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The first time I heard about secularism and thought about it was when Ansar Hezbollah [an Iranian hardliner para-military group that was very active in suppressing the liberal figures in Iran during the late 90's] attacked Dr. Soroush's speech [Soroush is an Iranian scholar advocating a mild version of secularism], cursing him for being a secular. As a high school student, my curiosity led me to the Separation of Church and State as the core concept of Secularism.
Later I learned that secularism is much deeper than just prohibiting the Church and State from intervening in each other's business—after all, there are secular ethical values, which make secularism more than just a social phenomena—but I think I was confused even about the separation of Church and State for a long time.
Being from a country which is Islamic even in its formal title, my main impression from the separation was taking the control of the state out of the Hawzah's [Shi'ite seminary] hands. I thought this is the Hawzah who is controlling the State and due to its inability to understand the modern world, is causing all sorts of troubles for the Iranian society. After all, the historical experience of the medieval ages had shown how horrible the Church could be in manipulating the State, and so would be the intervention of Hawzah in the State (I think using Mosque as the Islamic equivalent for Church is not correct; Mosque is not an organization as Church, but Hawzah is)
Having Turkey as a regional example of a secular state, I thought the direction of control in a secular state would be reversed: State controls even the speeches of the Friday Prayers; Or at least does not allow people to behave according to their religious beliefs publicly—remember the prohibition of covering heads for the girls in French public schools as well as, of course, in Turkey.
Eventually, I got familiar with a different kind of secularism: the American version! The separation has been constitutionally granted in the US as the following: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ..." as a part of the First Amendment of the USA constitution, among all the other protected freedoms in The Bill of Rights. Surprisingly, there is nothing more about the Separation in the US constitution!
Despite having some similarities, I think the European and American Secularism have different roots: The former one is the result of the establishment of a new form of powerful statehood (or if you prefer nation-statehood) which encounters the greedy Church and demands to protect its authority against it (story of The Henry VIII); but the latter one is a result of the establishment of a powerful civil Society which wants to protect its rights (including the freedom of religion) against the greedy State.
Historically, non-religious groups and activists have promoted secularism and separation in Iran. However, especially after realizing the suppressive attitude of the Islamic Republic toward any independent religious figure, it is becoming more and more essential for religious groups and activists to promote a Secular State in Iran. At least in the past ten years, nobody has been forced to participate in the Tehran's Friday Prayer, but just think about what will the Iranian state do, if a group of Muslims want to have their own independent Friday Prayer in Tehran! This hypothetical example clarifies that, it is the State who controls the Hawzah in Iran, not the reverse as it may seem!
Finally, as a person who tries to be religious, I think religion has a lot to do with politics and there is no way to conclude the separation of politics and religion from the separation of the state and religion. Surely this needs more discussions which I may go over in another post.
Seperating Religion and Politics is like seperating Tradition and Politics; both are meaningless. Democracy has a context and that context is culture and tradition which includes religion. Even here in the States, religion and politics interact.
I truely believe there can be a system respecting individual rights and at the same time consistent with religious values of the society. I am talking about religous values and not religious laws.
Bottom line is that secularism is not in contradiction with religion. There is not enough evidence from islamic tradition to prove the obligation of establishing an islamic political system. Though it is obligatory for a muslim to refer to an islamic judge in conflicts.
All this brings me to the conclusion that we need two judiciary systems in our society.
Sounds like what they have in Israil, I mean the two kinds of judicial system.
Nice article Borghan. The distinction you made about Europe vs. US was very interesting, as was your example of independent friday prayer.
Meanwhile, I am not clear how the transition in your argument goes to establish that "... it is becoming more and more essential for religious groups and activists to promote a Secular State in Iran." I don't want to disagree/agree with this conclusion, however, I think you are making some other assumptions to be able to draw this conclusion, which need clarification.
Moreover, even if we agree that the desired final/equilibrium state of the system is a secular state (rather than separation), one may still think of the optimum transition path to follow a trajectory which passes the separation. Just an speculation, but it seems to me that in the Turkey example, this can be the counter argument for many intellectuals, should they support the current trajectory.
I think the question of *separation of church and state* is an old one and perhaps irrelevant to this era. As long as we ask the same question no matter what the answer is, the essence of the question will remain in the answer. I think the main question of our time is "neutrality of the state toward different idealogy". Therefore, I do not consider former USSR or to some extent USA as idealogically neutral states and consider both of them as dangerous for their people and the world as a fanatic religious state.
Firstly, Turkey is not a good example for a secular country. It may carry that title but my understanding is nothing you see in Turkey is real; everything has a thin layer on the top and beneath that thin layer things are different. Moreover, Turkey is not even democratic; military rules Turkey. Do you remember how they cancelled their elections a few years ago just because the Islamists had won the majority?
Secondly, after the revolution and during the war, most of the people who came to power and held key political positions were either from the church (~Howzeh) or had very close relationship with it. Therefore it is almost correct to say the Church rules the country. But it's important to remember that they don't rule the country for the sake of God, they do it because there is a lot of money involved, having monopolised all the major businesses and commercial activities. The fact that they do everything in the name of religion does not mean religion rules the country. It just happened that the rulling class used to be clerics or have studied religion in Howzeh.
In a country like Iran where people have traditional beliefs mixed with religion, their doctorine was to impose their despotism by preaching and promoting their "own version of religion", and keeping people in complete isolation (of information) and ignorace. The "Vague" nature of religious laws has also helped them a lot; look at the guardian council and how they veto every bill which is against the benefits of the conservative.
Separation of state and religion is useful in this regard: No more vague laws and no more personal interpretation of old, general and unclear religious code. Very clear civil laws will run the community and religion/belief will also be respected in its own boundaries.
Turkey's system is secular, but forcefully. Turkey's experience, I think, is being too hurriedly dismissed as not being democratic. Yes, military has too much power but I think they use it against the most non-democratic streams in their politics. It's not true that Islamists have always been deposed by the army. In fact that has happened just once. The question is: what should they do if the Islamists were to change the whole system altogether?
Clerics running the country does mean that the religion runs the country. How else can religion run the country? I do think, however, that it's not the same aspects of religion at work here as when you constraint it to the personal levels. But I find it a bit meaningless when we talk about convictions, beliefs or religions as some things that seem to exist on their own, independent of their followers. There is no such thing as Islam (or Marxism for that matter) per se with no reference to its believers and practitioners: Muslims in general and clerics in particular.
I don't know if you are following the story in Alabama (click here). About two years ago a judge in Alabama has had a huge monument of Ten Commandments built in front of a court house in Montgomery, Ala. Now the Alabama Supreme Court has ordered the removal of the monument because it’s against Separation of Church and State.
In the states that people are disturbed by enforcing religious rules, like Medieval Europe, the concept of separation grew out of rejecting the religious powers and rising against them. (Rejection of the religion itself came a little bit later in the 18th century). In America it has never been a struggle with religious authorities. Hence no rebellion or rejection has ever occurred against religion. But the separation of Church and State has been there to guarantee people’s freedom (specially the minorities). That’s why in spite of polls showing that a majority of Alabamans support the monument’s staying on the court room wall, the Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional. To protect the right of people choose a religion (or none), the State shall not endorse or advertise any specific religion.
BHS, Up untill early 80's almost all semi-independent goverment were taken down by military in Turkey, and almost the trend was persued well into 90's, therefore it is not happened just once.
WestEnder, Ambiguity and vagueness is inherent in any law be it religious or not. No one can design a legal system that is not vulnerable to interpretation. It's the colletive conscience of a society that prevents rules and laws from being abused by evil minded authorities.
I wonder how those Alabaman's would feel if an Islamic judge decided he was going to install a huge mural outlining the Sharia? How about requiring all women who come before him to cover themselves out of respect for his religion?
I suspect that sudenly they would no longer be so keen on religious statuary. I think a lot of southerners are undermining the constitution, although unwitingly, when they insist on displaying the religious artifacts of the dominant religion.
I thihk the US constitution is an inspired document.
West-ender
I am not sure I understand what you mean by "they don't rule the country for the sake of God"? Who does? All religious governments have used religion to rule over the people. I don’t recall reading about a religious government who uses religion for the well being of its people. For centuries using the name of God (something vague and scary) has been the best way to rule over uneducated people. And I don’t think that it “happened” that the ruling class is religious in Iran. That was a well planned move. Knowing that Iranian society was/is religious and there was a lot of frustration from Shah’s imposed secularism, they had a very good chance to win the hearts of the majority and they did. If a government bases it’s ruling on religion even if it is not the interpretation that some like, then that is the ruling of religion. And I agree that Turkey has a mask of secularism on its face. Isn't it what US wanted for Turkey to be? A secular democratic country?
A few comments on the posting and the comments:
1- I do agree with the Author's point that the phrase "Separation of Mosque and State" is not quite appropriate, however, I find the use of the word Hawzah troubling too. In fact, I think the word is probably the reason why Borghan came to the conclusion that the Hawzah is not controlling State, and that it's probably the other way around. Hawzah, like the one in Qom (a city about 120 Km south of Tehran) for instance, is run in terms of holding classes by a variety of scholars only some of whom are indeed officially part of the regime. Hawzah is not quite like the Church of England and there's no precise counterpart for the archbishop of Canterbury in Iran. So technically (and maybe not practically), there's no individual final authority for the Islamic religion, and therefore, it is rather doubtful if any clergy or group clergies holding power in Iran could justify the phrase Hawzah controlled State. However, as BHS pointed out in his comment, the State is being run by religion in Iran, and so I propose the term "Separation of Religion from State", however inelegant it might sound.
2- As regards Turkey, it is indeed not quite a typical example for a secular state. On the one hand, there's a mandate for governmental agencies and institutions to be secular. Political parties with overtly religious bases are illegal. There's been a long-term ban on the wearing of religious head coverings at universities or by civil servants in public buildings. On the other hand, the state itself is heavily involved with regulating religion, i.e. Islam. For example, state-sponsored Islamic religious and moral instruction in public 8-year primary schools is compulsory and only a few "recognized" minorities (Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, and Jewish) are formally exempted by this law. So I can't quite categorize Turkey as an ordinary secular State. It is of course known and referred to as a secular state in many formal documents such as the U.S. state department's "Annual Report on International Religious Freedom". Turks themselves however usually use the word laic, which is often taken to be synonymous with secular, to describe their form of republic. Technically though, laic is a broader term than secular (McMillan Encyclopedia of Religion, 1994).
3- I think there's a popular misconception that when a country or a form of government is called "democratic", it should necessarily be objective and open about every kind of belief. In fact, democracy is quite adamant and subjective and non-open when it comes to beliefs that contradict its principles. A democracy does not allow holding a referendum for establishing a non-democratic law or form of government, foe instance. I don't know what BHS means by Turkey being "forcefully" secular. It is just as meaningless as saying the U.S. is "forcefully" anti-communist. Different democracies take a tough stance against threats they feel are more imminent to them. The U.S. was just as tough and unforgiving to communism in the 50's as Turkey is to Islamic fundamentalism. I don't deny the fact that many individual rights where violated both in Turkey and the U.S. as a result of this, but I feel Turkey is being singled out for taking a tough stance against the Islamic fundamentalists. I do believe Turkey is a non-democratic country because they have violated the rights of so many of their citizens, committed so many atrocities against the Kurds and because there are explicit laws that clearly violate freedom speech (such as the one that prohibits anyone to show disrespect to the name or image of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk) but not simply because they are tough against Islamic fundamentalism.
4- I think the main reason why religion should not run the state is that it creates a very dangerous combination when mixed with the concept of state law. In a religion, there is no room for criticism. You either accept it (mostly as a package) or you don't. You can choose not to abide by its rules but you cannot call yourself a follower of that religion. As regards state law, you can criticize it, you can push to make reforms to it, but once set, you cannot break it. You cannot refrain from abiding by it. You will be punished if you do so. The combination of state and religion means you have a set of rules that you can neither criticize nor break.
I do apologize for the long comment. Maybe I should have posted it as an article ?
["Well, I read it;" you might say, "now let's close it!"]This is a fascinating discussion. Borghan's initial posting was excellent. I'm hoping the comments posted so far are a reflection of attitudes inside Iran about this emotionally charged topic.
Here are some scattered thoughts.
1. When we discuss the topic of "secularism" we always have to define what we mean by the term? Different people define the term differently which partially explains the confusion surrounding this topic. Does secularism imply atheism? anti-clericalism? state neutrality?
2. In my view secularism is an essential component of democracy. By secularism I mean a soft form of secularism (the Anglo-American version not the French version) where the constitution of the land and the institutions of the state do not allow any one religious group (or group of persons speaking in the name of God) to veto democratic decisions that are are passed by the citizenry.
3. In other words, if the general will is subject to a filtering process (as the Guardian Council does in Iran today) you cannot have a democracy in any meaningful sense of the term. At best you have a partial democracy.
4. There is a lot more on case say on this topic. In my view THE best theoretical work has been done by Professor Alfred Stepan at Columbia University. A few years ago, he had an excellent essay on religion and democracy in the JOURNAL OF DEMOCRACY that I strongly recommend.
Regards,
Nader