THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY IN BULGARIA: facing the global challenges

This project is dealing with the impact of the recent events, involving Islam: the September 11 attack, the global campaign against international terrorism, and the alleged ideological tensions between Islam and "the West" on the life of the Muslim community in Bulgaria. The attention is focused on the problems provoked by these events concerning the relations between the Muslims in Bulgaria and the mainstream society, especially aiming at making difference between real and imagined threats to social peace and ethnic harmony in the country. The problem to be addressed is the danger that the global conflictual relations involving Islam be interiorized into Bulgarian society.
We aim to identify the effect of the international events in question upon the Muslim community in Bulgaria; to analyze this effect academically and to debate it publicly with the aim to eliminate the possible misunderstandings and other negative developments, and further to enhance the dialogue between the Muslim community and the mainstream society. To achieve all this the Center for Intercultural Studies and Partnership (CISP) proposes to collect the relevant information via focus-groups in representative regions with Muslim population; to process and analyze this information; to organize a public debate on the response of Bulgarian society to the global challenges involving Islam; to use this activities in order to enhance the dialogical relationships between the Muslim elite and the academic, as well as the larger public.
Duration: May 2005 - May 2006
OBJECTIVESTo contribute to identifying the impact of the global challenges involving Islam on the life of the Muslims in Bulgaria, and to outline prospects of integrating these processes into a harmonious setting of the inter-faith and interethnic relations in the country.

This project purpose is achieved through the realization of the followingOBJECTIVES:

• To develop methodological instruments for identifying the impact of the Islam-related recent international events on the Muslim community in Bulgaria and its relations with mainstream society;
• To measure the extent of re-Islamization in Bulgaria, using sociological techniques;
• To identify the influence of the public image of Islam on the social attitudes of the Bulgarian Muslims;
• To explore the reception of the events involving the Muslim community by the mainstream society in Bulgaria;
• To involve stake holders from the Muslim elite in Bulgaria into a dialogical paradigm of social activity;
• To implement and adapt strategies, developed by leading international academic centers, to work through religion for ethnic harmony and social peace with regard of the present situation in the country.
  

PROJECT ACTIVITIES:

• Working meetings with the participation of external experts to identify the main parameters of the impact of the global developments on the Muslims in Bulgaria;
• Prepare questionnaires for the focus groups on the basis of sociological methods;
• Study visits to the regions of Kardzhali, Smoljan, Gotze Delchev in order to prepare the organization of focus groups;
• Field trips to the regions of Kardzhali, Smoljan, Gotze Delchev in order to carry out the meetings of the established focus groups;
• Conduct content analysis of articles and media publications concerning the Bulgarian Muslim community for the period between September 11, 2001 and December 31, 2004;
• Processing the data from the focus groups and the content analysis, and preparing an analysis summarizing the processed data and the collected research data;
• Carry out a public debate on the results of the conducted survey with the participation of policy analysts, experts in Islam, intercultural relations and public sphere issues, journalists; representatives of the Chief Mufti's administration; NGO activists dealing with interethnic and inter-faith relations;Project's final publication containing theoretical papers and records from the public debate.