Freedom of religion—and freedom to be an apostate, agnostic, or atheist—depends on the existence of secular space where civil society can function free of religious authority.  Such freedom is particularly important to women and to sexual, religious, and political minorities.  But even before 9/11, secular spaces all over the world were under siege by authoritarian religions and their state allies even in the US, where the constitution separates religion and state but politicians still feel fundamentalist pressures.

Arab Spring demonstrated that vast numbers of people in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly the young, do not want to be governed by either Western-sponsored dictatorships or theocracies.  During the period of military dictatorships, Islamist parties built a base by dispensing aid to people whom neoliberalist policies and corruption had made desperately poor.  Now these parties have become the main beneficiaries of what were secular revolutions, and are pursuing demands for the implementation of “shari’a law,” including polygamy and coercive dress codes, and pressing for limitations on freedom of expression and religion.

Similar problems exist in Asia and Africa, where Islamist parties advocate blasphemy laws, polygamy, and coercive dress codes.  They also violently attack any form of religion of which they do not approve; and promote parallel authorities with their own conceptions of justice.  In Nigeria, Islamists bomb churches and massacre civilians, while in Pakistan, those who dare to oppose the blasphemy laws are murdered to the applause of lawyers. 

Nor is the problem of fundamentalism confined to Islam: in Uganda, Christian fundamentalists have introduced the death penalty for homosexuality; in Latin America and the US, anti-abortion measures are spreading like wildfire because of an alliance between evangelicals and the Catholic Church; and in Israel, discrimination against women by ultra-Orthodox Jews has become a burning issue.  Meanwhile, all over Europe, discussions of still-existing racism have been replaced by discussions of Islamophobia, as though problems of political and economic discrimination were purely cultural.  

In all these places, just as we resist tendencies by Western powers to conciliate with fundamentalists and dictators for the sake of oil, we must be alert to tendencies among liberals to support fundamentalist projects in the name of multiculturalism, or to frame all conflicts in terms of religious identity. The great democratic wave now sweeping the world calls not only for free elections and free thought, but for jobs, economic justice, and equality.  It opposes both neoliberal economic control and fundamentalist social control.