Got democracy? From Egypt to the U.S., religion and secularism must embrace women’s rights

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/07/08/got-democracy-from-egypt-to-the-u-s-religion-and-secularism-must-embrace-womens-rights/

By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Published: July 8, 2013 at 10:25 am


Morsi opponents in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The photograph in the back is of Egyptian Army Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, who announced Morsi’s ouster in a televised address Wednesday. Khalil Hamra / AP

The complicated relationship among religion, secularism and the state is perhaps the issue of the 21st century, where religion is globally more and more active in political life. ”God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World“ by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge makes this argument.

Current conflicts in Egypt illustrate this, but it is clearly not just a question for Egyptians, but for many countries including the U.S.

If you want to understand what has to change for countries to negotiate religion, secularism and the state, look to the struggle over the role and status of women. This is the indispensible litmus test for discerning where and how both religion and secularism need to change in order to engage a robust public space that respects the religious and the non-religious alike, and what has to change for these complex relationships to function adequately in a democracy.

Egypt provides an example. It appears that Egyptians are in deep conflict over the relationship of religion, secularism and the state. On Saturday, Egyptian state media announced, then subsequently rolled back, that Mohamed ElBaradei, a former chief of the U.N. nuclear agency, had been appointed Egypt’s interim prime minister.

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