![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
This article tackles the complex relationship between secularism, modernity, politics and religion in the Mediterranean by comparing the Spanish example with the Maghreb. The progress of modernity implies the emergence of “anti‐modern” processes. Logically, secularization, insofar as it constitutes an essential element on which modernism is based, can also provoke fundamentalist reactions. Both these processes are present in the social life of the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. The paper begins by tracing the tension between religion and politics in Spain. Two main issues were involved: the relationship between the Church and the State, and the response of the Church to secularization processes. Nineteenth‐century elites, closely allied with the Church, viewed secularization as inimical to the presumed essence of the Spanish character, and the identification of the nation with an anti‐modernist Catholicism has remained a recurring (if increasingly curtailed) theme in right‐wing and ecclesiastical thought. The Republican process of social modernization and the laicization of the State was brutally interrupted by the implantation of the Franco dictatorship (1939–1975). Under Franco, the nation became Catholic and the irreligious (or more precisely the secularists) “anti‐Spanish”. However, the Franco policy of economic liberalization gave rise to a curious “modernization without secularization and without democracy”. By the end of the Franco period the Church had distanced itself from the regime. Although the Church moved from being a cornerstone of the regime to becoming a factor in its de‐legitimization, the process of the Church's disengagement from politics (and right‐wing evocation of religious values) has not been easy. Whilst the Church has intervened forcefully in the past decades against what it considered the anti‐Catholic nature of some secularist reforms, its effects have been restricted by two independent factors: the growing recognition of the national diversity of the Spanish State, and the process of modernist secularization. The principals of religious faith, national identity and political citizenship can be increasingly separated.
The authors find in the Spanish example parallelisms that allow them to approach in a different way the “modernity” of the Mediterranean North, supposedly connected with the triumph of reason over metaphysics, and the “backwardness” of the South, supposedly the result of a religion presumed to be intolerant and which imbues every aspect of life. They trace the Maghrebi movement from the modernist secular Arab nationalism of Bourguiba and Nasser to either contemporary religious nationalism, or political opposition to undemocratic regimes legitimated by religious fervour. The rise of political Islam is at present tied up with the situation of social instability which is, in its turn, a response to the continuous deterioration of economic conditions, to growing inequalities, and, particularly, to the incompetence of the political regimes. They suggest that this articulation seems to be an unrealistic solution of a populist nature, given that it is incapable of formulating a practical political and economic program expressed by an efficient historical tendency. They conclude that if democratization has proved possible in Hungary or in Poland, no insurmountable obstacle should be able to prevent it from being established in Pakistan, Algeria or Uzbekistan.
Notes
[1] Chadwick Citation1989, p. 24.
[2] For the concept of “occidental world” consult the writings of Corm Citation2002.
[3] Edward S. Said defines North‐American religiosity, closely allied to patriotism, as “a religion of prophetic illumination, faced with the unshakeable conviction of obedience to an apocalyptic mission with no connection to the reality of the facts and their complexity” (Said Citation2003: 22).
[4] For a connection between the processes of secularization and their political repercussion in Europe, see Rémond Citation1998 and McLeod Citation2000.
[5] Alonso reframes the Spanish process of secularization in European context (Citation2000: 137–157).
[6] Michel Camau speaks of “democratism: and of this pretension to hegemony and universality in Camau Citation1993, p. 117.
[7] The identification of Catholicism with nation has been undertaken by William J. Callahan in Iglesia, poder y sociedad en España 1875–1975 (Citation1984) and La Iglesia católica en España, 1875–2002 (Citation2002) and by Frances Lannon (Citation1990: 55–80).
[8] See España en su historia. Cristianos, moros y judíos, Losada, Buenos Aires, 1948, and Intoducción a la realidad histórica de España, Porrua, Mexico, 1954.
[9] On the confessional character which reigned between 1875 and 1931, see Montero Citation2001.
[10] For the important bibliography relating to this subject, consult Aragón Citation1991: 333–342; Suárez Pertierra Citation2001; and De la Cueva Merino Citation2001: 255–279.
[11] See Alvarez Bolado Citation1995 and Raguer Citation2001.
[12] Among the most recent works, see Sánchez Jiménez Citation1999; and Moreno Seco Citation2003a.
[13] Sánchez Jimenez analyzes the evolution from this stage to the later secularization (Citation2001).
[14] An interesting study of comparative history, which reminds us that the political importance of religious organizations and the Church was not confined to Spain but could be found in other European countries, is that of Casanova Citation1993.
[15] Laboa affirms that the transition in the heart of the Church was a “necessary preliminary stage” in the social and political changes (1991: 132).
[16] Asamblea conjunta obispos‐sacerdotes, pp. 38–68 and pp. 73–75. Fernández studies this Assembly in detail (Citation1999).
[17] For a sociological point of view, see Recio et al Citation1990, and Salazar 1987: 105–144 and 507–551.
[18] Salazar 1987: 109. Piñol also rejects the qualification of opportunism with reference to the evolution of the Church (cf. Citation1998: note 10, p. 48).
[19] Rafael Díaz Salazar also comments on its tense and hostile relations with the PSOE (cf. Citation1987).
[20] Cited by González 1996: 371.
[21] See studies like those of Díaz Salazar Citation1987: 93–173.
[22] According to a poll taken by Centro de Estudios Sociológicos, El País, 1 April 2003.
[23] CIS 295–328, Tables 11 and 12.
[24] Cited by Montero Citation1993: 202.
[25] El Pais, 26 Feb. 2004.
[26] Poll of 1982 cited by Montero Citation1993: 214.
[27] Lewis Citation2003: 177.
[28] Khader, Citation1995b.
[29] Ibid.: 79
[30] Cited by García 2000: 113.
[31] An historical introduction to this process by García.
![Supercharge Your Next Research Paper: Research and write your next paper with Jenni AI.]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/112444/Skyscraper-humanities.png"})