Really? you are giving Nazis and Soviets as Secular examples?! Seriously Armstrong... just showing the worst possible thing won't get you anywhere... Why don't you look at Norway, Switzerland, Netherland, Germany, UK, Luxemburgi Monaco?
Romans/Greeks/Chinese? Medieval Islam as nothing to do with todays Islam and muslims... Medieval Islamic scholars were more humanist than Islamic scholars now and some of them even supported secularism.
What is the link between imperialism and secularism?
I was merely trying to impress upon you that it is not a socio-political belief system that is intrinsically flawed but rather its abuse.
And what of Norway, Switzerland, Luxemburg and Monaco ? What do all of them have in common - Good Governance because all of them are Welfare States. It doesn't matter whether the Govt. on top is Secular, Islamist or Wicca because none of those things are going to make a difference when an old Norwegian or an old Pakistani is going to go to the bank to get his pension or medical treatment at the Government's expense because neither the Hospital Administration nor the Bank Officer is going to ask them about their religious affiliations. So again I reiterate...the difference is Governance ! And by the way...in the Netherlands their Secularism didn't stop right-wing politicians like Geert Wilders from sprouting hate speech about Islam and Muslims. It certainly didn't stop a plethora of other right-wing politicians across Europe from behaving with Muslims with the same exclusivity and racism as they did against the Blacks. The age of Enlightenment certainly didn't stop people like Sarkozy from pandering to the wishes of the French Armenians when he signed that Bill nor was the Freedom of Speech up held when Germany, Austria, Poland and a couple of other countries legislated against Holocaust Denial by actually threatening people with jail time. So all of those so-called Secular States have many contradictions of their own but what makes them worthy of emulation is not whether the President of France can talk about religion on National TV or not, but rather whether their institutions are working or not - in short...Good Governance.
Besides, what the heck are any of those Scandinavian Countries and the likes of Monaco going to do ? You got have some power for it to corrupt you to begin with. And that is essentially the link between Imperialism and Secularism, the latter doesn't exist in a bubble and it, like everything else, has a massive potential for abuse if your willing to do, just like Islamism or Communism or Capitalism all can be made into instruments of shear exploitation...so in essence when we talk about employing such and such an 'ism' as our system because its so wonderful in theory...we're actually side stepping the issue because unless the underlying problems in the society are solved - that moral compass realigned - a top-down approach (to use a management term) isn't going to work. And thats where Good Governance comes in.
P.S What did Rwanda, most of the Arab world, India, Turkey, Central Asian States, South Africa, Latin America and the Far East have in common ? None of them are based on either the Sharia, Talmudic or Justinian Laws and yet at one time or the other (if you listen to their critics) they've done enough to blemish their records.
And what does Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, the other part of the Arab world, Sudan, Bangladesh have in common - at the very least a tacit support for the Sharia and yet our records are anything but spotless.
So maybe the thing worth pondering isn't - Secularism vs Islam...but that something else, somewhere in either types can and have indeed gone terribly wrong when they've stifled free speech, liberalism, discriminated against a certain group, treated the women terribly and engaged in incessant war mongering.
haha good point, no.8 bun hm... 
