This weekend I attended the Freedom Festival in Amsterdam. A three day event dedicated to what  the organisers called a celebration of dissent.  At the festival we heard from writers, activists, journalists and filmmakers who fight for human rights and equality. The majority are self-confessed atheists, many have suffered persecution, even death threats as a result. All  support secularism as a way to reduce religious persecution and defend the rights of women and minority groups. Although many also identified as ex-Muslim, their lives and work are now in the West.

Religious intolerance and populism are rising in tandem.

They told me they were fighting here too as religious intolerance and populism appear to be rising  in tandem. In Poland, Russia, America and even Britain, populism is on the rise. Russia is another, more extreme, example. With it, we also often see a rise in the power and dominance of a state sanctioned religion. What role does secularism have to play  here? Can it be used as an antidote not only to theocracies but also against the rise of populism that we see right here on our own doorsteps?

Secularism means the separation of religion and state.

Let’s be clear, secularism here is taken to mean the separation of religion and state. It has nothing against religion per se, but sees no role for it in the governance of a country or its state institutions. Atheism is not the same although many secularists  are atheists and visa versa. Atheism includes all those who question the existence of a god, any god.  Polish activist, Elzbieta Podlesna, told us how she was arrested and interrogated for hours after placing images of a ‘rainbow madonna’ around the town of Plock. She added a rainbow halo to the head of the Black Madonna in order to protest the Catholic Church’s intolerance for LGBT rights.

Accused of ‘provoking the tiger’ (understood to mean the Catholic Church in Poland), her actions were also taken as an affront against the Polish state.  Leader of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), Kaczynski, has explicitly equated attacks on the Catholic church with attacks on the state of Poland. He maintains that there is no history of Poland without the church. Indeed, Podlesna tells us that PiS came to power with substantial support from the Catholic Church.

‘Religion is the last barrier to gender equality’ – Shevchenko

Ukrainian activist, Inna Shevchenko, who lives in exile in France since her arrest and torture by the KGB, speaks too of the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in Putin’s Russia. A devoted feminist, she sees religion as ‘the last cultural barrier to gender equality’. She also recalls how, growing up in the decades after the collapse of the USSR, many people suffered and turned to the church for guidance.  The Orthodox Church has for centuries played a powerful role in the Russian state.

When Putin came to power in 2000, he lost little time in re-establishing its authority to bolster his own power base and present himself as a bastion of Western Christian values. Church and State have also presented a united front with regards to Ukraine. The decision of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to break free of the Russian Orthodox Church after over 300 years of subservience was seen by many as part of the Ukraine’s wider bid for freedom from Russian influence. The split was facilitated by Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko.  

Strong links bind the Trump administration and Christianity – Annie Gaylor.

 Putin’s role as a defender of traditional Christian values has resonated with a number of conservative figures in America. Few can have missed the Trump administration’s championing of traditional Christian values which they view as the bedrock of American moral and cultural identity. Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom from Religion organisation (1978), the largest of its kind in the United States, spoke with us about the strong links between religion and the Trump administration. This is perhaps most clearly seen in the recent push by the Republican government to undermine abortion laws in various states.

But the Freedom from Religion organisation is fighting the Trump administration on a number of other fronts too. It is currently challenging Trump’s religious liberty executive order, which stops the IRS from revoking a church’s tax-free status if it chooses to support a political cause. “This financial threat against the faith community is over. No one should be censoring sermons or targeting pastors’ said Trump when he announced the decision. The appointment of  hundreds of ‘Christian friendly’ judges at various levels of the judicial system,  including the Supreme Court, is also cause for concern. Some of these appointments are for life, Gaylor explains. This means that these theocratic judicial nominations could continue to undermine equal treatment for non-Christians far into the future.

‘Britain is not a secular state.’ – Maryam Namazie

The rise of identity politics was a key issue of concern raised at the Freedom Festival. Veteran secularist and human rights campaigner, Maryam Namazie, involved in organising the festival, has spoken out in Britain against the involvement of religion with state and the resulting decline in rights of women and minority groups. The Iranian born, ex-Muslim maintains that Britain is not a secular state although it is a largely secular society. The Queen is the head of the Church of England, there are Bishops sitting in the House of Lords and they have prayers in Parliament. She also spoke out against the introduction of Sharia law councils in Britain as far back as 1984. Namazie sees identity politics as an essentially limiting force. One designed to control difference rather than embrace it.  She points to the Brexit party’s promotion of ‘Britishness’ which is fundamentally exclusive.

Perhaps a focus on individual rights rather than group rights is the answer. If religion and belief are recognised as personal matters, the rights of all individuals are protected. ‘The politics of difference (and superiority) have always been a pillar of fascist and racist politics whether that difference is based on race or – as we now increasingly see – ‘culture’’, maintains Namazie. A common respect for humanity, irrespective of background and belief is what secularism has helped promote. Let’s not lose sight of this fundamental achievement.