Promoting Peace and Countering Extremism

Dr Elena Nazarenko, Director of the Centre, opened the event by introducing the panel. Roman Pivnev, from the Youth Affairs Department of the Orthodox Diocese of Belgorod and Stary Oskol, Alexei Nefedov, a Youth Worker with the Centre for Youth Initiative (Student Union), and Dr Roman Shilishpanov, from BNRU's Theology Faculty, made up the top table. Dr Shilishpanov is the Director of the Centre for Religious Studies and the Prevention of Extremism. In her opening statement, Dr Nazarenko underlined the unfortunate relevance of this kind of meeting, and that we must all be responsive to any rise of extremism in our society.

The floor was given to students who had prepared short presentations on the theme. Kadiri Sajid spoke about terrorism as an extremely dangerous phenomenon in modern society. Ilya Korenev presented the results of research on 'Students Understanding of Terrorism' which a team had carried out on their fellow students at the Institute of Economics and Management, home to all three of those speakers and Tatyana Cherpachenko, who summarised the history of the emergence of terrorism in the Russian Empire. Dental student and elder of the Armenian community Hripsime Davtyan, presented the results of a study on the value orientations of people prone to terrorism. Polina Zelenina, a trainee maths teacher, spoke about tolerance as a way to establish communities, and as a measure of how far we can eliminate global extremism. Mansur Nazriev, a language student, talked about the deferred consequences of terrorist acts and extremism.

The seminar drew an audience from across the University, and generated lively discussion. To round off the event, everyone watched a video prepared by the University, which showed students expressing their views on terrorism.