20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

Ritual and state in contemporary Mongolia. The case of Chinggis Khan 5511981), and does not imply that all the individuals have a secularizedconsciousness. The respective evolutions of society, of individuals, andof religious institutions do not always coincide. In Charles Taylor’sviews (2007), our ‟secular age” is in fact characterized not by an absenceof religion, but rather by the plurality of options – religious, spiritual, antireligious– that secularization has made available. Traditional faiths areonly some of many possibilities that we can use to make sense of our lives.Secularization does not result in a loss but on the contrary in the openingof new possibilities. It changed our experience of the world, our frame ofthought.In this perspective, it can be assumed that modern western countriesare generally secularized, but what about post-Communist societies? Thesesocieties have been deeply transformed, politically and economically; theyhave been industrialized, urbanized, and modernized. Under Communistrule religion had not only lost its influence on the state and as a provider ofnorms for society, it had been excluded from the social and political spheresfor several decades. So-called atheism was the new norm. However, werethese societies as “secularized” and as “modern” as they appeared?Indeed, despite modernization and atheism, populations have sinceturned back to their traditional beliefs, and for some, adopted new ones assoon as the political circumstances have allowed it. In Mongolia if youngpeople tend to reinvest less in the old institutional Buddhism than theirelders, they are also more susceptible to convert to new religions, mainly tobecoming Christians. Although these societies share some common features(official atheism, post-communist religious revival), there is much variationin the patterns that can be observed, as underlined by Siniša Zrinščak:being more or less religious today depends heavily on the socio-cultural andpolitical history of each country. Hungary and Germany differ from Russiaand Poland, and of course from Mongolia. The political environment is ofcourse decisive: in Mongolia a survey carried out in the middle of the 1980sindicated that over 80% of the Mongols had nothing to do with religionor were indifferent to it, whereas a survey conducted in 1994, four yearsafter the democratic transition, indicated that already over 70% consideredthemselves as believers of some sort (Tsedendamba, 13, 59-60). Inthe Communist era being religious was socially unproductive, to say theleast, while today it is the mere words “secularization” or “laicity” thatfor many hold a negative connotation. After decades of communism, theseparation of church and state, a principle written in the new constitution,is now perceived as a guarantee for religious freedom.