[Opinion] Secularism

The book titled “The God Delusion” is very popular these days. The author of the book is Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins, who wrote “The Selfish Gene” and sparked fierce discussions in evolutionary biology circles two decades ago.

“The God Delusion” has ranked 1st among humanity books, selling 43,000 copies just one month after being published. It is remarkable considering the big volume of 600 pages contained difficult messages. In the case of humanity books, 7,000 copies are enough to be listed as bestseller. “The God Delusion” has become the most powerful bestseller across the country since “My Trip to Look at Cultural Heritage” by Yoo Hong-jun in 1993.

In “The God Delusion” the author claims that there are religions behind 9/11, terrorism, the Iraq war, the crusades, witch hunting, the division of India, the Jewish genocide, and women’s circumcision. Based on secularism and atheism, the professor harshly criticizes religion, which has long been considered sacrosanct. Secularism puts confidence in human rationality and excludes religious interference in politics, economics, and societies, claiming that social problems should be solved by not religions but by states. Human civilization has been accompanied by “the division of politics from religion.”

With the possibility that Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul of Turkey will win the presidential election, Turkey is recently engaging in hot debates over secularism. Turkish people seemed shocked that Gul’s wife ordered hijab. Turkey put a ban on the usage of hijabs in school and public institutions. The opposition party, military, and legal circles are now strongly opposed to the recent move towards Islamism. Under these circumstances, Mr. Gul seems to have retreated saying, “The principle of secularism defined in the Constitution will be respected.”

After building the republic of Turkey in the aftermath of the First World War, Mustapha Kemal has been getting strong support from his nation. Even though 99.9% of the population is Islamic, he rid turkey of the Sultanate and amended the Constitution in order to divide religion from politics because he thought a religious country could not have a bright future. Consequently, Turkey turned into the only western and modern state in the Islamic world.

By the way, when will the Taliban, which is strongly against secularism, set the Korean hostages free?

Heo Seung-ho, Editorial Writer, tigera@donga.com