{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.017634854771784232, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.348684210526316, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Secularism at the Turn of the Millennium in the Context of its Adversaries

This chapter continues some themes started in the previous chapter and examines the attrition of secularism socially, politically and culturally, towards the end of the millennium. It discusses the turn taken by erstwhile left-wing and nationalist members of the intelligentsia, to pander to what was considered to be popular sentiment, and their acceptance of claims to represent society made by Islamist forces, now coming into their own. This period saw an increased prominence of sentimentalist, identitarian attachment to the Muslim past, and a common insistence on the exceptional character of Islam, often in hostile or at least disparaging contradistinction to previous claims to universalism. The chapter discusses the attrition of the state’s secular credentials, and its patronage of conservative forms of religiosity, first against the Left, later as a form of social control.