Iqbal,
Re: Jack Straw quote --“We sometimes forget that secularism when taken to extremes can be just as oppressive as a society permeated by religion,” he said
Yes and no. Secularism was taken to an extreme in 1776 when the rebels and terrorists in the North American colonies of Britain decided to throw off the yoke of aristocratic oppression. And that was a good thing.
Secularism was taken to an extreme by the Bolsheviks and their successors in Mother Russia, and it proved to be too much modernization too fast for a stultifyingly ignorant peasantry.
In the former case, in America, secularism prevailed for 200 years, until dark forces (whom you admire) started to stealthily destroy the minds of the populace and reduce them once again to a superstitious bunch of no-nothings. In America's case, we are much worse off than we were 200 years ago with regard to silly superstitions subverting democracy.
In the case of Russia, God help them all, neither the Orthodoxy of the Tsarist regimes, nor the secular oppression of the Leninist/Stalinist totalitarians made the lives of the people much better.
However, the Enlightenment was never a factor in Russia, and was only a fleeting and brilliant experiment in America which the vile and despicable cabal surrounding George Bush hope to extinguish as soon as possible.
Whither humanity? There seem to be so few good models today.
Certainly we can agree that George Bush has more interest in being a despot than in being a democrat, can't we? |
