Series "Caliphate and Imamate in Islamic Thought"
By the writer and thinker Thaer Salama – Abu Malik
Episode Seventy-Seven: The Secular State Dies of Capitalist Stroke - Part 1
Dr. Abdel Wahab El-Messiri, may God have mercy on him, touches on the vast difference between theorizing the rosy, imaginary definitions of secularism1, and the reality of secularism and what it has become. The definition of secularism as "separation of religion from the state" was valid in the late nineteenth century AD, and the perception was that this separation process would inevitably lead to freedom, democracy and solving society's problems, so peace would prevail on earth and love, brotherhood and tolerance would spread. But the word "state" as it appears in the aforementioned definition has a specific historical and civilizational content. It primarily means direct political and economic institutions and procedures. Many areas of life were still outside the control of the state, and were managed by various local groups, starting from their various religious and ethical systems. The educational system, for example, was not yet subject to the state, and what I call the "pleasure sector" (cinema, tourism agencies, and various forms of entertainment such as television) had not yet appeared. The media did not have the power and hegemony that it has at the present time. Economic operations had not reached the size and comprehensiveness that they are now. All of this means, in reality, that the area of private life was very wide, and remained largely immune from secularization processes.
It is noted that the definition of secularism as the separation of religion from the state is silent regarding the private life of the human being and the major cosmic questions such as the purpose of existence, birth and death, and does not address the problem of the frame of reference and the system of values that members of the same society can refer to.
But developments have marginalized the old rosy definition, including the state's becoming giant and overreaching, and developing various "security and educational" institutions of an octopus-like nature that can reach all individuals and all areas of life, then the media became giant and overreaching, and became able to reach the individual in any place and time, and interfere in his definition of himself and in shaping his image of himself, and in interfering in the most private aspects of his life and the lives of his children, and in shaping their dreams and subconscious. The market, too, is no longer just a market, but has become an octopus-like entity that controls the media and all areas of life, and it directs people's visions and reshapes their dreams and expectations. All of this has resulted in a narrowing and shrinking - and sometimes the disappearance - of private life. In this context, how can we talk about separating religion from the state?! Is it not more appropriate to talk about the hegemony of the state, the market, and the media, not only over religion, but over public and private life. For all this, I found that there is no escape from redefining secularism based on studying what has actually been achieved in reality and not from the dictionary definition, provided that the new definition encompasses most aspects of the reality that has been secularized.
The secularism that has been achieved in reality means that there is a transition from the human to the natural, material, that is, from focusing on the human being to focusing on nature, that is, the transition from deifying the human being and subjecting nature, to deifying nature and subjecting the human being to it, its laws and its inevitabilities, that is, this secularism constitutes a fall into materialistic philosophy. "Comprehensive secularism" is a comprehensive vision of the universe at all its levels and fields, which does not separate religion from the state and from some aspects of public life only, but separates all human, moral and religious values from all aspects of public life in the first place, then from all aspects of private life in the end, until the world is completely desecrated, so that the world (human and nature) becomes a consumable material.
The world from the perspective of comprehensive secularism (as is the case with materialistic philosophy) is subject to material laws inherent in it that do not differentiate between humans and other creatures. All of this means desacralizing nature and humans and transforming them into consumable material, which the strong employs for his own account.
Comprehensive secularism, by its nature, does not believe in any standards, absolutes, or universals, as it only believes in absolute relativity, because in the absence of standards that transcend the human self one mechanism appears to resolve the conflict, which is power, and therefore we find that survival is for the fittest, and perhaps the conflict-based Darwinian system is the closest system to the comprehensive secular model.
Secularism is not a specific, well-defined social or political phenomenon that takes place through clear mechanisms (such as spreading permissiveness) that can be defined accurately and simply, as it is not - as some imagine - an ideology or even a set of ideas formulated by some Western secular thinkers, (and that these ideas originated in Europe due to the nature of Christianity) as a doctrine that separates religion from the state and gives to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.
Whoever studies the phenomenon of secularism as a set of specific ideas and clear practices ignores many aspects of it and therefore fails to monitor it. The term "secularism" as it is used only refers to these clear and obvious aspects that we have referred to, as it is a limited indication of encompassing its meaning. What do you say about this obscure (or brilliant) movie star who talks about her childhood memories, her philosophy of life, the number of times she got married, and her diverse experiences with her husbands, and then the newspapers circulate this news as if it were the wisdom of all wisdom! Describing the statements of this star as being contrary to morality or public taste may be an accurate description, but it nevertheless does not show the role that the star and her ideas play in reshaping a person's vision of himself and his perception of himself and the universe in an unconscious way, perhaps on her part and on the part of the recipient together. End of summary.2
1- [And we also say: And for democracy]
2- Between Partial Secularism and Comprehensive Secularism, Dr. Abdel Wahab El-Messiri. Al Jazeera Net website.
