Religious Fundamentalism and the State in the XX Century

Fundamentalism can be defined as the politicization of the most traditional and religious values in a specific society. This is not a phenomenon limited to the Islamic Nations; on the contrary, it is an important aspect of even the most advanced societies. This essay is divided into two main sections. The first analyzes the secularizing revolution of the modern State, and the crises of secular ideologies in the XX Century. The second section explains the emergence of a fundamentalist counterrevolution which, in its struggle against the secular State, has adopted one of three main shapes: fundamentalism as an expression of moral renewal; fundamentalism as a late manifestation of anticolonial nationalism; and revolutionary fundamentalism.