POSTS
Reign of the Secular State
By hisham
While Arab, and in particular Islamic countries, face an uncertain future in terms of defining their own presence in the global arena and developing a hegemony of sorts that will help them shape their own destinies, it is worth examining the underlying roots and foundations of Western, and in particular, US hegemony.
The Renaissance called for reason, it called for a revival of the human spirit through science, discovery and the arts. It was the search for the inner by looking at the outward, at the physical realities of the world, as opposed to a metaphysical state of awareness.
While Gnosticism within Christianity has held its course for hundreds of years, enabling the same inner and outward dichotomy that the Renaissance had, there was the unfortunate subversion of Christianity’s foundations for the purpose of king and country, of feudalism. However, from the Peasants Revolt to the French Revolution, there was an imminent, if not consistent, push by Europe’s populace to tear apart this artificially created annex of state and religion and absolute monarchies.
It is such reaction by the peoples of Europe that has an unmistakable secular drive. That drive is further exemplified by America. A country that claimed its independence not only from European colonial powers, but also from the outright hold religion had on the politics of the old continent.
The result is a country that reached a level of secularism so as not to only have it reflected in its sciences, arts and discoveries, but also in its foreign policy and across its wide spectrum of political offices. Once such a view is taken, it liberates notions that any other political entities attached to a set of theopolitcal manifestations are inferior, backward and can be easily reckoned with to maintain a presence of power and control over strategic interests.
The effect of Europe’s secular past and today’s American hegemony, provides for a worldview that works to undermine the grip of any foreign political conventions that would prove disadvantageous to Western interests. Take for instance the notion of Orientalism. As Edward Said points out, it is a form of anthropology that is marred by colonial political influences and strategic requirements of maintaining power over a people that inhabit lands with certain economic advantages.