And that was my original point. Progressives in the US really don't have any substantial knowledge of Islamic culture and its current place in the world but will speak with absolute moral authority on the issue. My observation is that muslims are portrayed as some poor marginalized group when the truth is they are thriving in the world at large.
Absolutely, yeah. I was mostly addressing the issue of implementation of sharia, and pointing out that while religious law is regressive nonsense, secularism isn't a magic bullet.
I'll address this country by country when I get the chance.
EDIT:
India - Secular by a very different definition than western nations. Its not a good example because Hindi+Sikh/Muslim relations are terrible. India has native terrorists of all stripes including a collection of radical islamist mujadeen groups.
Religious relations in India are
far from ideal, but by relative standards it's a pretty successful pluralistic society. There are a lot of antagonistic and communalist elements in society (of all stripes, as you said), but civil society remains functional.
Egypt - Secular until given a chance to vote then became Islamic before the military took over. Priceless artifacts destroyed. Copts persecuted after the so called arab spring. Still not exactly a stable safe place to live.
The main reason I brought up Egypt is because it's a solid example of a place that had shit rulers before the Islamists came to power, had shit rulers while the Islamists were in power, and has shit rulers now that the Islamists have been booted out.
Tunisia - Like Malaysia. Secular...except Islam is the state religions, the president has to be a muslim, you can't covert from islam or proselytize to muslims, and forced islamic education in primary school.
But still a stable, functioning democracy, the most significant one to come out of the Arab Spring. Most of the gains the country has made are ones that the secular opposition has managed to wring out of the Islamists, though.
I know proselytizing to Muslims is illegal, but I was under the impression that converting away from Islam was legal. I understand the constitution guarantees freedom of conscience, which is what that usually implies, right?
Turkey - The one exception and a country I am pretty heavily invested in. Once the bastion of civil rights in the muslim world. Now its slowly becoming more islamic as the government plays on religious sensibilities.
Erdogan is an idiot Islamist who's trying to roll back Ataturk's secularism, which was very forward-looking. I understand that Kemalism is mostly favoured by the armed forces, though.
We both agree about the Muslim world generally being not great to live in, I think. I'm just pointing out that plenty of Muslim countries manage to be shit while still being nominally secular.
