Event Highlights: Religious Identity and Foreign Policy
By Aislinn O’Brien, Candidate for Bachelors of the Arts in International Relations and Political Science
On February 7th, the Center for the Study of Europe welcomed Dimitar Bechev from UNC Chapel Hill to lecture on “Religious Identity and Foreign Policy: Russia and Turkey in Southeast Europe”. BU’s Professor Garčević moderated the event. Bechar began by discussing symbolism as a mechanism for collective identity building in Russia and in Russian satellite states, including Serbia. Then, he discussed rhetoric as an identity or alliance-building tool, focusing on similarities in rhetoric used by Putin and Erdogan. Bechev stressed that collective identities in Turkey and Russia are supported by a feeling of community in orthodox beliefs and in the idea of common legacy. However, aside from these common identities that perhaps formed more naturally, Bechev also discussed the idea of the ‘instrumentalization of religion’, where politicians actively use religion to exert their influence. Next, he moved to discussing the institutional history of faith. Bechev articulated that in both Russia and Turkey organized religion functions almost as another institution of government, largely being overseen by, but as institutionalized as the state. Near the end of his lecture, Bechev touched on the pseudo-absurdity of Russia trying to ally itself in cultural similarity with the Arab world. Similarly, Bechev briefly discussed the hypocritical nature of Turkey trying to better its human rights record to vie for EU membership while at the same time growing closer to Russia and failing to criticize Russia for human rights abuses. At the end of the day, in Bechev’s view, the relationships between countries are flexible, but religion is not meaningless when it comes to alliances. A very interesting and relevant lecture!
