diggerop wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
Scott Lurndal wrote:

I guess I'm a bit of a pessimist on the issue. The "factors" of
discontent in that middle east are driven by religious fanatics who
cannot face the fact that it is that religion that's keeping them
in the

Do you have any scholarly cites for this, or is this just your
opinion?

There's the empirical evidence. Of the 50-odd predominately Muslim
countries in the world, only two (Malaysia and Turkey) are
democracies (maybe Iraq). The rest are monarchies (Morocco),
theocracies (Iran), oligarchies (Egypt), thugocracies (Lybia), or
out-and-out anarchies (Sudan, Somalia).



Really? .......... How about:

Indonesia - the worlds largest muslim population (88% of 245 million)
- democracy

Pakistan - the worlds second largest muslim population (97% of 165
million) - democracy

Your "empirical evidence" looks a little shaky to me.

I stand corrected with regard to Indonesia. Thanks for the refresher.

Pakistan is a bit more problematic. Until recently, Musharaff was both the
military chief of staff and putative president. I think the jury is still
out on that country. Irrespective of whether Pakistan is or is not currently
a democracy, the US State Department still classifies it as an "impoverished
nation."

So, then, counting Malaysia, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, and Indonesia as
democracies, let me see... um, mumble-mumble, carry the three, ah, we still
end up with about, um, 12% of the Muslim countries being democracies and 88%
not.