From the World Policy Blog
The Long and Winding Road to Secular Democracy
By Nick Danforth
December 9, 2011 - 11:15am
Following the electoral success of Islamist parties in Tunisia and Egypt, a vexing question is once again in the news: how can Islam and democracy healthily coexist? Unfortunately, debates over the importance and difficulty of separating "mosque and state" often become confused by the obvious (if seldom stated) comparison: the evolution of secularism in Christian Europe.
After a decade's worth of arguing, everyone seems happy to stick to their rival assumptions about Christianity and Islam— Some people take it for granted that Christianity was always more secular, some find this idea too ridiculous to even discuss.
But assumptions have dangers. Those who only see the fundamental differences between Islam and Christianity too often conclude that if democracy cannot prevail in the Muslim Middle East, autocracy might be a safer choice. Those who follow their (usually reliable) instinct to focus on the similarities, however, often cannot explain the success of Islamist parties as anything other than a reaction to secular autocracy. Seeing the counter-intuitive chain of events that led to secular democracy in Europe will help both sides better appreciate the challenge facing the Middle East.
There really was an important historical difference between church-state relations in the Christian and Islamic worlds— but certainly not because Christianity itself was any more secular than Islam. Rather, the separation of church and state in Europe took shape from the unique institution of the Vatican, and its millennia-long fight against the separation of church and state. In fact, for years the only thing church leaders and their monarchical counterparts agreed on was that church and state should be united. They just disagreed over who should be holding the reins. And this fight for power kept church and state at odds.
Full article: http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2011/12/09/long-and-winding-road-secular-democracy
