Quote Originally Posted by HitWithThe5 View Post
no democracy - the general consensus does not support democracy, not yet. our education is low but it’s getting better through spending.
"Not yet" is relative - you may wish to look at Arab discourse at the turn of the last Century whilst still under Ottoman rule. You are of course correct that the lack of democracy is partly because they general populace not enamoured of it, and don't appear to understand the concept. Libya was a good example of this, there were real democrats in the country but many militias, particularly those out of Misrata, were calling for power based on the number of fighters they had, or had lost in the fighting.

Now, perhaps you can see why I don't want people like that in my country, because my country is weak in many ways. Civil society in the UK and much of Europe is already fractured, we're just about holding it together here but if you look at our history over the last fifty years we're in danger of entering systemic decline.

Like I said - fall of Rome - it only takes a generation.

no freedom - you have to be behind the regime yes, most are on the same page
To this I should have added "acceptance of maintaining or changing the regime through violence". We put a huge amount of effort into stopping suicide attacks here but we know that many of our current second generation immigrants want to kill us - that's why Europe is a major recruiting ground of ISIS.

wealth inequality - yeah this is huge for KSA and bahrain in particular, the rest of the countries compensated by setting really high wages and benefits for nationals. i get paid to go to school. everyone is also rich, and this is what really matters in the end as crazy as it sounds. you would understand if you grew up in this region. I think these nations need someone calling the shots just like Iraq needed someone like Saddam.
Much of the welfare in gulf states is subsidised by oil and it's not an arrangements Europe cares to mimic, or has the means to. We guarantee enough to keep body and soul together, not to live well. One of the most distasteful things about these immigrants is their clear sense of entitlement, their lack of gratitude for safe harbour and insistence that we let them reach Sweden or Germany, or even the UK.

oppression of women - i honestly don’t see that besides in wahhabi nations, which are only two right now.
Matter of perspective - I assume in most Gulf states that if a woman wears a knee-length skirt and has her their unbround there'll be mutter of "deserved it" if she's raped.

One thing I've come across talking to Turks, Arabs, and Africans is that a woman's hnour is protected by the men in her family, rather than by society in general. So a woman needs an escort in certain situations even in public lest she be assumed to be "fair game".

This is an idea we abandoned a century ago.

non-muslims being… - that’s true unfortunately. post-ww1 super-state super-people ideas that make us deplorable. this is very strong in the gulf but not to the extent of hating white people.
As I recall the Koran, or the Hadith, specifies that a Christian man's word is worth 1/3 of that of a Muslim man's in court - a woman's word is worth nothing - I believe this is actually a fact of law in states other than Saudi Arabia. The problem with this is obvious as soon as a Christian man tries to bring a prosecution against a Muslim for raping his daughter.

if you ever do decide to visit the only ones worth considering are UAE and oman. i’d say these two also have the nicest people (towards foreigners and muslims alike) in the middle east. Morocco for culture trip.
I doubt I'll ever make it to the Gulf, Libya and Syria were on my list but IS et al have destroyed a lot of the interesting stuff.

Hyperbole. I tried to tell you it’s not propaganda but a widely accepted historical view according to the academic sources I linked to.
Matter of perspective, and I think your perspective is outmoded by roughly a century.

You’re pretending that this is all a result of Arab incompetence when it is the west cooperating with that incompetence that led to this. You have chips in the middle east and all of a sudden you want your money back.
Me personally, I have no chips, and I never voted for a government that had chips - I was too young and then it was Labour you fought wars in the ME when I was an adult. Also, you have to consider that it's been a century and a lot of places in the Gulf have backslid. This is a major difference between the Gulf and the Levant, where there is historically a different, more Urban, society that has developed Civil Institutions.

You are correct that the US etc. has propped up some dictators but those dictators overthrew more moderate monarchs installed by the British who were more inclined toward a more open society. About the only post-WW1 monarchy from that settlement to survive is Jordan.

Jordan is also arguable the safest and most progressive country in he Middle East.

As a subject of Elizabeth Regina I'm biased though.

I drink. I know a lot of people that do and lot that don’t big deal. Politicized ideas is no reason to carry a grudge towards an entire people.

I also don't lie about it unless I'm at my grandma's house or some shit.
See - I don't get this. Isn't not consuming alcohol a major element of Islam, I get that it's not THE defining feature but I still don't understand how it is that so many Muslims in the ME seem to drink so much - certainly Muslims I have met in the UK generally don't.