Round table discussion «Religion and Tradition. How does religious extremism emerge?»

On April 13, 2022 within the framework of the Decade of Science the Department of World History of the Abai KazNPU Institute of History and Law held a round table on «Religion and traditions. How does religious extremism emerge?». The purpose was to identify the main factors and origins of religious radicalism, which has also manifested itself in Kazakhstan in the last few years.

Therefore, the growth of violent acts of a religious nature has not yet been sufficiently studied, especially in terms of the connection between radical ideology and a criminalized social environment. The session attempted to describe to a large extent both the process of people`s engagement with radical ideology in Kazakhstan and the nature of violent extremism.

The Science Day event was attended by M. Muratkazin, Deputy Director for Research of the Institute of History and Law, K. Rustem, Head of the Department of World History, Professor M. Tulekova, Senior Lecturer D. Mamyrbayev, as well as master students of the M. Utemisov West Kazakhstan University, who are interning on academic mobility, and our students.

The round table was opened by assistant professor of the Department of World History E. Kalieva, who noted the relevance of the topic of religious extremism at the global, regional and state levels, told about the implementation of the action plan for the state programme on countering religious extremism and terrorism in the RK for 2017-2022. She reported that our country has adopted a high-level action plan to implement the state policy in the religious sphere for 2021-2023. A cyber security concept has been developed to combat extremist recruitment and propaganda on the networks. The «Cyber Shield of Kazakhstan» system is in operation. In order to prevent religious extremism in the Internet space, continuous monitoring is being carried out. Also the religious situation in modern Kazakhstan, manifestations and threats of religious extremism, the role of young specialists-historians of religious studies in the improvement of religious literacy were discussed. The participants shared their thoughts on the methodology of religious studies lessons at school and methods of explaining religious topics to young people.