[Paradoxically, modern politics cannot really be separated from religion as the vulgar version of secularism argues it should be - with religion having its own sphere and politics its own. The state (a political entity/realm) has the function of defining the acceptable public face of "religion"... But I think that the phenomenon as a whole - that is the phenomenon of Islamism - as well as comparable religious movements elsewhere in the world ought to make us rethink the accepted narratives of triumphant secularism and liberal assumptions about what is politically and morally essential to modern life. The very existence of these phenomena should make us rethink our assumptions about what is necessary to modernity. Postsecular Interrogations: AsiaSource Interview with Talal Asad (December 16, 2002)
Professor Asad, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center, is the author of Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, 1993) & Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, 2003. by Debashish on Wed 20 May 2009 11:10 AM PDT Permanent Link]
Evidently, the "vulgar version of secularism" relied on a blinkered ontology to spread its empire. It can easily be dethroned if we are armed with The Life Divine. [TNM]
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