From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Tue Aug 13 2002 - 10:10:02 MDT
"Perhaps, but I am encouraged by readings in the Washington Post about
how debate is increasing in the Muslim world about what kind of society
they really want. It seems radical Islam may be on the decline."
An interesting article I read recently related to this.
Deficits in the Arab world
----------
Empower America
by Jack Kemp
Ranking countries on a widely used freedom index that encompasses civil
liberties, political rights, freedom of the press and government
accountability, the Arab world finished dead last.
http://www.empoweramerica.org/stories/storyReader$561
Excerpts -
"In a startling U.N. report, Arab Human Development Report 2002, a team of
Arab scholars, led by Jordan's former Deputy Prime Minister Rima Khalaf
Hunaidi, examined the following question: "Why is Arab culture, why are Arab
countries lagging behind?"
"The report confirmed that during the past 20 years, per capita income
growth
in Arab countries, which averaged a stagnant 0.5 percent a year, was the
lowest in the world with the exception of sub-Saharan Africa. Labor
productivity declined 0.2 percent while unemployment averaged 15 percent,
three times the world average."
"Democracy, the report found, "has barely reached the Arab states," and a
third of the adult population is illiterate -- half of all Arab women cannot
read or write. "This freedom deficit undermines human development."
- End excerpts
You said...
"Every civilization has its share of massacre, but nothing tops Western
civilization's penchant for institutionalized mass killing."
I would have to respectfully disagree, communism has been much more
effecient at mass killing. Mao 30 million, Stalin 10 - 15 million, Pol Pot
3 - 4million. etc. I would not consider communism to be 'western' (despite
the western liberal elites who still promote it)
Michael
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