A study in the political economy of relativism and universalism

Hamid Taqvaee

Introduction

The following is the transcription of the opening remarks for the International Conference on the Religious-Right, Secularism and Civil Rights held on  11-12 October 2014 in London. Hamid Taqvaee is a Marxist thinker and the Leader of the Worker-communist Party of Iran. He is a political and social commentator and analyst who has had a significant impact in the development of Marxist critique of religion in Iran and the Middle East. He has been an influential figure in the Left and opposition movement in Iran in the 1970s and following the Iranian revolution. He has written numerous articles and been interviewed extensively on Iran and other issues.

_________

Secularism is an achievement of the modern era and a pillar of civil society. But today we are in a post-modern era. The era of denial of universal values! Socio-politically, secularism is no longer in the mainstream. It is in the opposition. It is an idea that we have to fight for again.

The same is true for civil society as a whole. Civil society is- or used to be- based on modernism, civil law and nation-states, as opposed to the religious-ethnic-sectarian societies of the middle ages. Citizens were- at least legally- equal members of society, regardless of their religion or ethnicity or cultural background.

Politically, the golden rule of democracy was one person (or one citizen), one vote;one society, one law. Not anymore! Not according to post-modernism. Now society is considered an amalgamation of different identities based on religions and ethnic groups, and the state is defined as a coalition or combination of the heads of these groups.

For example, in Iraq in the last decade the structure of the state and ruling apparatus has officially consisted of a Kurd president, Shia prime minister and Sunni head of parliament. The autonomous Kurdistan in northern Iraq is ruled by a different sect of Kurds as well. That was the official deal between the US and its allies with the different religious and ethnic groups in post Saddam Iraq.  (Now with ISIS, this balance has been disturbed and the US is trying to add more Bathists and Salafis to the pot. They are trying to solve the problem by adding to its cause!) It is the same case with Afghanistan and the Loya Jirga.

This is the new meaning of democracy and society, not only for the Middle East and under-developed countries but here in the west as well. We have to fight against Sharia courts in Canada, for “one law for all” in Britain and against considering the Imams and Muftis as representatives of immigrants from so-called “Islamic” countries all over Europe – immigrants who have mostly fled from the rule of Sharia in their own countries in the first place!

Identifying people not as equal citizens but as religious-ethnic identities with different values and ideals and needs is the core of this regression to the middle ages.

Ideologically, post modernism denies the universal values established by the Renaissance and Enlightenment and replaces them with cultural relativism. According to post-modernism, happiness, suffering, freedom, equality and even humanism as a whole are not reducible to the same human experiences and values. And there is no common model or standard, no common cause to fight for or to achieve anymore! Secularism, not only as the separation of church and state but as the identification and recognition of people as human beings, regardless of the way they believe or not believe in God, is denied. The very essence and nature of humanity is under question!

Why is this? What is the socio-economic root of this?

Why despite the fact that people all over the world connect like never before through social media, and despite the fact that material living conditions, such as electricity, cars, computers and so on, are the same for all the people of the world, and despite the fact that the meaning and the standards of prosperity and welfare have become increasingly universal, the ideas of being different, of multiculturalism and relativism, gain more ground – at least in the mainstream ideology, politics and media? Why the very culture, system of values, philosophy and social relations that created the same material living conditions for everybody are considered relative?

I think the answer lies in the very economic relations that made the world a global village.

At the time of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, the time of the rise of secularism, most of the world – in fact the whole world, except Europe- was still in the pre-capitalist, medieval phase. And the world had to change! What is called Westernization- which was nothing but improvement of the living conditions and progress for the whole humanity – was the imperative of the times.

Westernization is just another name for the globalization of universal values. “Western system of values” is in fact a global achievement – the last step in the long history of the development of human culture – from ancient China and Egypt and Greece to the intellectual and industrial revolution in the west. The European bourgeoisie, through its vanguard thinkers, recognised and promoted this universalism of values because it was in full compliance with its economic and political interests at the time.

The young bourgeoisie of Europe had every intention and every political and economic will to conquer the old world and develop it into a modern and suitable place for bourgeois economy. Landowners and noblemen along with their religion and aristocratic values had to step aside and give way to changes necessary for the labour and commodity market to take shape. That’s the political economy of secularism and universalism. For the young bourgeoisie of the west and its vanguard philosophers and thinkers, western culture and civilization was a true model and ideal for the rest of the world because the rest of the world was not ready for business. Roads and railways and infrastructure for capital had to be built, health and literacy had to be improved and, most important of all, peasants had to be freed from the land and transformed into wage labourers. Those were the very changes in the west that necessitated secularism and modernism. The vanguard and revolutionary west wanted to export its values in order to export its capital!

Now that era is over! Five hundred years after the Renaissance, when capital and capitalism is everywhere, the bourgeoisie has no perspective and no outlook for growth, and therefore feels no need for universalism. In the beginning of 21^stcentury, when capitalism is the dominant force in every country and still Cairo and Tehran and AddisAbaba and Lima are no London and Paris and New York, promoting “western” culture, from the bourgeois standpoint, makes no sense any more. Better not to raise expectations! Now is the time for cultural relativism. Re-enter religions and tribes and ethnic values and whatever make people look different! Re-enter them to justify misery as relative happiness, lack of rights as freedom, and suffering as welfare!

The new world order of the free market can no longer afford to defend and promote “western” values as an outlook for any society!

A few hundred years ago, even fifty years ago, when there still were countries in medieval conditions, we had many different economic models of growth but the same system of social and cultural values (the “Western” system of values which under-developed countries, in order to be transformed into western-like,  capital-friendly societies, had to look up to).

Now it is the opposite! We have different systems of values but the same economic model: Friedmanism and the economics of the Chicago school! Austerity for everybody! Economically, every society is on the same boat but otherwise you are on your own with your own religion and ethnic background and your own definition of happiness and freedom and so on and so forth.

In the post-modern world, economically everybody is the same, but culturally and socio-politically, we are considered very deferent! Material life and material values are universal, but the very culture and philosophy and the system of values that produced those material conditions are considered relative!

This inversion is not accidental. Secularism and universalism are denied precisely because capitalism is universal. What was necessary for the worldwide development of capitalism a few hundred years ago, that is, civil society and universal civil values, now is considered an unachievable illusion. Hence post- modernism! Hence the dialogue and the clash of civilisations! Hence Islamic societies and Sharia law and Loya Jirga and Islamic Republic and ISIS and Boko Haram and multiculturalism and neo-liberalism!

We secularists are facing this regressive world! The ruling 1% is promoting regression and backwardness, and the banner of civilization, the banner of   secularism and civil society is in our hands, representing the 99% of the world! This time not for the free market but for free societies and free people all over the world! Our goal is not only separation of religion and state but defending civil society and the very essence of humanity and humanistic values.

We are fighting for modernism, not against pre-modern feudal forces, but against the post-modern capitalist forces. In this fight, truth and reality, science and technology, and 99% of the people of the world are with us.The very fact that the occupation of Al Tahrir Square at the heart of Egypt’s revolution became an inspiration for Zuccotti Park at the heart of the Occupy movement in New York shows that relativism is nonsense. It also shows how we can overcome it!

Thank you.