Secularism has been associated with democracy since its inception in Europe a few centuries ago! Secularism would not have survived and flourished without a real democracy on the ground. Democracy would not have been able to raise its banners in many European countries, were it not for the fact that secularism had been established from its presence in the hearts of the peoples of Europe.
Secularism removed the divine right of kings to rule the land, and then followed that by removing the church from political authority and disrupting the control of the “owner of the Holy See” over public life, and then democracy took over the organization of the tools of government in a purely civil mood, which completely contradicts the belief of the “Unique Great” English king, who He used to say that God created the world in the form of a triangle, in which one side rules, one side prays, and the third side serves the two sides of judgment and prayer! That is, the task of the people is limited – according to the owner of the divine right to rule – to serve the king and the clergy!
The “dualism of secularism and democracy” was born and strengthened in European Christian societies for three main reasons, in my estimation:
The first is political, which is the disengagement between kings and popes over the management of political powers.
The second is social, which is the need to limit the absolute powers of the ecclesiastical clergy over the common people.
The third is economic, which is the abolition of the feudal system, which derives its existence from the power of the clergy and the absolute control of kings!
This dualism arose in a similar Christian community. Later, it moved to other Christian communities with its own limitations. And it succeeded in every “existence test” because it was based on one nature, one reference, and one future! It grew with time and its products diversified, and it proved to be the “best mixture” for Christian Europe, which was suffering in the Middle Ages under the weight of division and discord!
Then what next?! The demography is changing little by little in Europe and America. The pure Christian society, which was educated and democratized in order to rule itself, began to receive new waves of immigrants who carry different religions and faces that do not resemble the features and faces of the people of the earth! While the benefits of the dualism of secularism and democracy were specific to its first producers, new groups entered its shadow, and began to demand the same rights and benefits that this duality conferred on the indigenous population!
Then what next?! France, which in 1905 developed its secularism as amended by a law separating church and state and preventing official government agencies from interfering in the “religious behavior” of citizens, has in recent years noticed the size of the growing Islamic presence in it, so it decided to abandon the “1905 secularism” implicitly assigned to Catholic Christians, and begin to Besieging the Islamic religion under the rubric of fighting “Islamist separatism”!
America, which was built on purely secular foundations, and which “does not establish a law that respects a religious institution, or prohibits its free exercise,” according to the third president, Thomas Jefferson, has now put its security services in mosques and Islamic religious gatherings, monitors the rise of Islam among Americans and works to ensure that Do not have a prominent presence in the country’s cultural and social reference!
And just as France and America do, Britain, Germany, and Italy will not allow secularism, which dyes societies there with an Islamic color, and will not be satisfied with democracy, which brings a Muslim president to rule the country. There is nothing wrong with secularism and democracy, which brings a Muslim mayor, but when it comes to the presidency of the state, let secularism and democracy go to hell!
Saudi writer
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