Postsecular Plurality in the Middle East: Expanding the Postsecular Approach to a Power Politics of Becoming

Abstract

Embedded in a critically adapted version of Jürgen Habermas’ postsecular approach, this article analyzes empirically and evaluates normatively the role of religion in the Middle East. Integrating and adapting William Connolly’s understanding of political change as power politics of becoming, the argument is that an authoritarian pluralism is evolving that, in contrast to secular nationalism and Political Islam, can be called postsecular insofar as it attempts to integrate more strata of the population into the public discourse, regardless of their religious creed but based on interreligious plurality. The Document on Human Fraternity, signed 2019 in Abu Dhabi, is a prime example of that postsecular trend embedded in power politics. The article concludes that the turmoil of the Arab Spring did not pave the way for democracy but for authoritarian and partisan versions of a postsecular public that try to accommodate the plurality of the Middle East.