the secularization debate

"Curiosity is vital. The finest gift you can give your children is a magnifying glass, so with a little effort they can make their own discoveries."
---Tommi Ungerer.

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Got roped into chairing a session on 'secularization'. Probably the absolutely worst person to do so because: 1) I couldn't give a flying fuck about the debate and 2) there isn't really a debate anyway.

First point: the people who want to talk about secularization here in the land of the pure are usually alienated intellectuals who see "disenchantment" everywhere. In the 'west' and in the good ol' muslim heartlands, there's been a falling away from 'unity' (the fragmentation of value brigade: there's no more over-arching religious perspective and that's a real loss). And, the pseudo-intellectuals go on, in the 'west' what we see is rationalization, capitalism, modernity, call it what you will, with its pernicious effects on the family and a decline in values such as respect, decency, empathy etc., etc.The de-sacralization of the world, the radical disjunction between ourselves and 'nature'. Old hat, really, and ever so tiresome.

One of the speakers (a German fanatic) harps on about how you have to be a 'whole' religious person. You can't be a Christian just on Sunday, and you can't, if you're a Muslim, put your religion in a drawer and take it out whenever you want (you can, actually. Mine's in a cabinet that I save for special occasions). Secularization, the fanatic continues, is the transposition of western categories on unsuspecting Muslims who do not make this distinction between sacred and profane, between the body and the spiritual (if you'd actually seen some of the bodies, you might suspect them of poor aesthetic judgement here!). Jesus! Where's my pistol. More to the point, where's the tea and sarnies?

Those who don't want to talk about secularization are much more straightforward in that they just kill those who oppose their notion of an Islamic state and sharia. But the talkers. To them, to be secular is to be a licentious scoundrel, debauched and drunk. 'Wine, women and kebabs' as the old saying goes. If only!!