The Pew Research Center recently released a chilling study. The aptly named “Global Restrictions on Religion” survey found that the majority of the world was still under heavy, state-run, religious repression. Roughly 70 percent of the world is under some kind of religious restriction. Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia and (of course) Iran are among the most oppressive. The United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, Japan and South Africa (look how far that nation has come in the last few decades) are among the least oppressive. Notice that line. All our allies (with the marginal Brazil, depending on how President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva feels day to day about white, blue-eyed bankers) on one side, and the most proliferate enemies of freedom on the other. Yes, I know Saudi Arabia is technically an ally of the U.S., but it shouldn’t be. Their reprehensible oppression of women should be enough to cancel any contact with that King-based, atavistic throwback of a government. The same goes for Egypt and Iran, though I hardly need to expend time and energy talking about why Iran should not be treated as an equal member of the world community.
The study from the Pew Institute reinforces something I have been telling people for years. Those oppressive countries (several of which are centers for the Muslim extremism the western world has been fighting for years) hate the free world because we allow for dissention through our freedom, and we still succeed as nations. The idea of anything aside from tyrannical enforcement of arch-conservative religious and political maxims frightens the rulers of countries like Indonesia and Iran. They know they have no tool aside from punishment to wield against their citizens. They are flabbergasted that a nation like the United States or Japan can allow for all this freedom, the existence of diverse ideas and conflicting ideologies, and not turn into a gibbering heap of death and destruction. They wonder why the tolerant countries flourish, nurturing some of the most brilliant minds in the world, while they are unable to progress in the sciences.
Well, wonder no more. When you quash the ability of your citizens to think and act on their own, one of two things will happen. Citizens beaten over the head with utterly arbitrary unquestionable rules will either shut up and hide their genius or flee the country as quickly as possible. Need an example? Look at the brain drain that happened in the former Soviet Bloc in the 1980s and 1990s. Look at the brain drain going on in Iran today.
Want to build the next revolutionary supercollider, Indonesia? Want to be responsible for the next DaVinci or Einstein, Saudi Arabia? Give people the freedom to question religion and you might have a chance. I am sure it will be difficult for you to give up despotism, but in the end it is the only way to make yourself relevant in the years to come.
2 Comments
Only thing that creeps me out about these green technologies (besides the many European countries that have found them to be revenue unsustainable and having little effect on carbon output) and climate change supporters is the fact that Hugo Chavez recieved such a warm enthusiastic applause at the climate fraud conference in Copenhagen. Many quietly assert that in these S American nations green is the new red.
Simply put America the freest country on earth is responsible for the most advances, innovations in medicine, science and technology and yet there are those (like the current administration)that would have us join the facists or the socialist ant heap.
And I could not agree with you more regarding our odd relationships with repressive Arab regimes – why I think we should expand the drilling for oil, shale and gas when ever possible.
Hey, I just found your blog – thank you for the good work. I wanted to inform you that it’s not displaying correctly on the BlackBerry Browser (I have a Storm). Either way, I’m now on your RSS feed on my home PC, so thanks again!