Edited by the Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology

Politics is a messyanic business

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08 February 2010Politics and religion are idealised as separate domains in secular western democracies. Indeed, this division has come to represent the definitive ‘good’ in the so-called clash of civilisations between the Christian west and the Islamic non-west. The practice of western democratic politics, however, relies heavily on competing faiths, on card-carrying followers, and yearns cyclically for a messiah to lead its true believers (and the rest of us political heathens) through the valley of death, parting or riding the flood waters of change as they go. Governmental politics, ironically, is a very religious practice

Publication typeReport
Publisher TypeAPO Member, Journal
CoverageAustralia
Permanent URLhttp://apo.org.au/node/20355

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