The artificial separation of politics and culture is nowhere more pronounced than in the discourse of foreign policy and international affairs.
The struggle of democratic secularism, religious tolerance, individual freedom and feminism against authoritarian patriarchal religion, culture and morality is going on all over the world - including the Islamic world, where dissidents are regularly jailed, killed, exiled or merely intimidated and silenced.
I believe that we are all, openly or secretly, struggling against one or another kind of nihilism.
As with fascism, the rise of Islamic totalitarianism has partly to do with its populist appeal to the class resentments of an economically oppressed population and to anger at political subordination and humiliation.
