Religions: Diversity, Not Dissension’ that has been hosted by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations in New Delhi (7-9 March, 2013), brought a number of speakers from various parts of the globe. Apart from running the event, it also gave me the possibility of spending a whole session conversing with HH Dalai Lama, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, Dr. Karan Singh and Reverend Mpho Tutu.
The fact is that a common sharing of advanced technology by facilitating travel and communication in an unprecedented manner has not only affected possibilities for cross cultural exchanges and interactions in a profound way, it has also in the process made our multi-religious situation more glaringly visible than ever. Thus, despite all on-going – undoubtedly pertinent – interpretations of the notion of secularism and secularisation in political and legal discourses, some social scientists have in the mean time begun to describe our time as a post-secular era.
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