Youths

Youthful look.

The Middle East is a land steeped in religion so much so that some of the people I meet find it hard to imagine how a person can be a "free thinker", as we say in Singapore. I remember the shocked look on the Iranian couple's face when I told them that a large number of Singaporeans are "free thinkers". I also remember them asking where did all the "free thinkers" think they came from if there was no God; a question which I could not quite answer. Everywhere you go in the Middle East, be it Iran, Syria or Lebanon you see examples of religious devotion; shrines on street corners, religious inscriptions, people in prayer and icons on display. And contrary to popular believe, it is not just Islam that is being showcased in the Middle East. It may be the dominant religion but most definitely not the only one, as this photo of two christian youths posing by a Damascus street side shrine shows. Perhaps this show of religious display, apart from the fact that the Middle East is the birthplace of the three major monotheistic religions, is due to the fact that the Middle East is a very old land. Modernity has not really taken hold here yet. Which to me is not necessarily a bad thing. It may be a fallacy on my part but it would appear that modernization is always intricately intertwined with secularism and the restriction of religion to the private sphere. Is this a tenant of modernity?