THE WORLD OF UNREST: SOCIAL HOSTILITIES INDEX (SHI) | THE PEW FORUM

An analysis of the data shows that nearly half the people in the world (46%) live in the 41 countries where there are high or very high levels of religious hostilities in society. 

Ahmadiyya Times | News Staff | World Affairs
Source & Credit: The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
December 2009

Restrictions on religion can result not only from the actions of governments but also from acts of violence and intimidation by private individuals, organizations or social groups. The Pew Forum's Social Hostilities Index is a measure of concrete, hostile actions that effectively hinder the religious activities of the targeted individuals or groups. An absence of social hostilities does not necessarily mean, however, that there is no religious tension or intolerance in a society. In some cases, the lack of social conflict may be due to heavy-handed government actions that squelch many forms of public expression - as happened, for example, in the Soviet Union under Communist rule. Competition and even some degree of tension between religious groups may be natural in free societies, and the freer and more pluralistic the society, the more open and visible the tensions may be.

The Social Hostilities Index is based on 13 questions (see the Summary of Results) used by the Pew Forum to gauge hostilities both between and within religious groups, including mob or sectarian violence, crimes motivated by religious bias, physical conflict over conversions, harassment over attire for religious reasons, and other religion-related intimidation and violence, including terrorism and war (see the Methodology). Several of these questions allow for gradations of severity. In addition, there is some overlap among questions that measure mass violence - for example, killings picked up by Question No. 2, "Was there mob violence related to religion?" might also be picked up by Question No. 5, "Was there a religion-related war or armed conflict in the country?" - which serves to give more weight in the index to the most extreme consequences of religious hostilities, such as deaths and the displacement of people from their homes.

Like the index of government restrictions, the Social Hostilities Index is a quantitative measure, but it is important to view the numbers in context. Because there are many tie scores and the differences between the scores of countries that are close together on the index may not be very important, the Pew Forum has chosen not to attach numerical rankings from No. 1 to No. 198. The most meaningful comparisons are not between particular scores (a 3.1 versus a 3.3, for example) but between broad ranges of scores that reflect observable, real-world differences in behavior and circumstances. As with the Government Restrictions Index, the Social Hostilities Index is divided into four ranges: very high (the top 5 percent of scores), high (the next highest 15 percent of scores), moderate (the next 20 percent of scores) and low (the bottom 60 percent of scores).

Countries with very high social hostilities have severe levels of violence and intimidation on many or all of the 13 measures. In Indonesia, for example, much public animosity is aimed at the minority Ahmadiyya community. After a 2007 fatwa by the Indonesian Council of Ulamas declared the Ahmadis deviant and heretical, Muslim groups in West Java burned down the second largest Ahmadiyya mosque. Other Ahmadiyya mosques were vandalized or forced to close by militants, and rallies in opposition to these tactics resulted in violence and injuries.

Countries with high social hostilities have severe levels of violence and intimidation on some of the 13 measures, or more moderate levels on many of them. In Nigeria, for example, bloodshed between Muslims and Christians has erupted several times in recent years, including a 2008 incident in which rioters burned five churches, a police station and its barracks during a protest over alleged blasphemy by a Christian woman.
Countries with moderate social hostilities have severe levels of violence and intimidation on a few of the 13 measures, or more moderate levels on several of them. In Vietnam, for example, an evangelical house church in Tra Vinh Province was vandalized in 2007, and the pastor and some of his followers were beaten by a mob. In the United States, law enforcement officials across the country reported to the FBI at least 1,400 hate crimes involving religion in 2006 and again in 2007.

Countries with low social hostilities generally have moderate levels of violence and intimidation on a few or none of the 13 measures. In Belgium, for example, 68 anti-Semitic incidents were reported in 2007 and 31 in the first half of 2008, but none involved physical violence.

Continue to read  Social Hostilities Index (SHI)