Comments on: Misspeaking, Misrepresenting, Misleading

By: Devil's Mind

Devil's Mind — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:36:27 +0000

This is obvious in Turkey\France cases. If secularism as you described would relief religious minorities from marginalization, isn’t what France\Turkey did regarding Hijab marginalizing to Muslim women?! The flaw of the proposal is obvious, and includes some type of hypocrisy… But secularism is not a system of hypocrisy, so it’s obvious that France\Turkey’s laws are not secular, but rather a scam under the cover of secularism!!

By: Devil's Mind

Devil's Mind — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:15:21 +0000

I agree with you, but it seems that you don’t nail the cause of the problem. You say: “And of course, once that happens, citizens who don’t belong to the majority religion find themselves being increasingly marginalized.”
There I agree with you that this problem is real, but I think that you misidentified the cause of the problem. Secularism is not the proper solution to this problem. Liberal democracy is the more proper solution. Allow me to explain.

Majoritanian democracy has well-understood flaws. Thomas Jefferson one of the Founding Fathers of the American constitution said this: “A democracy is nothing more than an angry mob, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
So in short, democracy by it nature allows the majority of people marginalize the minority, whether in religious aspects, political or otherwise. So I would say, the problem is not in religion itself, but the system which allows that majority to take away the rights of the minority.

So yes, secularism -the way I am describing- combined with majoritanian democracy would lead to problems, but the problem is not in the secular part, but rather in democracy itself!!
But once we implement a system that respects the rights of minorities, it is still important to implement secularism, and it will give very fruitful results when combined with a sane system to build on…

By: Craig

Craig — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:18:38 +0000

Devil’s mind,

There are people who claim the same as what you say Craig, but those people are anti-religion and are using people’s ignorance of secularism to promote their ideologies as secularism!!

I think you misunderstood my comment. I’m not anti-religion. I’m a Christian, myself. Your opinion of seperating the spiritual from the worldly seems to only work in one direction: you would have religion protected from government interference. That’s only half of what secularism is. Equally important (or perhaps, more important, since it was the aspect the founding fathers of teh United States were concerned with) is keeping religion out of politics. Out of government.

The “disaster” is that once governments start acting according to religious considerations, they become increasingly theocratic. And of course, once that happens, citizens who don’t belong to the majority religion find themselves being increasingly marginalized. Or even persecuted. The risk on the other side is that having an irreligious secular government may eventually result in ALL religions being marginalized by acts of government. That is why government is prevented by law from interfering in religion, and religion is prevented by law from interfering in the functions of government. Both sides are critical.

By: Misspeaking, Misrepresenting, Misleading « Islamophobia Index

Misspeaking, Misrepresenting, Misleading « Islamophobia Index — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:01:50 +0000

[...] Tololoy’s Box This entry was written by irfghan, posted on April 2, 2008 at , filed under Hijab, Turkey. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. « Imams, soldiers, schools and the NUT [...]

By: Devil's Mind

Devil's Mind — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:57:29 +0000

If I may ask, what disaster that you refer to is going to happen?! Enlighten me if I am missing something!!

By: Devil's Mind

Devil's Mind — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:34:16 +0000

Not really Craig, the problem that secularism is solving is the “special” treatment of religion. NOT elimination of religion. And you cannot deny people of their constitutional rights if they are involved a religion.

There are people who claim the same as what you say Craig, but those people are anti-religion and are using people’s ignorance of secularism to promote their ideologies as secularism!!

It can be easily seen that any law that is anti-religion is obviously giving religion a “special” treatment, and hence is obviously hypocritical and self-defeating…

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:08:04 +0000

In this view, religion becomes roughly equivalent to an ideology or a political party…

That is incorrect, Devil’s Mind. The whole idea of secularism is to REMOVE religion from politics. If a religious ideology starts getting involved in politics, it should be sanctioned. The protections have to work both ways. Religions are protected from government, and government is protected from religions. If you only enforce one side of that equation, it is a disaster waiting to happen.

By: Tololy

Tololy — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:22:41 +0000

I did leave this post as a comment on the article over at Slate. Here is the link to the discussion board where it appears, and where you can find other readers’ opinions on the piece: http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/82694/ShowForum.aspx?ArticleID=2187795

By: Peter S

Peter S — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:31:27 +0000

“If you read Applebaum’s article, and you must in order to understand this post, you will find that she has practiced deliberate picking and choosing for arguments, quotations”

So, she’s been “fisking”

By: Devil's Mind

Devil's Mind — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:35:44 +0000

Obviously, France’s and Turkey’s interpretation of secularism is mistaken… Secularism is defined as separation of the state and religion, which literally means that the countries laws should not recognize any religion of any form.

In this view, religion becomes roughly equivalent to an ideology or a political party… This means that there should be no restrictions on who joins or leaves those religions, and no restrictions on the practice or expression supporting those religions.

Practically, secularism would mean several things, like: No religion classes in public schools [religion classes become either after school, or in private schools], No religious quotas in parliaments [like quotas for Christians here in Jordan, that nonsecular], No support by the government to religions [No tax-exempt status, or banning eating in public in Ramadan]…

Banning any form of religious symbols or religious practices [except those that include criminal activity] would mean recognition of the state of religions, and hence is self-defying, and contradicting the concept of secularism!!