(Source)
Almost 80% of Egyptian Muslims say they favour religious freedom and a similar number favour sharia law. Of that group, almost 90% also think people who renounce Islam should be put to death.
Probably we do not expect much from Afghanistan and Pakistan. But What about Bangladesh? Atheists and Islamists have recently been fighting in that country, officially people’s republic with a bizarre state religion. I have no idea whether Bangladesh showed the same conservatism like Egypt or liberal like Turkey. If you do not secularize your country for decades, you will get a disturbing data soon or later. Mubarak didn’t actually do much for secularization. If he did, Egypt would not have become a country of Islamists so quickly. Ex-communist countries are showing the best results so far. Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Russia, Albania are making a bit of sense than most Muslim countries. It is the reward of practicing atheism during communist era. Turkey is also better than many others. It is the result of, I believe, Kamal Ataturk’s efforts on secularization of Turkey that started almost a century ago.
You are wrong if you believe you as an authority should continue building religious schools and prayer halls and continue indoctrinating people to accept that ‘god exists, religion is true, it is a crime to hurt anyone’s religious feelings, infidels should die,’ but people should not turn to be religious terrorists.
Islamic countries are shifting themselves away from the civilized world. They will soon be an isolated monster with their sharia laws and laws against blasphemy. They will either destroy the entire world or they will be destroyed by themselves. It is so alarming!
I know it is politically incorrect to say against democracy. But I am not worried for being called incorrect. The truth is, I sometimes think democracy is not good for some countries, specially not for Muslim countries, where most people are brainwashed with Islamic doctrine. I know I am wrong, I am going against people’s freedom. I must not deny even the brainwashed people’s right to choose. But I can not totally wipe out my thoughts, that, it would be ultimately good for Muslim countries if they get dedicated and honest, non-corrupt and super-strict atheist or secular dictators. May be they do not want to be good. They want to be worst. They want to make their wheels go backwards. I am just a stupid dreamer!
Utter madness, back to the dark ages.
They will not destroy the world. They will destroy themselves as they limit freedoms, education, progress.
A country that enacts theocracy and sharia law is like people who get bad tattoos.
They’re gung-ho to do it and don’t think about the consequences, not happy until they get what they’re asking for.
Once they do get what they want, they realize it was a mistake.
And then they find it’s damned difficult to get rid of it.
Looks like some countries are very confused about what religious freedom means.
Sentiments like this are how the USSR got started
If there was no oil in the middle east. I don’t thing anybody would give a fuck about Islam. America would be happy to do the same thing that they did to Japan without an ounce of guilt and bathe in blood.
I agree with Taslima. In the early part of the 20th century, after the fall of the Ottoman empire that controlled most of the muslim world, there was a near universal wave of progress toward modernity across these nations. This continued with several secular states being established, progress for science, civil liberties, and women’s rights. This all started to stumble in the 1960 and 70’s as the war in Palestine took on religious tones. As thpse participants continued to define themselves and their causes as ordained by gods, the wave to modern progress was stopped, and replaced by the religious fundamentalist we see in these charts. Note that the most extreme countries include the ones where the US has taken George Bush’s self proclaimed “holy war”..
“I know it is politically incorrect to say against democracy. But I am not worried for being called incorrect. The truth is, I sometimes think democracy is not good for some countries, specially not for Muslim countries, where most people are brainwashed with Islamic doctrine. I know I am wrong, I am going against people’s freedom.”
Don’t worry, dear – democracy has fuck-all to do with freedom.
I’m inclined to think that a system of government is only as good as the people who participate in it. This goes for democracy as well as for any other sort of government.
A completely benevolent dictatorship would be hard to argue against, but real ones can be very bad.
Quote from Taslima: Islamic countries are shifting themselves away from the civilized world. They will soon be an isolated monster with their sharia laws and laws against blasphemy. They will either destroy the entire world or they will be destroyed by themselves.
IT SEEMS TO ME THAT TASLIMA NEVER READ THE HISTORY OF ISLAM. ISLAM AND ISLAMIC WORLD PASSED THEIR GOLDEN AGE WITH SHARIA LAW….READ HISTORY PLEASE. AND NOW, WE ARE WITNESSING WHAT DEMOCRACY IS GIVING TO THE ISLAMIC WORLD….WAR, MASSACRE, KILLING, MASS MURDER, RAPE ETC. AND ONE MORE POINT…THOUGH LOTS OF PROPAGANDA GOING ON AGAINST ISLAM BUT STILL ISLAM IS THE FASTEST GROWING AND MOSTLY ACCEPTED RELIGION IN THE WORLD. THE RECENT CONVERSION TO ISLAM BY DUTCH ISLAMOPHOBE ARNOUND VAN DROONE IS ONE OF THE EXAMPLE. TASLIMA AND HER FOLLWERS PROBABLY SLEEPING OR SINKING….WAKE UP, READ QURAN AND KNOW ISLAM.
The only two arguable democracies on the list of problem countries there… Malyasia and Thailand. And both are questionable.
Democracy has never been present in most of these other countries with religious extremism, and it’s been present only rarely in the remainder. Pakistan has elections less often than it has coups. Lebanon has a religiously gerrymandered government. Jordan is a kingdom. Etc.
Democracies are all very well, but you can’t just establish one overnight by having an election — or they elect themselves a dictator (see “Napoleon III”) You have to prepare people for the vote, by first establishing an independent, respected judiciary and the rule of law.
Yes, nathanaelnerode, that´s more like it.
Taslima,
Europe needed 500 YEARS (!) to leave the witchburning and hereticsburning ages – in fact, we are just about to do it – and our politicians are too often not willing to go along with the majority opinions of their voters.
Additional are about 200 years with a common school system (for girls, more like 100).
That´s why that dumbing down of children per costcutting and market ideology for schools in the US has scared me for some 20 years.
I do hope that technical gadgets and the internet help people to leave Islam much quicker, but it will not be with less pain and struggle.
Please forgive an old feminist if I sound overbearing – I love your website and sign the petitions!!!