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| kojax |
 Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 11:08 pm Post subject: Why do you think Islamic nations tend to be so poor? |
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Forum Ph.D.
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
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This is a discussion I was having on a religion thread, and the suggestion was made that I post it here to see if what I was saying would fly in an actual economic debate.
My perspective is that culture drives poverty at least as strongly as any other factor. Islamic nations tend to let religion pretty much dominate their culture, so, religion and culture tend to become pretty much the same thing. (Whereas in a christian nation they would be separate, because religion plays a much smaller part in the overall culture)
I think the reason most, if not all, Islamic nations are under-developed is because the culture created by Islam is one that suppresses new ideas and focuses way too much on reverence for the old ways. The people can't organize into social structures that would enable them to build any real infrastructure for themselves, because they'd inevitably deviate from or be seen as criticising some part of the traditional ideologies and offend the religious elite. |
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| jackson33 |
| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 10:30 am Post subject: |
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you basically answered your own question. the Islamic people over history have been the worlds economic leaders in some periods. this when all peoples practiced many of the same policies which they still do.
IMO; the US, by outlawing slavery, womans suffrage and the more current equal rights programs, brought millions into the economic system which has given us an edge, certainly from about 1940. |
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| Harold14370 |
| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 1:55 pm Post subject: |
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| jackson33 wrote: |
IMO; the US, by outlawing slavery, womans suffrage and the more current equal rights programs, brought millions into the economic system which has given us an edge, certainly from about 1940. |
You will have to go back a lot further than 1940. There was an Islamic golden age about the time Europe was in the Dark Ages, but after the Renaissance there hasn't been much happening in the Muslim world as far as arts and science is concerned.
I don't think you will find it as simple as Religion A = good science/technology, Religion B = Bad or vice versa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 10:40 pm Post subject: |
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Well, yeah. Christianity's real contribution to western advancement has just been to get out of the way. (And only even did that after some struggle).
Maybe it's getting to be time for Islam to start figuring out a way to get out of the way. |
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| Pendragon |
| Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 2:37 am Post subject: |
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I think we have to separate two things: Islam, and conservative cultures of several individual countries and regions.
Malaysia is an Islamic country, but they're doing fine economically. Indonesia is steadily progressing as well, while it's the biggest Islamic country in the world. Both of them have some oil, but they don't depend on it and have developped a quite sustainable economy.
In much of the Arab world economic progress is being hampered by inequality (palaces for the oil rich, unemployment for a third of the people), lack of access to the labour market for women (much of the recent - last decennia - economic progress in the West comes from the increasing number of working women) and perhaps a lack of interest in science and technology. But it's hard to say that Islam is to blame, because in many Islamic countries such problems don't exist. |
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| jackson33 |
| Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:56 am Post subject: |
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you might add *Dubai* to your Islamic growing economies.
Harold, the effects of what i mentioned took hold during WWII. benefits prior to this were minimal and maximized effects were in the 80's-90's.
agree, that religion is by no means an indicator of economic potential. however government is the prime factor, which Islam is not conducive to economic activity.... |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 6:55 am Post subject: |
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Yeah. That's the problem. Islam doesn't leave government, or even general culture, or really much of anything alone. At least not in the middle east version of it.
I'm curious how similar dubai, malaysia, and indonesia's versions of Islam are to the version practiced in the middle east. It could be that, when properly practiced or interpreted, it's as sensible a religion as any of the others. |
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| jackson33 |
| Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2007 7:39 am Post subject: |
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ironically Dubai is run by a ruling Family, much as Saudi Arabia. Dubai however has allowed foreign investment in that nation, feeling their oil supply will run out. there is an intended and stated goal to embrace capitalism.
this idea is not new in the Islamic world. Iraq and Iran, had both gone this route in the past, but reverted back to some degree. in Iran its been a total reversal. in Iraq it became a dictatorship. the problems come from the theological beliefs of the clergy. their voices are heard in periods of hard times, which all nations suffer, with the political leaders then becoming less viable. |
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| Cat1981(England) |
| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:40 am Post subject: |
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Any country that is heavily influenced by religion is going to suffer (economically) sooner or later. I wouldn't blame it on islam though, i think geography plays a much bigger role.
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| kojax |
| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:53 am Post subject: |
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It's true that Islam seems to take the strongest root in lands nobody would want to live in. As for religion always being bad if taken too far, I agree there too, but Islam seems to be the only religion that still expects to be taken that far.
Christianity and Judaism no longer preach that their clerics should run the whole country. They're both willling to leave that part to some kind of secular authority instead. |
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| Cat1981(England) |
| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:55 am Post subject: |
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Agreed.
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| Levit |
| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:53 am Post subject: |
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So. Frankly, I don`t think that islamic countries are tend to be poor.
We don`t know so many things about them... Maybe the richest man
in the world is a prince of islamic country. He just don`t want to show his
big capital to the world...But just emagine how many money he has if
he has oil, his own country and, he can sell drugs, armour, averything.
And what about Turkey? They are not poor.
Islamic countries have oil, so they can change the rules of wold game, wich named politics |
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| Jellyologist |
| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 10:56 am Post subject: |
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Have you been to 'Christian' Latin America recently? Dozens of predominantly 'Christian' African nations? Haiti? Islam has no monopoly on poverty.
The issue is more one of a tie to a religious culture (choose one) that stifles modernity. This can be Hinduism in the case of a billion Indians, Confusionism and Budhism for pre-Mao China, Catholisism in Latin America. 'Most' of the stifled people of the world were not Muslim and still aren't. The bulk of the world's Muslims live in indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia and India....'Arabs' are a distant minority of Muslims.
I agree that Islam, like all religions when used as a political ideology, is a hindrance...this is also why some Catholic Mediterranean states laged behind western Europe. It's why China was feudalistic unti this century and India, in some ways, is still a basket case (but improving dramatically).
Islam is a tool just as the Right wing fundamentalists in the USA try and use Christianity as a tool. It's also why the separation of church and state is more productive in allowing individual and alternate expression and thus eventual ingenuity and technical advancement. Attitudes of the fundies on an issue like 'stem cell research' are fine but when mixed with politics is a smothering impact on medical progress. |
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| marnixR |
| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:02 am Post subject: |
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according to this article The bottom billion bite back 70% of the bottom billion live in Africa
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| kojax |
| Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 11:52 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 27 Mar 2007
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I think I agree with Jelly. The real question is whether you have a separation of church and state. Most muslim countries are absolutely, perfectly, devoid of any such separation.
The two are as intertwined as ever I could imagine them being. You can be prosecuted under the law in many muslim countries for teaching another religion other than islam. |
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