ABSTRACT
It is not by chance that the organizers decided to hold this seminar in Tunisia; for from here was launched the Arab Spring’s intifada and revolution that brought autocracy in this country to an end. Democratic elections, in every sense of the term, have been held – elections that brought new faces to political power and were emulated in more than one Arab country. The paradox is that one-and-a-half years after the Arab Spring a new debate about the relationship between state and religion has begun, although the issue itself is not new and has been raised on several occasions in the past few years, if not decades. However, returning to this issue at this extraordinary moment in time is highly justified because some of the old activists, i.e. the Islamist political movements, are now in power. When we speak of Islamist movements, we are actually talking about their culture and practices and the programmes they have gradually begun to implement. Among these is the relationship between state and religion, the subject of this seminar.
