Overview

Full Product Details

9781928314271

Table of Contents

Reviews

Through state media and various policy documents, the government has advanced the discourse of religious tolerance as the defining feature of Ethiopia's religious past. In so doing, it has been able to re-enforce a myth of religious tolerance and to portray religious tolerance as the unique trademark of Ethiopia to be exported to the rest of the world, which suffers from the infections of religious intolerance and conflict ... The government acknowledges the misdeeds of Ethiopian rulers, but the people are usually described as displaying cooperation and respect to one another which has no parallel in other parts of the world. Mohammed Dejen Assen, Assistant Professor College of Law and Governance Studies, Addis Ababa University Heritage is about the construction, negotiation, expression and contestation of multiple identities and sociocultural as well as religious values. Despite this, widening the cultural aspect of Irreecha as an Oromo heritage has understated these multiple meanings and interpretations. By inflating and authorising the cultural aspect of the ritual, the authorised experts have reduced it to something that has a single meaning with which all participants should identify. This imposes on participants a uniform take on and relationship to the ritual. The experience that emerges from being there is ultimately dictated by the experts leading to the contestation of Irreecha as an intangible cultural heritage. Serawit Bekele Debele, Fritz Thyssen Stiftung Postdoctoral Fellow Department of Religious Studies, University of Bayreuth Whose memory is to be attached to a statue and what should it say? Because memory is not an undeviating concept and is highly political, ideological and subjective, it is argued that the approach most suitable under a regime of human dignity, equality and freedom is a highly inclusive approach - one that promotes and gives voice to all the memories attached to a statue. Even if one memory is not preserved, but the debate surrounding the statue is ongoing, it is more important that the diverse voices are recognised and history and political issues constantly reviewed ... It might seem an impossible task, but democracy is not supposed to be easy and will take hard work, effort and sacrifice. Georgia Alida du Plessis, Research Fellow in Public Law University of the Free State, South Africa Successive governments have adopted Western formal legislation which has alienated locals from the administration of their heritage sites. The net result of this has been to put heritage managers in an awkward position, speculating what their actual role should be vis-a vis what the law says in relation to the realities on the ground. Locals struggle against the law to have access to what is theirs for their own religious enhancement against uncooperative successive political authorities ... All these currents make life difficult for the conservationists who value local input as a management tool. Very often heritage managers have advocated for dialogue amongst the competing voices. Closing out locals has been of particular concern to the heritage managers, since the locals are the owners of the heritage. There is a need to re-align the heritage laws in order to re-integrate the locals into the management systems of the heritage sites. Edmore Dube, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies Great Zimbabwe University

Through state media and various policy documents, the government has advanced the discourse of religious tolerance as the defining feature of Ethiopia's religious past. In so doing, it has been able to re-enforce a myth of religious tolerance and to portray religious tolerance as the unique trademark of Ethiopia to be exported to the rest of the world, which suffers from the infections of religious intolerance and conflict ... The government acknowledges the misdeeds of Ethiopian rulers, but the people are usually described as displaying cooperation and respect to one another which has no parallel in other parts of the world. Mohammed Dejen Assen, Assistant Professor College of Law and Governance Studies, Addis Ababa University Heritage is about the construction, negotiation, expression and contestation of multiple identities and sociocultural as well as religious values. Despite this, widening the cultural aspect of Irreecha as an Oromo heritage has understated these multiple meanings and interpretations. By inflating and authorising the cultural aspect of the ritual, the authorised experts have reduced it to something that has a single meaning with which all participants should identify. This imposes on participants a uniform take on and relationship to the ritual. The experience that emerges from being there is ultimately dictated by the experts leading to the contestation of Irreecha as an intangible cultural heritage. Serawit Bekele Debele, Fritz Thyssen Stiftung Postdoctoral Fellow Department of Religious Studies, University of Bayreuth Whose memory is to be attached to a statue and what should it say? Because memory is not an undeviating concept and is highly political, ideological and subjective, it is argued that the approach most suitable under a regime of human dignity, equality and freedom is a highly inclusive approach - one that promotes and gives voice to all the memories attached to a statue. Even if one memory is not preserved, but the debate surrounding the statue is ongoing, it is more important that the diverse voices are recognised and history and political issues constantly reviewed ... It might seem an impossible task, but democracy is not supposed to be easy and will take hard work, effort and sacrifice. Georgia Alida du Plessis, Research Fellow in Public Law University of the Free State, South Africa Successive governments have adopted Western formal legislation which has alienated locals from the administration of their heritage sites. The net result of this has been to put heritage managers in an awkward position, speculating what their actual role should be vis-à vis what the law says in relation to the realities on the ground. Locals struggle against the law to have access to what is theirs for their own religious enhancement against uncooperative successive political authorities ... All these currents make life difficult for the conservationists who value local input as a management tool. Very often heritage managers have advocated for dialogue amongst the competing voices. Closing out locals has been of particular concern to the heritage managers, since the locals are the owners of the heritage. There is a need to re-align the heritage laws in order to re-integrate the locals into the management systems of the heritage sites. Edmore Dube, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies Great Zimbabwe University

Author Information

Senior Editor, Center for the Study of Law and Religion Emory University, U.S.A. Special Content Editor, Journal of Law and Religion ACLARS Publications Committee Chair Professor and Head, Department of Religious Studies University of Tennessee, Knoxville, U.S.A. Director of Research Professor Systematic Theology of Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available