No, secularization seems like too soft a term. The opposite of “sacred” isn’t just “secular,” it’s “desecrated.”
Here’s a sample of what the United States has done in this region in the 160 years since it declared war on Mexico, launched a military invasion, and used the 1948 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to acquire 525,000 square miles of western territory (the present-day state of New Mexico as well as Arizona, Nevada, California, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming):
- Open nuclear tests in the desert
- Ongoing active weapons testing
- Long-term nuclear waste storage
- Past uranium mining on Pueblo land
- Plans to open new uranium mines
- Coal mining in the San Juan Basin
- Fracking for oil and natural gas
- Methane venting
- Lethal pipeline explosions
Funny, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was officially titled the “Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic.” From a ground war, to peace and friendship, to developing the atomic bomb here in no time flat. Sometimes we seek the exact precise word for a situation, and other times we throw words around like they mean nothing at all.