January 15, 2009
Is Islam Compatible With Freedom?
If the data is to be believed: no.
In fact, check out the just released 2008 Freedom House map of Asia and North Africa. Purple is not free, yellow is partly free, and green is free. Of majority Muslim countries, only a couple are free. And that's arguable.
Indonesia, for instance, is considered "free", but it's illegal in that country to openly try to convert Muslims. As in: you will go to jail. "Free". Right. Ditto that in Pakistan, listed as "partly free".
Mali? I've no idea. Either it's the last best hope for the entire Muslim world, or it's the exception that proves the rule. I'd love to believe former, but am inclined to believe the latter.
Anyway, the tables are here.
A few years back a friend and I had a back and forth about this. In the end we decided to do a simple regression analysis with "freedom" being the dependent variable (as operationalized by Freedom House) and % of a nation that is Muslim (as reported by the CIA Factbook) as the predictive (independent) variable. The result? The higher the % of Muslims in a country, the less free it is. Even when controlling for things like poverty, the results hold up.
And those most likely to be oppressed in these Muslim countries? Muslims.
Which kinda sucks, doesn't it? Because, if true, then the best we can hope for in the Muslim world are allies of necessity. But you would be hard pressed to find true partners in spreading freedom.
The only real caveat here is on potentiality. Perhaps, potentially, there is some strain of Islam that could spread like wildfire. Muslims of this new strain could reject sharia, or adopt a new "sharia" which is sharia in name only or something like that. Maybe Mali could start sending missionaries to Saudi Arabia?
