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Posted
"Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race."
President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan

Musharraf on BBC

North Africa and the Middle East held the worst record of press freedom in 2003, Reporters Without Borders said Monday, noting that 17 journalists were killed in the Arab world, which it said is beset by various abuses and reinforces self-censorship in the media.
Lebanese Daily Star

Or get the bureaucratic story here: United Nations Report

Is the Islamic world going through a Reformation that Christians went through 500 years ago?

Should peaceable Asians/Westerners suffer while other "clueless" non-Confucian, non-Buddhist, non-Western, people (ie. Muslims) learn to "get it"?

"Get it?" Are Muslims sexually frustrated? Is that the "root cause"?

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Posted

Pinning all the blame for the problems of the Arab and Muslim world on Islam (as though it were a singular, monolithic entity), while ignoring the broader, more tangible social, political and economic factors at work, is ridiculous.

America...."the worlds largest, best-armed shopping mall."-Ivor Tossell
Posted

If it were just my opinion, then you would have reason to dismiss it. But I am quoting the President of Pakistan, the UN (in fact a board of reputable scholars) and a respectable Lebanese English-language paper quoting 'Reporters Without Borders'.

I don't know if the problem is Arab or Muslim. (eg. Indonesia and Malaysia are not, it seems to me, stable societies like Thailand or even, Argentina - but they both seem different from Syria. On the other hand, Christian Lebanese or Christian Palestinians seem as much caught up in this as their Muslim compatriots. So, let me switch to 'Arab World' instead of 'Muslim World'.)

You are right that the Arab world is no monolith. There is tremendous diversity, and more important individual families trying as best they can to have a decent life.

Let me consider one idea.

If you walk in any Arab city, you will see few women on sidewalks. (The ratio is perhaps 10 men to 1 woman, and she is likely to be non-Muslim.) It is execptionally rare to see a woman driver. (Non-Arab Teheran is an exception. In Saudi, it is illegal for women to drive.)

Most young Arab men complain about how difficult it is to marry; they must have a good job, an income, money. (It is the Indian dowry in reverse. In Saudi Arabia, having several wives is in fact a sign of wealth; many Arabs work in Saudi precisely with this goal in mind.) I won't go in to the subterfuges, often using modern technology, that young people use to communicate.

It is not wrong to say that the family honour lies between the legs of its female members.

JMCC Report

If you want to know who the JMCC is (I've never heard of them but they seem legit), check here:

About JMCC

Around the world, for the past hundred years or so, there has been an ongoing revolution in relations between ordinary people. Ordinary people can increasingly decide for themselves.

Women are increasingly free to choose.

The Muslim/Arab world seems unable to face this revolution. Individuals want to face it in their daily life but they can't. Why is this? What is the problem? This is only one point. There are others.

Posted

The Islamic world needs to go through a reformation, but I'm afraid I don't see a lot of sign of it. I think the current interpretations of Islam are bound up in cultural behaviours from hundreds of years ago, and both have been frozen in time. There are some countries trying to move forward, such as Turkey and Jordan, but the steps are incrimental. And too many Muslims are violently opposed. Islam has grown a rigidly patriarchal society, and now it is that society, that culture, rather than just their religion, which reinforces ancient attitudes.

Of course, it doesn't help that there is so much poverty and ignorance in the Muslim world. But even among educated Muslims we often hear utter nonsense, especially about Jews and Isreal and the West, and equality between the sexes. Did anyone catch the Sixty Minutes show this evening on Muslims in France, or the way Arab TV's Al Jazeera covers the Iraq war? Or the story in the Toronto Star today on "Honour" killings in the Muslim world? Absolutely appalling.

Right now I think one of the problems of the Muslim world is they have dictatorial governments with little interest in the welfare of their people. This leaves the people following clerics - who are like as not ignorant and full of reactionary opinions and beliefs often derived by a poor understanding of their own religious texts.

I have no idea what the solution is. I think one columnist suggested not that long ago that a "cordon sanitaire" might be required around much of the Islamic world if their fundamentalists get any stronger and any more violent. I hope it doesn't come to that.

"A liberal is someone who claims to be open to all points of view — and then is surprised and offended to find there are other points of view.” William F Buckley

Posted
If it were just my opinion, then you would have reason to dismiss it. But I am quoting the President of Pakistan, the UN (in fact a board of reputable scholars) and a respectable Lebanese English-language paper quoting 'Reporters Without Borders'.

I'm not disputing the fact that many Muslim countries suffer from a lack of freedom. However, this often leads to people confusing correlation with causation and blaming Islam itself for the lack of fredom, when it is merely one factor among many.

America...."the worlds largest, best-armed shopping mall."-Ivor Tossell
Posted

This is interesting. Yes, of course, there is a difference between Arab and Islam. And this lack of freedom is hardly confined to the Arab world (or Islamic) world.

But if we are to discuss international affairs, some context is useful. The rest of the world does not view life the way the CBC does.

With that said, a few details to consider: The guy's aunt helped. His daughter hasn't disowned him. He has set up a Gay Muslim group.

While still a teenager, Mr. Hussein began a clandestine affair with a family "slave" named Amber, a gift to the family from King Hussein's uncle. "Because of the strict segregation of genders in Arab culture, there is a lot of closeted homosexuality," he says.

Gay Refugee Case

Posted

Dear Argus, and all,

The Islamic world needs to go through a reformation,
The root of Islam is the Koran, and in it lies every rule and guideline for muslim life. Some children are brought up with the Koran being the only book they have ever read (and memorized).

The notion of a 'reformation' would be anathema, for it would then doubt the word of God, the most unthinkable crime in Islam. To even suggest that the Koran may be 'erroneous' is to invite the death penalty in many countries.

All religions must be 'put on trial' if the world is to ever become a better place.

Would the Special Olympics Committee disqualify kids born with flippers from the swimming events?

Posted
All religions must be 'put on trial' if the world is to ever become a better place.

I agree with that 100%. In fact, all religions should be abolished. They are nothing but an impediment to man's progress.

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

Posted
The notion of a 'reformation' would be anathema, for it would then doubt the word of God, the most unthinkable crime in Islam.

I am very uncomfortable drawing a comparison between two religions but let me do it anyway.

In the 15th century, the idea of reformation of the Catholic church was anathema too. But it happened.

IMV, it is impossible to understand ben Laden without understanding Savonarola.

The root of Islam is the Koran

More gravely, the root of Arabic is the Koran. Jesus Christ, or the Buddha, never spoke modern languages, their words were never recorded and so we today only know about them through various hearsay translations. There is no agreed upon version of the Bible. (Some Christian fundamentalists absurdly see some kind of special insight in the 'English' wordings of some versions.) Buddhists really have no single text at all.

For Muslims, the Koran (in Arabic) is the word of God as reported by his prophet. By chance, Islam arrived when technology allowed for genuine transcription. (This is disastrous for language which must evolve.)

------

IMHO? I always liked the line in Jesus Christ Superstar:

If you'd come today you could have reached a whole nation

Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.

If God ever sent an offspring, messenger, prophet or informer among us, wouldn't God choose a time when the message passed better? Give or take a couple of thousand years, what's the difference? So, why not opt on the side of clarity?

Posted

Dear August1991,

Buddhists really have no single text at all.
Text means little compared to the philosophy, and the text is mostly comprised of what not to eat and tales of Mr.&Mrs. Whombegot.

Would the Special Olympics Committee disqualify kids born with flippers from the swimming events?

Posted
Dear Argus, and all,
The Islamic world needs to go through a reformation,
The root of Islam is the Koran, and in it lies every rule and guideline for muslim life. Some children are brought up with the Koran being the only book they have ever read (and memorized).
Yes, that's my understanding, which is one of the reasons Muslims make me very uncomfortable. In my opinion the longer they cling to this the more backward they become. The world is moving forward, becoming more tolerant, more understanding, more sophisticated and cosmopolitan, and the Arab world is determinted to keep its cultural value system sunk in the sixth century.Will Arabs still be sawing off thieves' hands while we're colonizing Mars and journeying to nearby star systems? Will Arab familes still be getting together to decide who kills a female relative because she dared to be seen walking unchaperoned with a male? Even into the twenty second and twenty third century?

"A liberal is someone who claims to be open to all points of view — and then is surprised and offended to find there are other points of view.” William F Buckley

Posted
Yes Argus.

It's sad.

Sadder still for the moderate and secular muslims, who are saddled with these extremists, but can't stomach the Americans.

Maybe the "moderate" and "secular" Muslims, presuming they are the vast majority, should get together and bring a little order to their world. Maybe they should stomp on fanatical hatemongering clerics who spew venom at Americans, Westerners and Jews and urge suicide attacks and martydom on ignorant, illiterates. Maybe they should do away with schools of Islamic hatred which preech the the most virulently hateful version of Islam all over the world - funded, in most part, by the Saudi government. Maybe they should start putting laws in place to imprison armed islamic groups, and families who murder their girl children because of some imagined "disgrace".

But you know what? That ain't happening. Even here in the west we hear only grudging condemnation of the fanatics and radicals. And, in fact, the clerics here in Canada are often little better than the hatemongers spewing venom in Syria, Iran or Yemen. Do you know that the chief cleric in Ottawa actually said that Muslims could not possibly have been behind the 911 bombing? That it had to be Jews?

"A liberal is someone who claims to be open to all points of view — and then is surprised and offended to find there are other points of view.” William F Buckley

Posted
Maybe the "moderate" and "secular" Muslims, presuming they are the vast majority, should get together and bring a little order to their world. Maybe they should stomp on fanatical hatemongering clerics who spew venom at Americans, Westerners and Jews and urge suicide attacks and martydom on ignorant, illiterates. Maybe they should do away with schools of Islamic hatred which preech the the most virulently hateful version of Islam all over the world - funded, in most part, by the Saudi government. Maybe they should start putting laws in place to imprison armed islamic groups, and families who murder their girl children because of some imagined "disgrace".

But you know what? That ain't happening. Even here in the west we hear only grudging condemnation of the fanatics and radicals. And, in fact, the clerics here in Canada are often little better than the hatemongers spewing venom in Syria, Iran or Yemen. Do you know that the chief cleric in Ottawa actually said that Muslims could not possibly have been behind the 911 bombing? That it had to be Jews?

Well, like I said, maybe even the moderates don't like Israel for you know, the Palestinian thing. I'm not going to touch that though. But I think maybe the moderates tolerate the extremists because they agree with some of their message, but I'll go out on a limb and say that they don't like the terrorism nor do they think that it's 'justified', but who knows.

I don't know what they're really thinking because muslim old-Anti-Liberals really, really, really, lol, really strongly don't enjoy my point of view. lol. If you can believe that.

That cleric who said that it was jews who were responsible for 9-11, totally disgusting. Totally vile.

You know, one of the preconditions for comming to Canada is that you leave all your hatred behind at the door and wipe your feet before you come in.

I could have sworn that was a Canadian value.

Hmmm.

Guess it's decaying.

Anyway. If life is so intolerable for that cleric because he has to look and deal with Jews, maybe he should consider a country more to his liking.

I'm not saying throw him out without a trial or a hearing or whatever.

I'm just saying, you know, maybe it's time for some people, if they hate jews and peace-loving Canadians so much, to consider an alternative...like, gosh, Malaysia. I know it's a lot warmer there. Or, say, Saudi Arabia.

I hear Saudi Arabia has a dental plan that rivals even that of Luxumberg. And d00d, you can't beat their beaches. Man, if the wind blows just right, you can see a little bit of leg right through the Burka's.

Dy-no-mite!

Posted

On one side we have turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan and Indonesia to name a few, who have concentrated on advances in science and technology. All of them are majority secular liberal nations and on the road to being a developed welfare state for there citizens. On the other hand we have Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia who are still backward and there citizens are living in the stone ages. They have a lot to do to improve on human rights, open un-censored media, personal freedom of individuals. All of them are being ruled by dictators who cannot provide good administration. It doesn’t help the ordinary democracy loving moderate Muslim in these countries to raise his voice to fight for his liberation when his government can pick him up without a warrant and make him disappear for ever. All these backward doctorial nations are being aided by America (tax payer money in good use, other than Syria). The other question that also arises is what is wrong with America (why aid them to squash freedom and democracy)? Never underestimate the power of the mighty dollar. On a different note the Palestinians are suffering to a degree because of the incompetence, backwardness and military weakness of these countries. It was no act of luck that Pakistan was able to push a super power Russia out of Afghanistan. That country paid attention to educational, scientific and military development (just like Israel). On the other hand all these backward nations have seen the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the hands of Zionist Jews for a very long time and have not been able to stop it. The answer lies in being the other way and end the suffering of there citizens and people surrounding them.

Posted

Some time ago a classmate sent my University class an anonymous article he had picked up, that seemed to me to have a penetrating insight. He was focussing on the Iraq war and the terrorism problem.

He says it started with the fact that in the early years of Islam, the Arabic Islamic Culture was a vital conquering fact. It swept the world from India to Spain, by conquest. It was the intellectual and cultural leader of the world of its days. The crusaders who warred against it were largely uneducated savages. Furthermore, the Koran told them that they would soon dominate the world.

But their expansion was halted. And in the last several hundred years they have seen little but decay and defeat. "Once-great Arab nations became little more than colonies for heathen Europeans, or economic dependents of America. Our enemy is those who inherit the culture and heritage of that empire. Not everyone within the empire's physical realm now partakes of that culture, but many do."

Against that, the western world is prospering (at least in visible ways). "We're everything that they think they should be, everything they once were, and by our power and success we throw their modern failure into stark contrast, especially because we've gotten to where we are by doing everything their religion says is wrong. We've deeply sinned, and yet we've won. They are forced to compare their own accomplishments to ours because we are the standard of success, and in every important way they come up badly short. ... They have nothing whatever they can point to that can save face and preserve their egos. In every practical objective way we are better than they are, and they know it. And since this is a 'face' culture, one driven by pride and shame, that is intolerable."

He goes on to say that for the hard core militants, the key to matching western success [so-called] is heresy, deserting things they consider critical to their faith. So their only answer is to tear down and destroy the opponents, so that their own culture becomes successful in comparison.

I'm sure it's not the whole truth. It does not look at offensive things done by the West at all, nor at the issues around Palestine/Israel. But I think he has caught something that is a major component of the Islamic terrorism, something we need to keep in mind if we're to have any hope of understanding and dealing with it.

Posted
"We're everything that they think they should be, everything they once were, and by our power and success we throw their modern failure into stark contrast, especially because we've gotten to where we are by doing everything their religion says is wrong. We've deeply sinned, and yet we've won. They are forced to compare their own accomplishments to ours because we are the standard of success, and in every important way they come up badly short. ... They have nothing whatever they can point to that can save face and preserve their egos. In every practical objective way we are better than they are, and they know it. And since this is a 'face' culture, one driven by pride and shame, that is intolerable."

He goes on to say that for the hard core militants, the key to matching western success [so-called] is heresy, deserting things they consider critical to their faith. So their only answer is to tear down and destroy the opponents, so that their own culture becomes successful in comparison.

This isn't worth that much at all.

What happened a few hundred years ago only has an echo of a bearing on today's events. Germany and Japan were destroyed in a war fifty years ago, and came back just fine.

A reformation wouldn't help things either. The reformation split the church into various factions and ignited bloody wars. In the end, the churches were still there, and they hadn't changed that much to the naked eye.

The countries we're discussing need to be westernized (of their own free will) in order for them to buy into the west's way of doing things. Human beings aren't so different from each other that such a thing is unimaginable. Iran seems to be taking steps down that road, but the higher levels of government are controlled by clerics.

Of course, that won't stop terrorism from happening, nor will it excuse Israel in the minds of those who think it has done wrong. But it would be a start.

Posted
The countries we're discussing need to be westernized (of their own free will) in order for them to buy into the west's way of doing things.

No, the west needs to change. The only way that the east is gong to change is through violence. Othere than Ghandi (passive resistance) there has never been sucess through peaceful means in the middle east. In order to get our people united with their superior way of feeding, living, worshipping, and higher cultural standards we have to destroy our ichons of power and finance. I say that we should all stop beliveing in our governmental systems today, stop obeying our laws, become tottally free and then, when confusion reigns, adopt Islam and all it's teachings.

If you are Christian, you can probably find a way to adapt but the main thing is' no violence. And, conserve.

Posted
we should all stop beliveing in our governmental systems today, stop obeying our laws, become tottally free and then, when confusion reigns, adopt Islam and all it's teachings.

If you are Christian, you can probably find a way to adapt but the main thing is' no violence. And, conserve.

:blink:

Excuse me, but how do you adopt Islam and all its teachings and hold to no violence? Did you never hear of Jihad? and that's only part of it.

Posted

A Jihad is only necessary in order to fulfil one's promise to Allah. Don't get me wrong, I am no Muslim, rather an athiest (as any sane person would be) but believe that religious tolerance should be our main export rather than our own version of a 'Western Jihad.' After all, two wrongs don't make a right, I suppose in Bush's case, he's going to try to correct it all with three. .

Posted
QUOTE  we should all stop beliveing in our governmental systems today, stop obeying our laws, become tottally free and then, when confusion reigns, adopt Islam and all it's teachings.

If you are Christian, you can probably find a way to adapt but the main thing is' no violence. And, conserve.

Excuse me, but how do you adopt Islam and all its teachings and hold to no violence? Did you never hear of Jihad? and that's only part of it.

DAC, I don't think this was a serious post.

Posted

Dear Liberal Krusty,

I am no Muslim, rather an athiest (as any sane person would be)
Only a silly person could be an atheist, for it requires the same blind belief or empirical knowledge as the 'theists'.

There are only a few 'Jihad Joes' out there who believe that Islam is under direct attack from the 'West'. I think that of all the calls for Jihad issued from those few have remained unanswered because the vast majority of the Islamic world also feel that the 'terrorists' spout nonsense.

Would the Special Olympics Committee disqualify kids born with flippers from the swimming events?

Posted

So the thread's subject line reads, "What is wrong with the Islamic world?".

With all the connotations to the specific language used in that header, you all should have come to a conclusion before the question was posted. For instance: "what is" implies that there already is something to talk about, "wrong" implies that what you will talk about is negatively viewed, "Islamic world" reveals the arrogance one must hold in order to ask such a question - as if the "non-Islamic world" is that much "better".

Now that you are all offended by what I say...

The countries we're discussing need to be westernized (of their own free will) in order for them to buy into the west's way of doing things. Human beings aren't so different from each other that such a thing is unimaginable. Iran seems to be taking steps down that road, but the higher levels of government are controlled by clerics.

Of course, that won't stop terrorism from happening, nor will it excuse Israel in the minds of those who think it has done wrong. But it would be a start.

Thats a very scary mode of thinking. The countries "need" to be "westernized" out of their own "free" will. Does that not sound like a propangandized mind to anyone else? There are so many things wrong with this statement I cannot begin...so here are some other scary things (I hope you find them scary...)

-Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations; only 49 are countries (based on a comparison of corporate sales and country GDPs).

-The Top 200 corporations' combined sales are bigger than the combined economies of all countries minus the biggest 10.

-The Top 200s' combined sales are 18 times the size of the combined annual income of the 1.2 billion people (24 percent of the total world population) living in "severe" poverty.

-While the sales of the Top 200 are the equivalent of 27.5 percent of world economic activity, they employ only 0.78 percent of the world's workforce.

-Between 1983 and 1999, the profits of the Top 200 firms grew 362.4 percent, while the number of people they employ grew by only 14.4 percent.

-A full 5 percent of the Top 200s' combined workforce is employed by Wal-Mart, a company notorious for union-busting and widespread use of part-time workers to avoid paying benefits. The discount retail giant is the top private employer in the world, with 1,140,000 workers, more than twice as many as No. 2, DaimlerChrysler, which employs 466,938.

-U.S. corporations dominate the Top 200, with 82 slots (41 percent of the total). Japanese firms are second, with only 41 slots.

-Of the U.S. corporations on the list, 44 did not pay the full standard 35 percent federal corporate tax rate during the period 1996-1998. Seven of the firms actually paid less than zero in federal income taxes in 1998 (because of rebates). These include: Texaco, Chevron, PepsiCo, Enron, Worldcom, McKesson and the world's biggest corporation - General Motors.

But hey, at least you're honest in your reasoning, that this is how they will "buy into the west's way of doing things". The idea of "westernizing" could only exist in a totalitarian system. Assimilate or face your demise. Give me all your resources for nothing, and we'll give you the freedom and right to televised opinion, heavily marketed brands your children will grow to insist on buying by the age of 2, the illusion of democracy and capitalism but a higher reality of a publicly funded government subsidizing the corporate olligarchy rooted in the country's own constitution and serving the principle on which the country was born - namely to serve the oppulent and protect them alone from the majority. But this works because once the advanced societies realized you can achieve this by restructuring the minds of the majority (not to mention redefining their language to suit and justify just about anything: Wall Street Journal on US Torture), instilling devices to turn members against each other, the rest of the work really falls into place and you end up producing a GWB Jr. You're right about one thing, we're not all that different. Do you not see you contradict yourself? If we're not all that different, isn't there also "something wrong" with us? What is "us" anyways?

I am not anti or pro anything...just trying to iron out illusions. People seem to value real principles, but do not realize they do not actually exist.

Posted
Thats a very scary mode of thinking. The countries "need" to be "westernized" out of their own "free" will. Does that not sound like a propangandized mind to anyone else? There are so many things wrong with this statement I cannot begin...so here are some other scary things (I hope you find them scary...)

Maybe it would be less scary if I had said "in order for us to get along peaceably with these countries, they would need to want to be part of the same world as us".

-Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations; only 49 are countries (based on a comparison of corporate sales and country GDPs).

-The Top 200 corporations' combined sales are bigger than the combined economies of all countries minus the biggest 10.

-The Top 200s' combined sales are 18 times the size of the combined annual income of the 1.2 billion people (24 percent of the total world population) living in "severe" poverty.

-While the sales of the Top 200 are the equivalent of 27.5 percent of world economic activity, they employ only 0.78 percent of the world's workforce.

-Between 1983 and 1999, the profits of the Top 200 firms grew 362.4 percent, while the number of people they employ grew by only 14.4 percent.

-A full 5 percent of the Top 200s' combined workforce is employed by Wal-Mart, a company notorious for union-busting and widespread use of part-time workers to avoid paying benefits. The discount retail giant is the top private employer in the world, with 1,140,000 workers, more than twice as many as No. 2, DaimlerChrysler, which employs 466,938.

-U.S. corporations dominate the Top 200, with 82 slots (41 percent of the total). Japanese firms are second, with only 41 slots.

-Of the U.S. corporations on the list, 44 did not pay the full standard 35 percent federal corporate tax rate during the period 1996-1998. Seven of the firms actually paid less than zero in federal income taxes in 1998 (because of rebates). These include: Texaco, Chevron, PepsiCo, Enron, Worldcom, McKesson and the world's biggest corporation - General Motors.[/url]

Yes, I believe this is all true.

But hey, at least you're honest in your reasoning, that this is how they will "buy into the west's way of doing things".

The influence of corporations is one of the aspects of our current western civilization, but I don't know if you could say it's the defining influence.

Maybe this is what the argument is about.

The idea of "westernizing" could only exist in a totalitarian system. Assimilate or face your demise.

Not if the people of these countries want to westernize.

Give me all your resources for nothing, and we'll give you the freedom and right to televised opinion, heavily marketed brands your children will grow to insist on buying by the age of 2, the illusion of democracy and capitalism but a higher reality of a publicly funded government subsidizing the corporate olligarchy rooted in the country's own constitution and serving the principle on which the country was born - namely to serve the oppulent and protect them alone from the majority. But this works because once the advanced societies realized you can achieve this by restructuring the minds of the majority (not to mention redefining their language to suit and justify just about anything: Wall Street Journal on US Torture), instilling devices to turn members against each other, the rest of the work really falls into place and you end up producing a GWB Jr.

Essentially, yes.

If these countries are eventually going to be on the same team as us, this is how they'll have to look.

I'll leave your perspective on our western civilization intact, even though I don't entirely agree with it.

You're right about one thing, we're not all that different. Do you not see you contradict yourself? If we're not all that different, isn't there also "something wrong" with us? What is "us" anyways?

Oh, yes, there is something wrong with us. And the title of the thread could be "what's wrong with western countires". And in such a thread we could discuss the ways that the west would have to change in order to be more like the "Islamic world".

I am not anti or pro anything...just trying to iron out illusions. People seem to value real principles, but do not realize they do not actually exist.

I probably agree with you more than you realize.

I was just discussing a practical problem, which is something along the lines of "How would George W. Bush's ideal vision of a new Iraq come into being ?".

But I do think that the systems used by many of these countries are inferior to our (deeply flawed) systems, and that it's possible for them to evolve (yes, evolve) to a system of informed secular democracy that's superior to ours in a few years.

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