Religions, National Identities, and the Universality of Human Rights

Largely due to the increasing religious and cultural pluralism caused by immigration, several European countries have attempted to address the relationship between national identity and integration of immigrants in similar ways, highlighting the human rights they enforce as the core of their own national identity. This trend is problematic, however, because it fails to describe the specificities of each state. This article highlights the difficulties in framing the debate about national identity and reflects upon the origins of such difficulties. Concluding that these difficulties derive from a misunderstanding of religious traditions and national identities that overlooks the universal self-understanding of religions, seeing them as opposed to the universal character of human rights, this article urges a reconsideration of the roles of universalism and religious and national identities.