The End of Secularism?

The answer to religious intolerance was neither indifference nor secularism.

The great gift of secularism, in turn, has been tolerance. Despite horrific twentieth century backsliding in Europe, secularism has served to blunt the edge of bigotry, because secular reasoning, unlike divine revelation, is never conclusive.

We fought actively for articles on freedom from domestic violence, secularism, contraception and abortion rights.

YUVA holds dear to a vision of society where values are based upon equality, distributive justice and secularism.

YUVA five core values include gender justice, social justice, secularism and democracy, ecological justice and honesty and integrity.

One of the most striking misunderstandings concerns the nature of secularism, by which I mean the separation of State and religious institutions.

In fact, religion is not an essential factor for the majority of the Australian population, which is a product of modern secularism.

In particular, Turkey should clarify the relationship between the concept of secularism and article 40 of the Constitution on individual rights and freedoms.

It menaces deeply conservative societies. And, for those for whom religion matters, globalization can sometimes be accompanied by an aggressive secularism or hedonism that makes many uneasy.

Proposing secularism the historic approach of Western liberals is political suicide. Calling for the modernization of Islam by permitting clerics to reinterpret its laws in light of contemporary conditions is more acceptable.

At the same time, the values of religious tolerance, secularism, development of a scientific temper and sensitization to the problems of the weaker sections of society are consciously included in school education.

Liberty, equality, and fraternity are enemies of the nationalist, extremist, and europhobic visions benighting Europe today. These dark visions must be met with France s commitment to integration, the rule of law, and secularism.

5. The preamble to the Constitution solemnly proclaims India apos s commitment to democracy and secularism, guaranteeing to all citizens freedom of religion and belief as well as the right freely to practise religion.

Let me give you an example in Turkey where I come from, which is a very hyper secular republic, until very recently we used to have what I call secularism police, which would guard the universities against veiled students.

Unlikely as it may be in view of Turkey's deeply rooted secularism, such a risk cannot be totally excluded. But the same is true for any other democracy, where radical groups could well misuse the democratic process for their purposes.

As the largest democracy, with secularism at its heart, and as the second largest Islamic society in the world, we feel that we do not need any lessons from either the Western democracies or the self appointed guardians of Islam.

The headscarf that Gül s wife wears for religious reasons was seen as an assault on Turkey s sacrosanct principle of secularism. Indeed, outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer refused to invite the wives of AKP deputies who covered their hair to state dinners and Republic Day receptions.

The Committee takes note of the information supplied by the State party on the implementation of the Act of 15 March 2004 governing the wearing of symbols or clothing denoting religious affiliation in State primary and secondary schools, in pursuance of the principle of secularism.

(iv) Application of the principle of secularism must be subject to particular vigilance so as not to generate or legitimize new forms of discrimination and, above all, not to constitute an obstacle to full participation in public life by believers and practitioners of various religions

The nationalist regimes thus gradually lost domestic popular legitimacy, creating a vacuum that non state actors have now largely filled. The ideological forces and the currency of power have also changed, with political Islam replacing secularism while skillfully integrating social issues and revolutionary, anti Western nationalism.

Third, there is the difference between those who adhere to the tradition of political Islam and those who uphold the strict secularism that came with the republic. Often this social divide intersects with the Sunni Alevi cleavage, as the Alevis have increasingly aligned themselves with the political left.

To keep it from losing its way again, the AKP must also address the root cause of Erdoğan s metamorphosis into an intolerant autocrat. Early in Erdoğan s premiership, he was restrained by the president, the judiciary, and the military, which were all committed to upholding the secularism enshrined in Turkey s constitution.

Both the Turkish Court of Appeals and Constitutional Court had ruled in favour of the ban on head scarves, a decision that had been upheld by the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that religious symbols contradicted the principles of secularism and democracy enshrined in the Turkish Constitution.

And religion, with its wide following ... Here in the United States, people may be being religious in a different way, as a report has just shown but they still want to be religious. It's only Western Europe that has retained its secularism, which is now beginning to look rather endearingly old fashioned.

Moreover, efforts to Islamicize the state comes at a time when conflict in the Middle East has further politicized Muslim movements in Malaysia. They view themselves as counter forces to cultural domination by the West, asserting their religious identity in the face of what they regard as imperializing ideas like secularism and human rights.

When Turkey became a democracy in 1950, the previous system s secular Kemalist elites attempted to harness the power of the military and the bureaucracy to control the elected government. In fact, the Turkish military, with the judiciary s support, explicitly intervened in the civilian government s functioning in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997, each time in the name of protecting secularism.

The difference between what the French call laicité and secularism is more than a linguistic nuance for Turkey, which adopted its Kemalist system not long after France entrenched its secular republic. Religious symbols and references have to a large extent been removed from the public sphere here, and religion is thought to be a private matter.

They have allowed an enormous concentration of power in the hands of one person and the parliamentary majority that he leads. Turkish policymakers must now guarantee the judiciary s autonomy and political impartiality, restore freedom of expression for all citizens, and establish a system of checks and balances to replace the military as the guardian of secularism.

6. Several of the persons with whom the Special Rapporteur spoke explained that Indian secularism should not be interpreted as anti religious or reflecting opposition between the State and religion, but implied equality of rights for all regardless of their religion, and in particular the exercise of religious freedom, tolerance and non discrimination based on religion or belief.

There and elsewhere, the US, motivated by the larger geopolitical goal of containing Shia Iran and its regional allies, has embraced Sunni rulers steeped in religious and political bigotry, even though they pose a transnational threat to the values of freedom and secularism. Moreover, the clash within Islam is likely to be destabilizing regionally and counterproductive to the interests of the free world.

That began to change in 2001, when Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, the widow of the assassinated military strongman General Zia, replaced secularism in the Constitution with the Sovereignty of Allah. Encouraged by this change the BNP s junior coalition partner, Jamaat e Islami, which has links with the militias and remains close to Pakistan, has been calling for imposition of Sharia (Islamic law).

88. As regards this second political aspect, the factors unquestionably making for religious tolerance in India include the country apos s commitment to democracy sound democratic institutions, legislative and government measures contributing to a culture of tolerance and serving to integrate all the components of Indian society and a conception of secularism implying not the rejection of religion but equality for all religions.

Yet the battle between secularism and religion in the Arab world does not have to last centuries, as it did in Europe, if only because contemporary generations can benefit from the long process of social and scientific progress that enabled the West to pave the way to modern democracy. But adapting this Western legacy for the contemporary Arab world, while recovering Arabs own medieval heritage of tolerance and scientific excellence, will be difficult.