iajj
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I wanted to create a separate thread because I am neither Iranian nor a Muslim; because I dont know either the country or the religion well; because I havent even known an Iranian or a Muslim well enough to call her/him a friend or to probe her/him about the country and the faith. I am a political man trained to speak only from history and jurisprudence, and these are the perspectives I wanted to bring to any intellectual intercourse on secularization.
We conventionally speak of secularization as a process of the liberation of our political life and our political state from religious interference. I will begin by saying that throughout political modernity secularism was never about banishing religious interference in governmental affairs and denying religion a role in the functioning of the state. It was never about neutralizing the religion. It was about neutralizing the state as a site of struggle of religious schisms. A secular(ized) state is nothing more and nothing less than a unified, unitary state. An 100% Islamic country can be said to be as secular as an 100% Christian country and an 100% atheist state and a (hypothetically) 30% Islamic-30% voodoo-40% irreligious state. Secularization is not opposed to religion; secularism is not the antithesis to religiosity of a nation or a people. In fact, a state that is thoroughly and completely religious and united by a single faith must be considered MORE secular than a state of 1% believers and 99% atheists if the country is politically divided between the two and the factions have to fight it out. A country politically divided by faiths cannot be secular, even if 99% of the population are atheist. Only a nation divided against itself needs to start the political process of secularization, not necessarily to destroy the belief of the 1% or to forcefully convert the 99% or to physically annihilate one faction (although this could certainly happen as a perfectly legitimate part of the secularization process). As such, the neutralization of the state may take the form of a religious genocide, but more often it has taken the shape of a blanket guarantee of the freedom of conscience and worship.
Religious freedom is not an acknowledgement that every belief is worthy and plausible. It certainly does not imply that every religion deserves the freedom (and the politically enforced protection of that freedom). Guarantee of religious freedom is a politically program that serves a purely political purpose. It only extracts the neutral state from adjudicating which belief is absurd and which is not when the state has reasons to fear a civil war if it chooses to evoke the power to adjudicate the inherent worth of different religions in the realm. Therefore, in a country whose population is completely unified by sincere belief, the provision of religious freedom is absurd and superfluous, and in a country where historically the political leadership could arbitrate religious controversies without any fear of political consequences of its judgment (e.g., China), this freedom is also utterly unnecessary. The secularity of either type of states is beyond doubt because they can wed political policies to religious policies without jeopardizing the soundness of the former; neither type needs secularization because they are secular as they are.
In any other states, secularization is needed and takes place, as I said, as either a genocide or through the guarantee of religious freedom. Obviously, if both sides are incapable of tolerating what they consider to be heresy but also incapable of physically killing every adherent of heresy, the state itself collapses. Some of the mightiest nations on earth still stand today because they made their choices long ago that they preferred religious genocide or religious tolerance to the political division and suicide of the state. Secularization prefers neither genocide nor toleration, but it does prefer both to the death of the state. A secular state, therefore, is synonymous with a strong, stable state: Henry IV thought the edict of Nantes was necessary to build a strong, cohesive body politic, and the Sun King thought himself strong enough to evoke his grandpas edict, and the level of religiosity or the homogeneity of the religious faith among the French population is never relevant to the discussion of how independent the French state was at the time.
The secular(ized) state is thus nothing more and nothing less than a political entity that wants to preserve itself at all costs. Domestically, if only a genocide or religious freedom could bring an end to a civil war, then secularization must entail genocide or toleration; internationally, if the state can only find security in undercutting the national interests of a co-religious nation, then secularization must entail a hostile foreign policy against that co-religious nation. Even a country of homogeneous religious beliefs, even a country of fervent or fanatic religious beliefs, can be considered secular if the country fights a war for its national interests as dictated by politics instead of religious ideals. Four hundred years on, we can now safely say that during the thirty years war many protestant princes did not fight Austria to protect their newly found faith; rather, they converted to protestantism just to have a good excuse to fight Austria (and the worst example is France, which, running out of excuses near the end of the war, had to enter the war against Austria as a Catholic power!) Even in the 16th century, some political minds in France thought of becoming Huguenots just so that they could steer France towards a war with Spain. In other words, a secular state is one that acts in its own national interests, and the religiosity of the population has no bearing on the secularity of the state. In fact, if we look at the historical records of some of the earliest civilizations, having a common religion (and if necessary, creating one) was very conducive to the continuing unity of a primitive community. In that sense, it is a mark of secularity that we become religious for the political sake of secularization.
If some people wanted to instrumentalize their country and put it in the service of some fanatic ideologies and causes, they would have turned back the clock of modernity and negated all the benefit that political secularism brings to modern humanity. These ideologies and causes are the true enemies to the secular state, and they may not even be religious. Conversely, the need to secularize does not exist for religious peoples that have their native political institutions and their autochthonous political process of policy making. A religiously devout people may prefer to have religious officials occupying state offices, or it may prefer not to. As long as the selection of political offices - and no less importantly, the creation of the mechanism of that selection is determined domestically and strictly within the political boundary of the state and by a political constituents of that states citizens and as long as the political officers of the state vouch to serve the interests of their nation and their constituents and nothing else, the secularist credential of that state cannot at all be questioned. For the secularist is but a great patriot who devotes all his passions exclusively to his land, its culture and morals, which includes its religious traditions, and wants what is best for it.
We conventionally speak of secularization as a process of the liberation of our political life and our political state from religious interference. I will begin by saying that throughout political modernity secularism was never about banishing religious interference in governmental affairs and denying religion a role in the functioning of the state. It was never about neutralizing the religion. It was about neutralizing the state as a site of struggle of religious schisms. A secular(ized) state is nothing more and nothing less than a unified, unitary state. An 100% Islamic country can be said to be as secular as an 100% Christian country and an 100% atheist state and a (hypothetically) 30% Islamic-30% voodoo-40% irreligious state. Secularization is not opposed to religion; secularism is not the antithesis to religiosity of a nation or a people. In fact, a state that is thoroughly and completely religious and united by a single faith must be considered MORE secular than a state of 1% believers and 99% atheists if the country is politically divided between the two and the factions have to fight it out. A country politically divided by faiths cannot be secular, even if 99% of the population are atheist. Only a nation divided against itself needs to start the political process of secularization, not necessarily to destroy the belief of the 1% or to forcefully convert the 99% or to physically annihilate one faction (although this could certainly happen as a perfectly legitimate part of the secularization process). As such, the neutralization of the state may take the form of a religious genocide, but more often it has taken the shape of a blanket guarantee of the freedom of conscience and worship.
Religious freedom is not an acknowledgement that every belief is worthy and plausible. It certainly does not imply that every religion deserves the freedom (and the politically enforced protection of that freedom). Guarantee of religious freedom is a politically program that serves a purely political purpose. It only extracts the neutral state from adjudicating which belief is absurd and which is not when the state has reasons to fear a civil war if it chooses to evoke the power to adjudicate the inherent worth of different religions in the realm. Therefore, in a country whose population is completely unified by sincere belief, the provision of religious freedom is absurd and superfluous, and in a country where historically the political leadership could arbitrate religious controversies without any fear of political consequences of its judgment (e.g., China), this freedom is also utterly unnecessary. The secularity of either type of states is beyond doubt because they can wed political policies to religious policies without jeopardizing the soundness of the former; neither type needs secularization because they are secular as they are.
In any other states, secularization is needed and takes place, as I said, as either a genocide or through the guarantee of religious freedom. Obviously, if both sides are incapable of tolerating what they consider to be heresy but also incapable of physically killing every adherent of heresy, the state itself collapses. Some of the mightiest nations on earth still stand today because they made their choices long ago that they preferred religious genocide or religious tolerance to the political division and suicide of the state. Secularization prefers neither genocide nor toleration, but it does prefer both to the death of the state. A secular state, therefore, is synonymous with a strong, stable state: Henry IV thought the edict of Nantes was necessary to build a strong, cohesive body politic, and the Sun King thought himself strong enough to evoke his grandpas edict, and the level of religiosity or the homogeneity of the religious faith among the French population is never relevant to the discussion of how independent the French state was at the time.
The secular(ized) state is thus nothing more and nothing less than a political entity that wants to preserve itself at all costs. Domestically, if only a genocide or religious freedom could bring an end to a civil war, then secularization must entail genocide or toleration; internationally, if the state can only find security in undercutting the national interests of a co-religious nation, then secularization must entail a hostile foreign policy against that co-religious nation. Even a country of homogeneous religious beliefs, even a country of fervent or fanatic religious beliefs, can be considered secular if the country fights a war for its national interests as dictated by politics instead of religious ideals. Four hundred years on, we can now safely say that during the thirty years war many protestant princes did not fight Austria to protect their newly found faith; rather, they converted to protestantism just to have a good excuse to fight Austria (and the worst example is France, which, running out of excuses near the end of the war, had to enter the war against Austria as a Catholic power!) Even in the 16th century, some political minds in France thought of becoming Huguenots just so that they could steer France towards a war with Spain. In other words, a secular state is one that acts in its own national interests, and the religiosity of the population has no bearing on the secularity of the state. In fact, if we look at the historical records of some of the earliest civilizations, having a common religion (and if necessary, creating one) was very conducive to the continuing unity of a primitive community. In that sense, it is a mark of secularity that we become religious for the political sake of secularization.
If some people wanted to instrumentalize their country and put it in the service of some fanatic ideologies and causes, they would have turned back the clock of modernity and negated all the benefit that political secularism brings to modern humanity. These ideologies and causes are the true enemies to the secular state, and they may not even be religious. Conversely, the need to secularize does not exist for religious peoples that have their native political institutions and their autochthonous political process of policy making. A religiously devout people may prefer to have religious officials occupying state offices, or it may prefer not to. As long as the selection of political offices - and no less importantly, the creation of the mechanism of that selection is determined domestically and strictly within the political boundary of the state and by a political constituents of that states citizens and as long as the political officers of the state vouch to serve the interests of their nation and their constituents and nothing else, the secularist credential of that state cannot at all be questioned. For the secularist is but a great patriot who devotes all his passions exclusively to his land, its culture and morals, which includes its religious traditions, and wants what is best for it.
