Enemy Stereotypes and Projections

Between Christians, Muslims and Jews
Friday, September 13, 2013 - Sunday, September 15, 2013
at Haus Venusberg in Bonn

Prejudices, clichés, and stereotypes are not unusual in our personal life or in our society. Psychologically speaking, we use projections to increase our self-esteem and to look at the oth-ers as the bearer of what we don't like to bear and to associate with ourselves. The Other is thwarting, aggressive, uneducated – the problem. We scapegoat others in order to have a good feeling, self esteem or conscience.

This ubiquitous tendency obtains a menacing dimension in the light of anti-Semitism, persecution of Christians and the fight against Islamism. Thus, the conference will focus on religiously motivated enemy stereotypes and projections. In psychological perspective religions make a particular claim to truth, purity and salvation. Hence they are not all freed from the tendency to see in those who do not belong to the own community the bearer of what is con-tradicting their own values and convictions.
Lectures will be given by Dr. Rainer Funk about the psychological functions of enemy stereo-types and projections; by Dr. Hamid Lechhab, school social worker in Austria and coming from Morocco about how to escape religious motivated stereotypes. Dr. Andreas Pangritz, Professor of Christian Theology, discusses anti-Semitism in Christian theology. Dr. Peter Waldmann, Rabbi in Mainz lectures about the relationship between Jews and Non-Jews in Germany since 1945, and Dr. Hamid Reza Yousefi, an Iranean born philosopher will speak about the possibilities and limitations of communication concerning prejudices.