From the desk of Friedrich Hansen on Tue, 2011-04-12 10:27
Tony Blair as representative of the Middle East Quartet recently argued that understanding Islam is key to dealing with the Arab revolution that keeps rocking not only the ruling elites in the Middle East but also their relations to the West.1 We might add that lack of religion in the West and Israel is also an issue to the extent that religion is incapable of transcending the obsolete Right-Left divide in politics. However this might be achieved by the post-secular discourse between East and West. As will become clear in the following paragraphs there are good reasons for reviewing secularism and religion and trying to get rid of political messianism that has corrupted the Enlightenment. It might also set the stage for the recovery of a souvereign human soul – the God-send arrangement that had been uprooted by the French Revolution and ever since been eclipsed by rationalist enlightenment philosophy.