Paella wrote on Mar 17^th, 2010 at 5:05pm:


I read it, Paella, and I respect SC's contribution.

When I mentioned Brunei, I was referring to Gross Domestic Product.

What SC's report discusses is a "happiness" index based on average lifespan, emmigration (people getting out), immigration (people coming in - difficult to accommodate), etc, etc - along with GDP as a measure of economic output.

I couldn't see a "provision of welfare" category in this report. You'd think free healthcare, education, etc, would count too, but I couldn't find this.

The interesting thing about SC's report is that it's by a Pakistani national.

And guess what religion he is.

abu_rashid wrote on Mar 18^th, 2010 at 9:34am:


Yeah. The report shows what we might have guessed already. It shows that the "three worlds" model of development is still alive and well today.

1st world: OECD countries
2nd world: OPEC and Soviet bloc countries.
3rd world: Asian and African developing countries/ex-cash crop colonies.

It's interesting that some 2nd world countries have gone up since the fall of the cold war.

What's predictable is that most 3rd world countries have stayed where they were.

I'm sure religion is a factor in national "happiness" levels and -perhaps - even in GDP. The report, however, doesn't mention it.

What it shows is that the developing world has pretty-much stayed the same over the last 40 years or so, despite a few fluctuations, and despite SC's definition of market-driven, Western style democracies.

After all, the IMF and World Bank have imposed this political-economic model onto many developing countries - without success.

Perhaps we need to re-think SC's definition of successful societies.

Either that, or include Brunei, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates among them.

SC?

I know this is rare coming from me, but I tend to agree more with Karnal more than anything regarding this subject. The argument that Islam itself is a primary factor in determining the socioeconomic outcomes of certain nations is a silly one. At least socioeconomically speaking, I think there is a legitimate case to be made that many Muslim nations are far more pleasant places of residence than a great deal of Christian nations (remember that a sizable percentage of the world's Christian population resides in Latin American pestholes.) According to a major global economic index measuring GDP per capita, five of the top twenty nations on the list are Muslim nations, including the very first nation on the list. These places certaninly aren't "pooholes", though as a White, Anglo-Saxon Westerner they're certainly not desirable places of living from my perspective.

There's still a lot more to it than this which I think is worth broaching. Observing these five Muslim states that fall into the top twenty of this list, an obvious pattern emerges that is shared by every one. They're all relatively tiny countries (the UAE being the largest), and they're all mega-oil rich. For the size of the territories which contain their small populations, there's enough oil to sustain the lot of them with extremely comfortable existences for many generations to come. The moment I saw Qatar was the first nation listed on the GDP per capita index I immediately knew what was going on there without even having to look it up. These nations sustain themselves through their surfeit of unrefined petroleum; as in, they use their resources to bring in by the boatload a tonne of skilled and unskilled labour to run their countries for them. The situation is particularly severe in little Qatar, with an estimated four fifths of the population of foreign origin. The Qataris are actually pretty sensible about how they handle this; the nation remains firmly within Qatari, Arabic hands. This is made possible by the instituted reality that if one is not Qatari, one is not a citizen.

It's also pretty amusing to note where native Qataris end up working as well. Apparently about 71% of Qatari natives are working in the public sector (surprise!) I'm assuming these are positions the government tucks away for the natives, the bulk of which I assume are neither inclined to carry out serious work or have the aptitude to do so. The internet seems to be swarming with amusing comments from presumably foreign workers in Qatar concerning what they think about the native population there:

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I think we can all make an educated guess about what's going on in Qatar, though I would also venture that the situation in the other hyper-wealthy Muslim nations isn't that different either. Still, it doesn't really say anything about Islam perse.  

Sprintcyclist wrote on Mar 19^th, 2010 at 8:44am:

You could argue that Elizabeth II by law the head of the Church of England (and its "fidei defensor") makes Britain a Christian country in that its Head of State must be a protestant Christian.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Mar 19^th, 2010 at 8:44am:


So you're saying that there are no Christian countries - but that there are plenty of Muslim countries. I wonder what you'd call a country with "in God we trust" on their coinage. Or a country (Germany) where the Christian Democrats have occupied power for most of the last 50 years.

But getting back to the debate, there are only a handful of countries which have enshrined Shariah law:

"(M)any parts of the Sharia have no or little importance in most Muslim societies, except in those that have gone through a phase of Islamization (Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and to some extent Libya). But the Sharia has much importance in domestic judicial fields like family, marriage and inheritance."

http://i-cias.com/e.o/sharia.htm

And herein lies my point: if couples can go off to a Christian counsellor for advice on family matters, why shouldn't Muslims?

The British decision to respond to Shariah law in certain civil matters was a response to what was already happening. Likewise, the Australian decision to allow Aboriginal "payback" laws in desert and top-north communities was a way to allow this to happen with respect to existing culture/law, and within a framework of harm-minimization.

Legalising the spearing of someone's leg or arm sounds much more radical than allowing a religious group to make decisions on family separation and child custody.

And I know what some are thinking: all this represents the chipping away of the rule of law.

But it's not about stoning anyone or amputating their limbs. Unless anyone here would like to introduce this?

Law is not some immutable, top-down way to keep people in line. It's always changing based on new government policy, legal precedent, and let's not forget media hysteria.

Big Donger wrote on Mar 17^th, 2010 at 9:06am:


Yes Karnal, I realise that, and I was told by a Muslim that it was part of Shariah law.

freediver wrote on Mar 19^th, 2010 at 8:46pm:


Male circumcision might be, but female circumcison isn't. Anyway, there's nothing in the Koran about any of this - I've been told this, mind you, I haven't read the whole Koran.

There's a whole lot of rules and regulations that some follow and some don't. I honestly don't know how you could make people clip their nails or shave their body hair - even if this does appear in Shariah law (and I don't know if it does). Many Muslims don't have beards, for example. Evil!

If anyone really believes that there's a Muslim list of rules for every area of life that every muslim follows without question, then I'd say you're dreaming.

Same with Shariah law. No state that practices it follows exactly the same regulations.

Yes - there are some abhorent practices such as amputation and stoning. I can't see any humanity or compassion in this, but I believe these practices are rare. I hope they are, anyway. With the exception of Saudi Arabia, I also believe that they occur in mainly poor African states.

The reason for this? Not sure, but perhaps there's a link between poverty and brutality. However, Saudi Arabia is quite clearly an exception.

and treating women like 2nd class citizens is a given.
dominating any kaffir is a must.
jail for public kissing, no sunbathing, o alcohokl, correct music.


the whiole islam is so buggered it's easy to see whu even islamics say it no longer exists.