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Showing Original Post only (View all)Islam, as it is practiced by a majority of muslims in the world, is a regressive force. [View all]
Last edited Mon Jul 18, 2016, 09:54 AM - Edit history (11)
Majority Muslim countries stand out for their lack of social progress on issues like gay rights and women rights. Generally, progress on such issues is more related to levels of development. The more advanced a nation, the more these nations adopt progressive social policies. The massive exception is places where Islamic political movements hold sway. Despite high levels of economic development, these places remain socially backwards or massively regress when these movements come to power (Turkey, Qatar, UAE etc...).
There are of course very tolerant and accepting strains of Islam, but the undeniable fact is these find very little popularity with the Muslim world as a whole. Denying this does nothing to solve this problem or aid minorities affected by it.
"Although Sikhs and Hindus do sometimes commit such murders, honor killings, both worldwide and in the West, are mainly Muslim-on-Muslim crimes. In this study, worldwide, 91 percent of perpetrators were Muslims. In North America, most killers (84 percent) were Muslims, with only a few Sikhs and even fewer Hindus perpetrating honor killings; in Europe, Muslims comprised an even larger majority at 96 percent while Sikhs were a tiny percentage. In Muslim countries, obviously almost all the perpetrators were Muslims. With only two exceptions, the victims were all members of the same religious group as their murderers."
What can be done about it? I'm not entirely sure myself, I do know that trying to dismiss this problem as unimportant does nothing to help address it. At minimum, it is intolerable that we consider allies and sell weapons to nations with human rights records like Saudi Arabia.
"But Kurska, it is all about Human development and the impact of colonialism"
Alright, lets test that theory. Lets compare areas of the world that have broadly similar HDI's to the middle east; South America, east Asia (excluding Japan/Korea) and South East Asia.
https://www.yahoo.com/sy/ny/api/res/1.2/daVWANQcHZI4WAQPYIQvdw--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAwO2lsPXBsYW5l/
Notice something? Despite having similar levels of human development, the middle east is still massively behind the rest of the world on this issue and I assure you, other issues like this. You can clearly see the HDI plays a role, EXCEPT in areas where political Islam is powerful, where it doesn't seem to matter. The charts speak for themselves.
Again, HDI plays a role yes, except in areas where political Islam is powerful, where it doesn't seem to make a difference.
The Middle East is even worse than Sub-Shara Africa, which has the world's lowest levels of HDI and was heavily impacted by colonialism.
On edit.
I'm seeing this argument in particular.
"But Kurska, you can't expect a nation that built higher HDI on an export economy to not be a socially regressive hell hole"
Okay, lets compare the economic export map of Brazil
To Egypt
One of these nations has gay marriage, the other has homosexuality outlawed. The difference is not an export driven economy largely based on raw materials, the difference is the influence of political Islam.
Funnily enough, Brazil and Egypt both have a similar percent of their economy tied to exports (13%). Once more, the difference is the power of political Islam.