Does the "secular democracy" as defined below exist in reality? Or is it just some desirable goal we long hanker for, but is always out of reach, as in Plato's The Republic? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republic_(Plato)
FN PS: See Pankaj Mishra, "Secular democracy goes on trial" http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/opinion/16mishra.html QUOTE Other nations wearing some of the emblems of Western modernity - secularism, democracy, a free-market economy - hardly offer any guarantees of free speech. Consider, for example, China, India and Russia, three multiethnic and officially secular nation-states that are experimenting with variations on the free-market economy. In all these countries, a growing middle class turned a blind eye to, or even actively supported, the suppression of ethnic minorities in the name of national unity. In democratic India, up to 70,000 people have died in Kashmir in a violent insurgency that the Indian news media have yet to honestly reckon with. In Russian Chechnya, civilians and journalists have been as much victims as Islamic rebels. And such is the power of Chinese nationalism that even most dissident intellectuals in the West feel that Tibet and Xinjiang are part of their motherland. The destructive potential of modern nationalism should not surprise us. Traditional religion hardly played a role in the unprecedented violence of the 20th century, which was largely caused by secular ideologies - Nazism and Communism. Secular nationalism has been known to impose intellectual conformity and suppress dissent even in advanced democratic societies. In America, it was at least partly the fear of being perceived as unpatriotic that held back the freest news media in the world from rigorously questioning the official justification for and conduct of the war in Iraq. UNQUOTE And: AUSTRALIA: Whatever happened to secular democracy? http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/whatever-happened-to-secular-democracy/story-e6frg6zo-1225813998714 Britain is not a secular democracy http://www.thisisexeter.co.uk/news/Britain-secular-democracy/article-239852-detail/article.html On 13 March 2010 02:15, Santosh Helekar <[email protected]> wrote: > Every statement of mine in this thread stems from > three tenets of secular democracy, western as well > as Indian. The three tenets are: > A. Separation of church and state. > B. Freedom of religion. > C. Freedom of expression. -- Frederick Noronha Columnist :: journalism :: editing :: alt.publishing :: photography :: blogging P +91-832-2409490 M +91-9822122436 A:784 Saligao 403511 Goa India
