Muslim March Toward Freedom
Dean
Support for terrorism is dropping rapidly in the muslim world, according to Pew Research:
Indonesia already has all the markings of democracy--free speech, free press, wide franchise, competitive political parties, and both their executive and legislative branches of government having been elected. The only thing they have yet to prove is that they can handle a peaceful transition of power, but they've only had their first nationally elected President for a few years.In a striking finding, predominantly Muslim populations in a sampling of six North African, Middle East and Asian countries also shared to "a considerable degree" Western nations' concerns about Islamic extremism, the survey found. Many in those Muslim nations see it as threat to their own country, the poll found.
"Most Muslim publics are expressing less support for terrorism than in the past. Confidence in Osama bin Laden has declined markedly in some countries, and fewer believe suicide bombings that target civilians are justified in the defense of Islam," concluded the Pew Global Attitudes Project.
Compared with previous surveys, the new poll also found growing majorities or pluralities of Muslims surveyed now say democracy can work in their countries and is not just a political system for the West. Support for democracy was in the 80 percent range in Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco; in Pakistan and Turkey, where significant numbers of respondents were unsure, it rated 43 percent and 48 percent respectively.
Meanwhile, I seem to have made a very significant oversight in previous discussions about whether Islam is compatible with democracy: not only is Indonesia well on their way, but it turns out we've had two stable liberal democracies dominated by muslims for some time now: Mali is a stable liberal democracy with a 90% muslim population, and Senegal is a stable liberal democracy with a 94% muslim population. Both are listed by Freedom House as among the freest nations on Earth on both political and civil freedoms. Both of these nations manage to obliterate not one but two stereotypes: 1) Muslims can't handle freedom and democracy, and 2) black people can't handle freedom and democracy.
The eyes of freedom-loving people everywhere continue to watch Iraq and Afghanistan, with much hope.
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I don't know who, outside of Ku Kluxers and neo-Nazis, has been saying that in a long while. Unless it's certain "progressives"....
Botswana, Lesotho, Mali, South Africa, and Senegal all put the lie to that absurd belief, as do black-dominated island nations such as Jamaica or Papua New Guinea.
Turns out, according to him, the West is rich because we were lucky, that's all.
Yeah.
If that's the guy, I'd not call him a conservative by modern American definitions. Definitely a leftist.
Mike
I know one of Jared Taylor who would say that Negroes, African or American, are inherently incapable of self-government, but he's in the Holocaust denier camp and doesn't count as what I would call conservative.
I do know that certain conservatives such as James Burnham did believe that, for cultural not racial reasons, Africa wasn't yet ready for democracy and that the precipitate de-colonization we engaged in after World War II was a blunder. I agree with that. William F. Buckley once noted that Africans tend to admire strong, ruthless leaders and like to be ruled by them. As I said in the earlier thread, such admiration is a human, not particularly Negro, trait, and the idea of rule by an impersonal law, restraining ruled and rulers alike, is a rather rare achievement.
H. L. Mencken once observed:
"The most popular man under a democracy is not the most democratic man, but the most despotic man. The common folk delight in the exactions of such a man. They like him to boss them. Their natural gait is the goose-step."
Furthermore i would to point out that while no Arab countries yet qualifies as free on Freedom House's rating there are seven (Bahrain , Comoros , Djibouti , Jordan , Kuwait , Morocco , Yemen ) which qualify as partly free. Of those countries the USA have very close connections with several of them Bahrain/Jordan/Kuwait/Yemen and no hostile relations with any of them. Still i don't expect that to make much of an impression on lefties who saw the liberation of Kuwait as replacing one dictatorship with another.