This is probably true, most of my reactions are fueled by the worst of what I see from the muslim world. I don’t know how widespread the presume barbarism I expect exists in day to day form, but I’d rather not test it.
Unfortunately, peaceful day with no religious violence doesn’t make for great headlines. Now don’t get me wrong, there are many many problems with Islam and I have critiqued them elsewhere, but I’d still rather live in an Islamic Democracy as long as it had a bill of rights, separation of powers and rule of law, than a Secular Dictatorship.
A lot of European democracies are monarchies, as is Japan. And Australia. And Canada… “Democracy” and “republic” aren’t the same word!
To take a narrow view of Islam shaped by the worst of it seems a questionable approach to me. I have been to two of the three countries that **coremelt **mentioned. I have drunk alcohol and eaten pork there. The women in my company never wore a headscarf (except when visiting a place of worship). No one has ever bothered us about it. Now I am aware that neither of these countries is a liberal democracy like the countries in Western Europe or North America are. But they are very different from what many Westerners seem to envision.
Why would anyone be arrested? It’s the state doing it.
Oh, Islam is far larger than just the Taliban, though I’m not sure the Taliban would have agreed. Anyway, the Taliban had near-absolute power over Afghanistan, could have made it better, chose instead in the name of their religion to make it worse.
I’m not fond of laws based on tribalism, either, so I’m rather disinclined to be impressed it’s pointed out that people weren’t being condemned because of Ignorance Version A but Ignorance Version B.
I hope you’re typing quietly, then. What if I was sitting next to you? Would I be subject to arrest?
Albania.
Interesting reading so far. It looks like they managed to emerge from USSR control without succumbing to the same kind of sectarian violence that befell neighbor Yugoslavia.
Good for them. Really.
Then pray give me some examples.
What crime have you committed?
Google “Iran execution” and see how far you get down the list before you find something better suited to the 13th century than the 21st.
Islam, like all religions, is based on superstition.
Did that wound your religious feelings? If a judge thought so, I’d be looking at a year in jail, had I said that while in Pakistan.
Now maybe they’re slack when it comes to enforcement and nothing would happen. Maybe there’s only a few well-publicized cases a year, making a few omelettes to keep all the other eggs in line.
Come on now, let’s be realistic here. In Pakistan it’s probably not the government you have to worry about but the dangers of speaking freely about Islamic extremism is very real.
Athiest bloggers in Pakistan also regularly receive death threats and have to take extreme measure to protect their identities.
And to answer your earlier question about which country is being held back by sharia law: Pakistan. I think there is a good case to be made that a large factor in Pakistan falling behind India in economic growth over the last ten years is the rise of religious extremism in Pakistan and the calls for a fuller implementation of sharia. Sharia law had only a very limited role in Pakistan until 1978 and also Pakistan’s growth was almost neck and neck with India until that time. The increasing influence of religious extremism in Pakistan has coincided rather neatly with slowing of economic growth and development.
This is a point of ambivalence for me. In any other country a military coup has dire overtones, but in Turkey there is precedent for the military to occasionally take a democratically-elected government going off the rails, kick it out, reverse some of its worst excesses and then reboot the democratic process. Is it democratic? Absolutely not. Is it a reliable system? Absolutely not - even if all the previous coups resulted in a reinvigorated democracy, there’s always a chance that this time the military might just hang onto power a little bit longer… But it’s a system, however jury-rigged, that has worked in the past.
Conversely, how democratic is what Erdogan was doing? Suppressing or controlling the media, suppressing political opposition, implementing increasingly theocratic policies, conducting pogroms…at a certain point the playing field is so skewed that calling it a “democracy” is barely accurate. I have Turkish friends who have been horrified by the changes over recent years which have reduced the freedoms and increased divisiveness in a nation proud of its blend of secular government and religious faith. It’s a sad state of affairs. (Also note, for those people attributing this decline on “Islam”, that the people opposing it are also, by and large, Muslims. The problem is Erdogan.)
So in this specific case we have a dictatorship that may not be a dictatorship and an democracy that isn’t very democratic. At least the food is nice…
How’s the weather?
Whereas in Western countries such things only happen with regard to important topics, like online gaming and and remakes of 1980’s comedy films.
Presumably you’re talking about “GamerGate”. Now exactly how many people have they killed? 4Chan trolls make threats all the time, but they seldom follow through on them.
I didn’t say anyone had been killed - you mentioned death threats and measures to protect identities, and that has happened.
And while you handwave away these threats as mere trollery, it’s worth noting that both the subjects of the threats and the police have taken them very seriously, seriously enough to formally investigate, to cancel public events and in some cases to move home. So not just frivolous internet hijinks at all.
Yeah, get back to me when someone in the west is hacked to death by a machete because they had a disagreement over gaming journalism.
Where did I say this? Muslims can have democracies all day long. I just don’t want to live in one.
I don’t give a shit. It would still be better - and safer - than living in an Islamic country.
There are degrees of dictatorship and degrees of islamisation in countries. To say you’d prefer any secular dictatorship over any islamic democracy is a pretty naive. Go for a holiday in Bali (Indonesia) some time, it’s a pretty pleasant place. Jakarta is a shit hole but there’s some really nice cities in Java, Sumatra and Borneo that I’d have no problem living in.
Ok, have fun with that.
I would rather shoot myself in the fucking skull than live in any Muslim country.
Yeah, get back to me when you stop moving the goalposts.
“Muslims are bad because they do X!”
“But we do X too!”
“That doesn’t count because we don’t do Y.”
“I didn’t say anything about Y. We were talking about X.”
“Whatever, loser. Come back when you have proof of Z.”
Very constructive. Meanwhile, Brianna Wu continues to get so many threats two years later she employs a full-time staff to deal with them.
Your loss. Recent turmoil aside, Turkey is beautiful.
Let me guess you’re from the US, don’t have a passport and have never visited any country which you needed one for?
To each his own. I’d prefer Tirana over Chihuahua any day.