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Hard to put my finger on why this feels off. The title 'Arabic World' is strange, it's usually the "Arab world" unless they're referring to the regions where Ar
by Sporktacular 6y ago
Hard to put my finger on why this feels off. The title 'Arabic World' is strange, it's usually the "Arab world" unless they're referring to the regions where Arabic is spoken.
It then gives statistics for Iran and Turkey, neither of which are significantly Arabic speaking countries, by which point you realise they're conflating ethnic-linguistic groups with the most region's most popular religion.
So by the time it's quoting Bernard Lewis this feels like the old Zionist reductionist talking points you periodically hear from right wing conservatives bashing Islam. A quick search of the publication shows why this isn't an accident. "Islam has no tradition of separating politics and religion", well neither did Christianity, until it did.
This is not to say the state of education there is fine, nor can it be said people there are happy about it either. Every one of those countries have had nascent democracy movements crushed by their governments with the help of foreign backed interests and companies. We're supposed to buy that it's just Islam, please don't look at NSO Group and Finfisher cashing in on the strangulation of reform - reform led by, yes, students, academics and other such terrorist armies of the night.
- hannofcart 6y agoThe article elaborates on that choice of words.
- Sporktacular 6y agoIt did. Just not well enough for the sweeping generalisations that followed.
- g8oz 6y agoIndeed the article starts off okay, but by the time it gets to the "Why Inquiry Failed in the Islamic World" section it rapidly turns into a dumpster fire. The usual Western triumphalist brain farts in discussing the Islamic world are present: * exaggerating the extent of separation of Church and State in Christianity. * exaggerating the marginalization of non-Muslim minorities in medieval Muslim societies and framing it as unique while completely ignoring the treatment of non-Christian minorities in Christian societies in the same period (hint: not that great) * implying that Muslim success are a fluke and it's failures reflect the true nature of Islam You know in 1980 some blowhard could have surveyed the world's Catholic countries and noted how many of them were under authoritarian regimes. Said blowhard could have then wrote a long essay detailing the authoritarian history and nature of the Catholic Church, linking it to present political conditions. He could then contrast it with the nature of Protestantism and success of Protestant nations, explain away France as an outlier to due to lingering Huguenot influence. "From Latin America to Spain & Portugal to the Philippines the unquestioning obedience to an unaccountable organization in spiritual matters has primed the Catholic world for predisposition to dictatorship" he would solemnly declare. "Contrast this with the marketplace of ideas that exists in the Protestant sphere and the idea of the worshiper having a direct relationship to God rather than an intermediating hierarchy". You get my point. From Wikipedia: "In science and philosophy, a just-so story is an untestable narrative explanation for a cultural practice, a biological trait, or behavior of humans or other animals."