Word: secularize
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...college in the Connecticut colony which would eventually settle at New Haven. The last clerical president, the Reverend Thomas Hill, Class of 1847, who resigned in 1868 to accept a better-paying job as minister of the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine, was eventually succeeded by the secular and scientific Charles William Eliot, Class of 1853, who served for forty years...
...democracy agenda that dominated U.S. foreign policy after 9/11. Two factors have contributed to that change. The first is the reality that free elections in places like Lebanon and the Palestinian territories have handed power to fundamentalist groups like Hizballah and Hamas that have little interest in pluralistic, secular governance. Whatever the ultimate benefits of implanting democracy in the Middle East, in the short run it's more likely to damage U.S. interests than serve them...
...embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 with the loss of more than 200 lives. In its pursuit of its own narrow - if understandable and perhaps laudable - goals, the U.S. has ignored the radicalizing effect that its actions will have on Somalis. Somalis have a long tradition of moderate, secular Islam and regard al-Qaeda's call to arms against the U.S. and its allies as more exhortations by interfering foreigners. But that could change. Iraq showed how calling someone al-Qaeda and then attacking them can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Add in the unhappy American experience of Somalia...
...fate of the peace process, in other words, may be decided by what happens in places like Migron. As Israeli society has grown more secular and less attached to the vision of a greater Israel, ideological splits have emerged among the settlers. The most radical "hilltop youths" are ready to mobilize and resist the government's attempts to remove them. Many like Harel are second-generation settlers, the sons and daughters of older Zionists. They have grown up steeped in holy books and prophecy and see themselves as the first line of defense against the Arabs. They consider themselves divorced...
...differences between the two parties go much deeper than the personal feuds of their leaders. The Awami League came of age during the liberation struggle in the early 1970s when Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan. The party paints itself as the protector of those early secular, nationalist ideals, and a bulwark against radical Islam. The BNP, which is closer to Pakistan and embraces political Islam, argues that it is more religious and tougher on crime. During its recent stint in power the BNP counted on the support of fundamentalist Islamic parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami, sparking Western concerns that...