To be fair, though, if AK84 is Muslim (which I gather he is), then there could be some good reasons for him (and his daughters) not to move to India, especially as a Pakistani Muslim. For one thing, a Muslim Pakistani seeking to immigrate to India would probably come under fairly close political scrutiny, and might well be denied authorization to work in some particularly security-conscious areas. More crucially, Muslims as a religious minority face serious discrimination and violence issues in India (although certainly not in every community or from every non-Muslim). Religiously motivated attacks on Muslim communities sometimes include gang rapes of Muslim girls, as alleged in this incident and this one.
Of course, that’s not to argue that Muslims in South Asia never commit any crimes or atrocities themselves, or that Hindu-on-Muslim violence is never alleged or exaggerated for political effect. But it does illustrate why a Muslim Pakistani might feel that living in a majority-Muslim country, even one as autocratic and sexist as Saudi Arabia, might be in some respects a safer and freer proposition than living in India.
Not as far as life expectancy goes, though; nor has India changed as much as you might think in this particular respect. According to 2005-2010 world life expectancy data, life expectancy in Saudi Arabia is 70.9 years for men and 75.3 years for women, while the corresponding figures for India are 63.2 years and 66.4 years respectively. (Pakistan’s in the same boat, though, with 65.2 years and 65.8 years respectively.)
Excellent point, so I must admit my error. Let me rephrase:
India ain’t perfect, but would you rather live there or in Saudi Arabia? Except, of course if you happen to be part of the ~1% of the earth’s population who is a male, Pakistani Muslim. In that case, you too can be an exalted member of one of the most repressive societies on earth.
From what I’ve gathered from people who’ve lived in Saudi Arabia you’d be vastly better off as an American Christian than a Pakistani Muslim in Saudi Arabia.
There are quite few Pakistani guest workers there and according to multiple sources, the attitude towards them is “a dime a dozen” and they’re treated incredibly poorly. Amongst other things, female domestic workers are often forced to have sex with their masters and are abused by the master’s wife/wives.
Domestic workers in the Middle East, from whatever land of origin, are indeed often treated like the lowest turd in a shitpile.
Educated white-collar types in high-paying business/IT-type jobs, though, generally have a pretty nice life as far as material living conditions go, and I’m assuming that’s the sort of professional context that AK84 is talking about.
As Winston Churchill once remarked, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government – except all the others that have been tried”.
Democracy, in and of itself, is no panacea. It is, however, better than various flavours of autocracy.
From reading history and political theory.
Dunno what you are talking about here. I suspect you are seriously confused about the meaning of the term “democracy”.
That the US is a democracy is of course no guarantee that it will adopt a foreign policy that you or anyone else would find acceptable.
All democracy means, at its lowest common definition, is that the government of a country is legitimized by the will of the people of that country.
There is no gurarantee that such a nation will be less beligerent - though, historically, as a point of fact democracies do tend to be less warlike, at least as against other democracies.
Yeah, I get it. I knew this all along I just wanted you to spell it out so that I can ask a simple question - why would you not apply this to Muslim countries then?
Replace “US” with say “Egypt” or “Iran” and it still works, right? Oh, it does not because… well, uhmm… because… they might want to start a war… we dont like them, no, no,… they dont like us… they want to destroy us so as 1st order of democratic business we will destroy them. BS, man!
What do you mean? Of course I would. I said upthread:
Turkey is a democracy, as is Indonesia and Malaysia (though the latter two are on the low end of the transparency and accountability scale) - all “muslim nations”.
I do not regard Iran as a democracy. Its “elections” have about as much legitimacy as those of the Soviet Union - for one, all candidates have to be vetted by the authorities, and for another, the true power still resides in an unelected council of religious types.
newcomer, I think you may be missing the point I noted in post #80 above: it is also possible (and standard) to interpret “democracy” in a systematic way as a quantitative measure of political freedom and openness in a society, not just as a particular structural feature of a political system.
The Democracy Index that I linked to in that post gives an example of such an interpretation. It assigns every ranked country’s political system a numerical value based on a combination of factors like the role and effectiveness of popular elections.
In this ranking, the #19-ranked United States had a Democracy Index score of 8.11, whereas India at #39 scored 7.30.
Egypt at #115 has an index score of 3.95, and Iran at #159 (ninth from last) scored 1.98.
You can critique the motives of particular US foreign-policy decisions all you like, but that doesn’t mean that there don’t exist reasonably objective and consistent yardsticks for what makes one country more democratic, in a quantitative sense, than another. And by those standards, yes, countries like Egypt and Iran are notably less democratic even than the less-developed flawed democracies such as India and its near rankmates like Israel and Slovakia and Lithuania.
Minor observation regarding that list, and it may be of little or no significance. It’s not until Australia at #6 that we see a country with a population over 10 million, and Canada at #8 that we see a population over 30 million, and those numbers remain standouts until Germany at #14. I’d guess it’s easier to score high on the Democracy Index if a country’s population is relatively low.
Newcomer your references to Iran make little sense and are, at best, wildly outdated.
Are you trying to suggest the US doesn’t want Iran to be a democracy?
It’s no longer 1953.
In fact, the US would have been delighted if the Green Revolution had succeeded, because a more Democratic Iran would almost certainly be less aggressive and bellicose than the current undemocratic one.
I agree. For one thing, smaller countries tend to have higher electoral representation levels (more reps per citizen) and thus are more responsive to electoral will.
I agree in principle but I’d rather dig deeper into the matter.
I’m noticing in the debates that quite a number of people simply ignore certain relationships between events in not so distant history.
You cannot even attempt to understand Iran if you don’t take into consideration two major events that contributed to the current state of the affairs. One is of course installing the Shah in 1953 and another is utter destruction of society at any level that happened just next door in 2003. And then, 1979 as a pinnacle moment for Iranian society that still defines levers of power and defines mechanics of the society.
Now, if you’d like to have a debate where you want to say that all of that does not matter and where – naively, in my opinion – you are suggesting that it’s no longer 1953 then you will decidedly come up with totally different conclusions and plan of action. If you start from the position that Iran is the “aggressive” party and ignore impact of 2003 Iraq war it had on the countries in the region, then again you will decidedly come up with totally different conclusions and plan of action.
I don’t think US wants Iran to be democracy and the simplest proof is existence of Saudi Arabia and several other “friendly” authoritarian countries in the region. In fact, I cannot believe that there is grown person who has witnessed last 30 years of how things went down around the world who can still make such a ridiculous claim.
When I say US I don’t mean some individual on Dope boards; I don’t even mean “government” that we see with their public news conferences and C-SPAN live Congress/Senate debates; I rather think of behind the scenes movers and shakers who are using mechanics of US government and inner workings to steer the debate and generate critical mass of a paradigm saturation that makes dropping bombs on Iran as “logical” as “if A>B and B>C then A>C”.
Finally, you seem to be under impression that an average American voter has larger impact on actions of US government than average Iranian does on Iranian government. To me, that’s the most dangerous idea ever.
Firstly, the true islamic teachings already include aspects about treating each other well and with respect. Also men and women have their responsibilities. Of course the reality is many muslims practice something else like conforming to traditions and keeping “face”.
Another point is that if democracy is where the people decide how to be ruled, and the people of a country want a theocracy, then who’s to say that that is wrong. From my point of view Islam has the necessary teachings and laws to govern a country. Also the muslim people don’t have any problem being under the rule of Islam. (I know I didn’t when I lived in Saudi Arabia) So when discussing what government is right or whatever you should from the people of that country’s perspective.
Also the muslims had their “Golden Age” during the Abbasid empire which preceded the Ottoman empire. Many branches of science like algebra and astronomy bloomed during the 11th and 12th centure gregorian. So I don’t understand why the muslims have to cope with “rationalism”. There are a lot of irrational muslims but that is only because they have a narrow view of life and can’t see the bigger picture, and they don’t have some virtues like patience and understanding, which is why they have a lot hate. Islam teaches these virtues but doesn’t teach narrow-mindedness and hate. That comes from people themselves.
I would have to disagree; Islam, Christianity, Judaism: none of these has what is necessary for the government of a country. They do not intrinsically address the leadership, the legislature, the issue of revenue, the question of succession, etc. They are not incompatible with a national government, but a government requires a hell of a lot of details, laws, treaties, regulation of trade, etc., which no religion incorporates organically.
You can have an Islamic Republic – but the Republic will need a lot of work to establish, much of which does not come from the Islamic texts. Islam doesn’t speak of a Parliament, for instance, let alone how long the terms should be and how representative districts are to be drawn up.
at bolded part. Pure genius!