![]() ![]() The rise of the West had much less to do with democracy than with the rise of secularism. Although democracy began in Athens two and a half thousand years ago, it was for centuries a fragile flower and has blossomed only recently.ĭemocracy, we tell ourselves, is a hallmark of “the West”, the treasure that the rest of the World envies and that accounts for the pre-eminence of Europe and North America in economic progress, intellectual dominance and moral freedoms.īut it's not the case when you examine the chronology. Lords of the Realm in the United Kingdom could not vote in parliamentary elections until 1999. ![]() Spanish women were given the same privilege in 1931, French women in 1944. Native Americans got the vote in the United States in 1924. ![]() ![]() And it rubs in that we should spend more time promoting secularism around the world and worry less about spreading democracy.Ĭonsider some dates. But it serves to remind us once again that fundamentalist religion and Western values do not sit together. If Gillian Gibbons, the British schoolteacher, was not incarcerated somewhere in Sudan, the whole Teddy Bear called Mohamed incident would be comical. ![]()
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