Religious Totalitarianism

Tony Blair joins George W. Bush in proclaiming that god told him to invade Iraq.

Violence continues weeks after it became widely known that a Danish newspaper solicited and then published cartoons blasphemous to another's god.

And then twelve internationally renown writers and intellectuals publish a manifesto calling for the rejection of "Islamist Totalitarianism."

At the risk of offending the international intelligentsia, the authors of the manifesto got it only about half right. We stand today at the brink of worldwide crisis brought on by a totalitarian movement, but it is religious totalitarianism of all sorts, not just Islamic totalitarianism, that threatens civilization.

And so, acknowledging the efforts of the wise men who wrote the manifesto and with apologies for presumptuousness, here follows an improved version:

Manifesto: Together facing the new totalitarianism

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: religious totalitarianism.

We, the free-thinking people of the planet earth, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, triggered by the Bush/Blair religious war on Iraq and exacerbated by the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilizations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, religious totalitarianism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. All religious totalitarianism, whether Islamist or Christian, is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the religious totalitarian's domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject cultural relativism, which consists in accepting that men and women of a particular religious culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of being "god-less," an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

Blair: 'God will be my judge on Iraq' - Independent (UK)

A Manifesto Against the New Totalitarianism - Jyllands-Posten (Denmark)