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In this article, George Walden says that Kenneth Pollack asserts this: "Lack of prosperity, not Islam, tends to explain the lower rates of democracy among predominantly Muslim countries.”
How true.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, et al.), Qatar, Libya, and the other six Muslim states, or states where Muslims run things, that are members of OPEC, and thus the beneficiaries, since 1973 alone, of more than ten trillion dollars in oil revenues, are none of them democracies -- and now we all know why. It's their "lack of prosperity."
So how shall we make Saudi Arabia prosperous, given its "lack of prosperity"? And Kuwait? And the U.A.E.? And Qatar? And all the other Muslim states in OPEC? Was Iran more dangerous when it had no oil wealth, or when it acquired great oil wealth and became unhinged by that oil wealth, and at the same time, with that oil wealth became able to acquire the kind of weapons and power it is now acquiring?
Do we want "prosperity" for the Muslim world? Is that the key? What, besides the more than ten trillion dollars that constitute the largest transfer of wealth in human history, do they need? What, aside from the billions we Infidels give to all the Muslim states that don't have oil wealth, could we be doing? What is it the Pollacks of this world want Infidels to do? Continually to keep Muslims prosperous, despite their own, Islam-inculcated inshallah-fatalism, with our money, lest they become....well, you know....extremists?
What utter nonsense. Top to bottom. What a dope.
The lack of prosperity in the Muslim lands that do not have oil is explained by Islam itself. It is Islam that encourages the habit of mental submission, and by extension, the habit of submission to The Ruler, as long as the ruler is a Muslim. It is Islam that encourages inshallah-fatalism. And both of these have economic consequences. The first, the habit of mental submission, the discouraging or punishing of free and skeptical inquiry (beginning with any "free and skeptical inquiry" about Islam), leads to an absence of entrepreneurial flair and a deep reliance on manna or handouts from the state. The recent reports about the failure of a "free market" to develop in Iraq, and the enlargement of the state-owned parts of the economy, despite the huge and expensive efforts of the Americans, should not come as a surprise. It was inevitable. In the oil-rich states, the money comes from the government. The whole effort is to make sure that your sect or tribe or family manages either to seize control, for that sect, that tribe, or that family, or failing that, manages to ingratiate itself with that sect, that tribe, or that family. The royal road to riches in the Muslim Middle East? Ask the Al-Saud, the As-Sabah, the Al-Thani, the Al-Maktoum, and all the others, with their courtiers ("You Know Me, Al" is their favorite story) and hangers-on and candying spaniels at court.
As for inshallah-fatalism, why try very very hard when, in the end, every fiber in your individual or collective being tells you that, in the end, it's all up to Allah, and he will intervene, quite inexplicably and suddenly, whenever he wants. Why try to create or accumulate wealth in societies suffused with Islam which, in any case, are subject to constant upheaval? There is constant jockeying for position in order to obtain more wealth -- such as the oil wealth available, so much more abundant than anything the Arabs themselves could possibly make. And in any case they don't try. They rely on millions of foreign, mostly Infidel, workers.
And in those Muslim-dominated lands that forgot to be born with oil and gas reserves, the Infidels -- not fellow members of the Umma -- have somehow gotten into the bad habit of shelling out tens and by now hundreds of billions for those Muslims, in Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, the so-called "Palestinian" territories (Arab-occupied Gaza and the "West Bank"), and anywhere else that such Muslims can be found. Infidel donors pledged two billion dollars a few weeks ago for Kosovo.
Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's famous phrase has been transformed for a new application: "As for work, our Infidels will do that for us."
Pollack claims that "lack of prosperity" explains the violence and aggression and threats emanating from the Muslim lands. No. "Lack of prosperity" comes from the same source that, entirely independently, explains the violence and aggression and threats against Infidels, and emanating from Muslim lands (and from Muslims living, often quite comfortably, and certainly far more comfortably than they did in the Muslim lands from which they came, deep within the Infidel lands of Western Europe).
That source is Islam. And that is what the bland unimaginative thoroughly-bureaucratic in thought, word, and deed, kenneth-pollacks of this world cannot possibly begin, or allow themselves to attempt to begin, to understand.
Posted by Hugh at August 13, 2008 10:06 AM
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The UN Arab Human Development Reports should be required reading for these idiots. These annual reports are written by Arabs for Arabs. The list of reasons for the lack of development in the Arab world (22 Muslim countries) is too long to present here but nowhere on the list is the usual reference to poverty, lack of opportunity, etc. that we are constantly bombarded with by the media and State Department automatons.
For example:
Most Arab countries have not learned from the lessons of the past and the field of translation remains chaotic. In terms of quantity, and notwithstanding the increase in the number of translated books from 175 per year during 1970-1975 to 330, the number of books translated in the Arab world is one fifth of the number translated in Greece. The aggregate total of translated books from the Al- Ma’moon era to the present day amounts to 10,000 books - equivalent to what Spain translates in a single year (Shawki Galal, in Arabic, 1999, 87)3.This disparity was revealed in the first half of the 1980s when the average number of books translated per 1 million people in the Arab world during the 5-year period was 4.4 (less than one book for every million Arabs), while in Hungary it was 519, and in Spain 920.
Throughout the Arab world the "universities" award more than 50% of their degrees in Islamic Studies and Islamic Literature. More than half of Arab women are illiterate and more than a third of men are illiterate.
The industrial exports of all the 22 Arab League countries combined is less than Finland.
It is fair to say that lack of prosperity in the Arab world may explain the dearth of democracy there but it is not the lack of material prosperity, it is a poverty of the mind. The Muslim world is enslaved by a medieval tribal warrior code that has failed to compete with non-Muslim ideologies for many centuries. No amount of material wealth can mitigate such poverty.
Posted by: SaracensAtTheGates![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 13, 2008 10:56 AM
Let's not forget that Islam sanctifies a warrior mentality. A warrior gains his wealth through conquest, not enterprise. Read the Qur'an. The male warrior is the only individual with rights, nay, privileges. He is reward with paradise in the event of his death and rank and reward if he lives. With such a mentality, it is only natural that in Islamic countries, hard work is not a virtue.
Money given to such countries simply validates this mentality.
Posted by: tanstaafl at August 13, 2008 11:37 AM
Great post, I would add another Islam-induced reason. In this day and age a religion that insures that 50% of its human capital (Women), remains unused is destined to fall far behind. Not all Islamic countries are as extreme as say, Saudi Arabia, where women exist for a man’s pleasure and breeding, but the educational status of women is the Islamic world is disgraceful. Compare how China and India treat their women to the Arab world and the difference is stark.
Posted by: esquared at August 13, 2008 11:41 AM
Conversely, why aren't we threatened by terrorism from Angola, Bhutan, Burundi, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kiribati, Laos, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, Samoa, São Tomé and Príncipe, Solomon Islands, East Timor, Tuvalu, Uganda, Tanzania, Vanuatu, Zambia?
After all, it has nothing to do with Islam, does it?
Posted by: Infidel Pride at August 13, 2008 1:23 PM
Conclusion: it is a humanitair emergency to cure these poor people of their illness: islam.
Islam kills more than AIDS!
More people are contaminated by islam (more than one billion people) than by the AIDS (one hundred millions); and islam kills also uncontaminated people! It is indeed a very dangerous illness with several psychological disorders!
Cure them all from islam by explaining them what islam really is. It is the most important way to love them.
Posted by: Coaltaxopeuh at August 13, 2008 2:23 PM
Islam forbids the depiction of the human form.
One can only imagine what Islam does to the human mind. But whatever it does, it causes original thought to stop.
Posted by: mike trivisonno at August 13, 2008 2:25 PM
Saracens at the Gates wrote:
The industrial exports of all the 22 Arab League countries combined is less than Finland.
............................
Not only are the combined exports of these Muslim nations less than that of sparsely-populated Finland, they are less than that of a single Finnish company--Nokia.
more:
The aggregate total of translated books from the Al- Ma’moon era to the present day amounts to 10,000 books - equivalent to what Spain translates in a single year (Shawki Galal, in Arabic, 1999, 87)
.................................
Yes--there are more books tranlated into Spanish in a single year than have been translated into Arabic in *a thousand years*. This is a stunning statistic.
In the past few decades we have seen quite a number of the world's nations pull themselves out of third-world misery. Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand (well, the northern, non-Muslim part of the country, in any case), numerous former Communist states such as the Czech Republic, Poland, and the Baltic states.
Even though the history and culture of these states is quite different, all have followed fairly similar paths. Allowing entrepreurship, barring arbitrary seizures, instituting the rule of law. Full democracy and a decent educational system help.
These are all things that Islam discourages. Generally, the most nearly successful Muslim states (none are truly successful) are those with the least Islam. This includes states with a large non-Islamic population--like Indonesia, India, Malaysia and Lebanon--or states with either a weak Islamic imperitive--such as Indonesia--or that have actively supressed Islam, such as Turkey.
Not surprisingly, every single one of these states are under increasing pressure from hard-line Islam. Most Muslim countries have long since expelled their Jewish populations, and are now terrorizing and pushing out Christians and other non-Muslims.
Palestine, the birthplace of Christianity, now has only a tiny Christian population. Christians were a majority in Lebanon as recently at the 1930s, now they may be as small as 25% of the population. Egypt is terrorizing and marginalizing the Copts. Indonesia is pushing out the Chinese, some of whom have lived there for centuries, and parts of northern and western India have become increasingly hostile to Hindus.
Along with a widening embrace of fundamentalist Islam and the institution of Shari'ah law that goes with it, I think it is likely that, apart from oil revenue, that Muslim countries are less likely than ever to pull themselves out of poverty and ignorance.
Posted by: gravenimage at August 13, 2008 3:13 PM
Some Russian scientists, studying frogs, noticed that when you ring a bell a frog will jump.
They amputated one leg of a subject frog, rang a bell, and the frog jumped, albeit badly.
They continued till the frog had only one leg and the frog still attempted to jump.
Finally they removed the last leg and rang the bell. The frog lay there unmoving.
Their conclusion? When you amputate all of a frog's legs he goes deaf.
===========
Sharia counties are poor.
Sharia countries are run by jihaddis and export jihad.
Ergo: If you give sharia countries more money they'll stop exporting jihad.
===========
Gimme a doh!
Posted by: joeblough at August 13, 2008 5:15 PM
That is sad when all of Islam can't produce as much as Finland, a small country. Rugs, dates adn figs seem to be the only non petro exports. They are losers.
Posted by: Dumbo at August 13, 2008 9:35 PM
Islam causes poverty. Kenneth Pollack asserts this: "Lack of prosperity, not Islam, tends to explain the lower rates of democracy among predominantly Muslim countries.”
Mr. Pollack & Mr.George Walden you get Fs for your scholarship. It is islam itself that causes poverty and explains the psychosis in islamic nations. Islam causes poverty for five reasons:
(1) islam prohibits interest thereby making capitalism impossible;
(2) it prohibits half the members of society from mediating their financial interests rendering them uneconomic units and unproductive slaves;
(3) islam has a value system that discourages freedom, innovation and trade of the individual within the community for mutual benefit. Poor people need freedom more than wealthy people to escape their circumstances;
(4) Mohammed's zakat of 2 1/2 % is just too low to accomplish community goals;
(5) Islam is hostile to all forms of education which individuals need in capitalist societies to thrive as economic units.
Islam causes poverty. Part of the aggression of the islamic world to the rest of our world today is attributable to the fact that all countries are progressing, while the vast majority of the 56 muslim nations languish in poverty. Muslims are transferring their agression for their miserable circumstances to nonmuslims but they have failed to recognize that their poverty is self inflicted.
With modern media and internet the cause of Muslim poverty is obvious, transparent and psychologically difficult for the muslim to explain. (It is easier to blame others, the usual suspects, Jews, the U.S., Christian missionaries, colonialism). But such facile explanation for islamic self induced poverty is difficult to reconcile for the muslim as the muslim cannot explain why India and China prosper while their Islamic countries which pretend to be so sophisticated and civilized languish in perpetual misery and poverty. While this poverty is somewhat offset obscured by the luck of circumstance by some countries such as Saudi Arabia or the emirates or others who have natural resources developed and ceded to them by hapless others, these oil resource only allow islamic countries to prop themselves up to look like they are "real" countries.
Indeed, as the poverty gap of muslims grows worldwide, rather than blaming their religion as its cause, rather than acknowleding that their poverty is self inflicted, muslims have tended to come up with these grand conspiracy theories to explain their plight.
It may not be so ironic that the left in western society has made an unholy alliance with the muslim world thereby excusing muslim antisocial and pathological behavior (i.e. beheading others in public). The left has quickly adopted the politik of arabia wherein the enemy of my enemy becomes my friend. At the core of this unholy alliance, leftists and muslims share a hatred of capitalism and the freedom it requires for all people to prosper. We can only hope that the information revolution will force muslims worldwide to reconsider the cause of their poverty is self inflicted by their islam.
Posted by: David England at August 14, 2008 4:26 AM
Don't get mad at George Walden. He is not to be confused with Pollack. He was reviewing, most critically, Pollack's book.
Posted by: Hugh at August 14, 2008 10:15 AM
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