Why Muslim Cultures Lag

I had identified cultural anomalies,particularly in the treatment of women, that were anti modern and were primemovers in Islam’s abject failure to modernize. I had been optimistic that the sheer weight of modernization wouldsteadily encroach on this and slowly force the necessary accommodations.  Yet this litany just about demands a completetop to bottom reeducation that will go in the face of Islamic opposition evenbeyond the changes imposed by Kemal Ataturk in Turkey.  And there we see resurgent Islamicismenthusiastic to reintroduce the historical patterns.

Today all nations outside theIslamic world are hell-bent on modernization and the most intransigent ismaking an accommodation.  At worst we aremerely waiting for some thug to die.

The truth is that modernism ishugely disruptive to all forms of cultural dispensations because it upliftseveryone however badly distributed and challenges old forms of slavery basedcultures at their heart.

I do not know what the Arabspring can bring.  With the built incultural bias, we are likely to get a more subtle form of what we have had todate.

The problem is we certainly needa force fed Arab Enlightenment.  Thinkabout it.  We want evolution but may needto apply force. Very shortly the Oil prop is going to disappear totally and theimpoverishment of the Islamic world will be apparent to all. Up to now, oodlesof money has allowed them to fake it.  Ontop of that the West must soon come to grips with the serious problems Islamimposes inside their own countries.  Thatmay in fact evolve properly yet the ongoing tension is never good and canlinger for decades.

What is going to happen is thatthe rest of the world will achieve a global modern economy that has no room forany thing like traditional Islamic practices. This is going to take no more than thirty to fifty more years.  This also means that the rest of the worldwill have shed any form of militarism in terms of resolving internal conflict.  That will not be true for an unevolvedIslamic polity.

The way more serious problemfacing Islam is that a Christian revival is a natural counter to the Islamic dream.  It can be reconstituted as Krishna in India and as a non state based movement in China.  It is already in full revivalist modethroughout Africa.  Just because we can not see it yet does notmean it is not happening.

A Christian driven confrontationthat empowers women and supports modernism will be irresistible to the Islamicworld and can be applied across the African Front in particular were multiplepolities exist.

What is clear, the failure of theIslamic world to embrace modernism dooms the Islamic enterprise.  The remaining question is it going to be slowand painful to millions of slaves or is it going to be as swift as possible.

Why Muslim Cultures Lag Behind

Posted by The Anti-Jihadist on Jun 3rd, 2011

In the past fifty years, many countries have caught up with the richand developed Western World. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, withvirtually no natural resources, have created advanced, urbanized and prosperoussocieties, complete with world-class technology that often exceed that which isfound in the West. India, Brazil and China, although not yet fully developed,now all possess large and affluent middle classes that did not exist just a fewdecades ago. There is no reason to believe why their economic and socialprogress of all of these countries will not continue for the foreseeablefuture.

The Muslim world, on the other hand, has struggled during this era ofunprecedented global wealth creation. These countries have profited almostsolely, by happy geological accident, from oil and gas extraction. Beyond theseactivities, economic activity in Muslim countries remains scant, low tech andstrictly oriented towards local consumption. Despite trillions of dollars inoil revenue over the past sixty years, Muslim progress in many other areas,such as scientific research, social issues and education, lags badly behind therest of the world.

How could this be the case? The answer, which the major media dares nottouch, lies in the very culture of Muslim countries themselves. Consider thefollowing cultural traits which are all typically found in majority Muslimcountries:

Belief in magic.          State-owned Malaysian newspapers andtelevision stations routinely run breathless stories about witch doctors(‘bomoh’), evil spirits and other forms of the supernatural. Visitors to Malaysia get agood laugh out of such quaint cultural practices, until they realize with ashock that Malaysian belief in such superstition is absolutely sincere. Butit’s not just here in Malaysiawhere this happens. In Saudi Arabia, witchcraft is considered very realand a capital offence. In Iran,laws are on the books that make ‘sorcery’ a crime. And in Iraq, many ofthe locals are absolutely convinced that American soldiers wear sunglasses thatcan see through clothing and have bases protected by force fields. A culturethat is eager to embrace the supernatural takes a giant step away fromrationality and deceives itself fundamentally. Self-deception is always, sooneror later, the path to failure.

Belief in conspiracies.            Muslims take it as an Articleof Faith that various groups of so-called infidels or other outsiders areengaged in various conspiracies to keep Muslims down, make Islam look bad, orare otherwise up to No Good. The lack of evidence means little to a societywhere ‘skepticism’ is already an unusual and foreign concept. For instance,even well-educated Muslims will tell you, with total earnestness, that the 9-11terror attacks were actually perpetrated by Zionists, or the CIA, or the U.S.Government, or some other nefarious group. Never mind the vast amount ofevidence to the contrary. When presented with rebuttals from non-Muslims,Muslims will usually just shrug it off and carry on with their nonsensicalconspiracy theories.

Lack of innovation. ` Here in Malaysia, it is telling that theword in the Malay language for innovation (“inovasi”) did not exist until itcame from English, quite recently, as a loan word. Innovation, meaning tocreate something without precedent, is a risky and therefore dangerous businessin the Islamic world. The reason for this is because Islam already has a wordfor innovation, “bid’ah”. In Islam, this word is essentially the same inmeaning as ‘heresy’, which is yet another capital crime under Islamic law.Hence creativity and individuality are utterly stifled in a totalitarianfashion, even in Muslim countries where Islamic law has not yet been fullyimplemented. Improvisation is also discouraged for similar reasons. This is amajor reason why Islamic countries are usually characterized by a near-totallack of scientific research and reluctance to embrace technology in general.

Lack of devotion to non-family/non tribal/non-clan organizations.           Inmost Muslim societies, loyalty often runs no farther than one’s tribe or sect.People from the far-off central government, or those from the next valley overfor that matter, are foreigners to be met with suspicion or hostility. Afghanistan isa perfect example of this sort of chaos. Even if these differences areeventually papered over, so to speak, by the force and coercion of adictatorship, the lack of cohesion and distrust remain. Muslim leaders usuallycome into and stay in power by exploiting this very characteristic, by playingone tribe or group off another. Patriotism amongst the general public isanother foreign concept, taken for granted in the West. Muslims may remainloyal to Islam in general, but more importantly, to the tribe in particular.

Lack of empowerment of women.      The future, no matter what form it maytake, is almost certainly going to involve more technology, not less. How wellequipped is a society for this future if half of its members are only (at best)grudgingly given their rights? In many Islamic countries, women are oftenilliterate and have no rights in essential critical life decisions, such asthose involving child-rearing, marriage or education. And why should they?Various Quranic verses, age-old Islamic traditions, and core Islamic teachingsrender women as nothing more than chattel and the property of their malerelatives—never the equal of men. And no one can ‘reform’ these teachings to somethingmore enlightened—see the penalty for “bid’ah” above.

Lack of personal responsibility.         Muslim leaders oftenlie to or deceive their own people, to subordinates, or to allies in order toadvance their own personal agendas. Remember that most Muslim countries are apatchwork of tribes who barely tolerate one another in the best of times. Loyaltyto one’s country as a whole is next to non-existent. So, the main objectiveof these leaders, whether at the top, middle or bottom, is to steal as much asthey can, while they can, in order to enrich themselves and their families,clans or tribes—’national interest’ be damned. If you’re one of the rareincorruptible types, or are otherwise too stupid to steal when presented withthe opportunity, then more the fool you are. Other tribes or groups areuseful as scapegoats when the need arises or when blame must be deflected.

Lack of skilled labour.           Rich, developed and successfulcountries like Germany, Japanand others do not just spring into existence. It takes the efforts of millions,skilled specialists toiling endlessly in dangerous and/or monotonous drudgeryfor decades, to build and also maintain the ever-growing complex web of systemsthat modern nations depend on to function. But Muslim countries, even theones with trillions from oil revenue, have consistently failed to create largeenough castes of technical specialists that modern nations must have. Asthere are never enough people willing or able to work within their own borders,Muslim nations are forced to outsource their labour needs. In Saudi Arabia and most Arab states, for instance,cleaners and maids come from Indiaor the Philippines, whileengineers and others in the technical trades come from America, Europeand increasingly east Asia. This trend is accelerating, paradoxically enough,at a time when the governments of the burgeoning Arab world are having anincreasing problem just feeding their exploding populations.

Lack of meritocracy.  The West has thrived not only because they havelearned to hold people responsible for their actions, but also they havelearned to give out rewards based on individual achievement. Hencehigher–performing individuals tend to be eventually in charge and reap the mostrewards (in prestige, rank, money, etc.). Westerners do not always manage tolive up to these ideals, but the concepts themselves are not questioned. Inthe Islamic world, however, what counts is personal loyalty, personalconnections, and tribal/sect membership. Incompetent leaders are preferable tocompetent ones, so long as they are properly loyal. Such a state of affairsmakes for incredible inefficiency on a normal day and catastrophic consequenceswhen any sort of crisis arises. Muslims are fond of saying “it’s God’swill” at difficult times, which for Muslims seems like most of the time.Actually, it’s not so much “God’s will” but more like the inevitableconsequences of their dysfunctional culture.

If you’ve read up to this point, no doubt that you could add a few morethings to this list. But remember, political correctness dictates that allcultures are somehow “equal,” and Muslims are convinced their cultures aresomehow superior, never mind the reams of evidence to the contrary. Sowhile I want to be optimistic, the smart money is not riding on the would-bereformers of the under-performing societies of the Muslim world. At least notyet.

The Anti-Jihadist is the pseudonym of a counter-jihad writer,activist and critic of Islam who resides in a majority Muslim country. His work can also be found at Jihad Watch, Infidel Bloggers Alliance and PedestrianInfidel.