How about just as smart ? Does that -- equality -- bothers you ?
No, it doesn't bother me.
But a person like you should have enough intelligence to know that Americans, being the "leaders" of the world, are "scrutinized" more by the rest of the world. You have more power than anybody else, people
WILL have more expectations from you.
I am way younger than you are, but sometimes I feel that I make more sense that you do in certain matters. Probably just a self-delusion because I admire your intelligence....
But then again.........
And you really believe Americans traveling all over the world leaves nothing behind ? No impressions, no remnants of American culture, nothing ?
McDonald's » McDonald’s Pakistan history
OH. MY. GOD.
Believe me, in my last comment, I was just about to mention McDonalds...but I thought that you would not bring this point..alas.
Comparing McDonalds to institutional civilizational spread of Islamic Civilization in the heart of West? REALLY?!
Bunch of Pakistanis eat burgers....what does that change? Millions of Americans eat Indian, Japanese, Chinese food etc...So?
O.K..here's the deal:
In 1960, West barely had the presence of its only other global rival civilization---Islam.
In 1960, West barely had any mosques...now it has
thousands of them.
In 1960, Westerners didn't knew what 'Hijab' was...now it is a common site for Western citizens...
In 1960, Western masses had no idea what Halal food meant..now, there is a thriving halal industry throughout West...
In 1960, West didn't even have a clue what Ramadan is, now you have special Ramadan programming on U.K television...
In1960, West didn't have any clue what "Islamic Finance" was, now--UK's prime-minister wants to make his capital the "capital of Islamic Finance"---since his capital has such a big market of Islamic peoples...
In short, the rival global civilization spread and
established itself in the heart of West...with
tens of millions of people in the Western heartlands having Islamic worldview, practicing/spread Islamic culture, building Islamic architecture, bringing Islamic traditions, foods, and dresses in, and integrating in the wider society while keeping their unique Islamic identity/culture -----hence, making Islam an
inevitable civilizational reality in the West. So much so, that Germany is now talking about having classes on Islam in public schools for 'better cohesion' of German society...
A big Mashallah to all of that...
And what do you have in return?
OH MCDONALD IN PAKISTAN!!!!!!
By the way those 'Mcdonalds' are owned by Pakistanis---their money/profits going to Pakistanis...and those McDonalds serve 'halal' burgers lol
Ironically, "more" Americans eat Pakistani food than vice versa...So your point totally falls on its face..but then again, this is so dumb point to make to begin with...
Not only Mcdonalds, Pakistan has alot of other global brands (Arab, Chinese, Americans and so on)...but this doesn't mean zilch again when compared to the 'civilizational' expansion and infusion of Islamic Civilization into the West...West can show no such 'physical' civilizational expansion in Islamic World...
"Influence"? Yes. Even India influences us..and YOU too. Cultures influence each other all the time.
But civilizational expansion and infusion on physical and permanent level? Nopes.
Your comment about culture is really shortsighted and ignorant.
Still not more than your 'Mcdonald' comment...
Zilch ? What are you talking about ? The seeds of doubt about Islam has been planted. You may not see it, but your leaders have and may be that is why they work so hard at persecuting Christian converts. And please spare me the stale line about such persecution being 'un-Islamic'. I have no interests in how Muslims and Christians lived in the past.
You can argue for Atheism and how it can be a threat to Islam...but any other religion would be a 'systematic' threat to Islam? lol..You aren't very well-grounded in social sciences. Conversions here and there are a normal thing....but no other belief-system can be ever a 'systematic' thread to Islam..and history proves that. Islam "erased" Christianity from MILLIONS of sq. miles and coverted hundreds of millions of Christian followers to Islam.
Christianity could never do the same even at the peak of colonization..Even in Spain, Muslims were "murdered", "expelled"...not "converted" to Christianity. Wonder what happened to Christians in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Morrocco, Anatolia and so on?
You SERIOUSLY believe that Christianity holds some water infront of a far superior religion like that of Islam? Not saying it because I'm Muslim...but I have studied sociology, anthropology, and religion on secular level from elite American universities.
There are two kind of religions in this world (well, keeping thing simple for a science guy)
Creedal religions
Legalistic religions.
Christianity is a 'creedal' religion in essence...Islam and Judaism are 'legalistic' religions...hence, far more "influential" in the life of a follower than a religion like Christianity is (Creedal religions have their own advantages...but I won't discuss them here).
In other terms, Islam isn't just a "spiritual religion"..
Islam is a 'civilizational force' in itself. The largest, most global, and most successful civilizational force that humanity has ever experienced till now. Islam has its own laws, personal behavioral code of conduct, and even certain parameters for dress-code of individual. It
explicitly organizes the interaction of individual and society. Heck, even the practice of five times a public prayer-call arranges the 'sense of time' of the individual living in an Islamic Society. All of this makes Muslims not just random followers of a religion, but also "a specific people" with their own unique identity no matter where they are on planet Earth. For example, Muslims have a universal greeting for interacting with other Muslims- "Asslam-o-Alaikum". No matter who you are, and where you are, you will know this greeting. Muslims, no matter where they are, follow same rules about divorce, inheritance, food and diet, and even personal hygiene. They have a same and very codified structure of Islamic rituals that each Muslim know by heart..no matter if he is Nigerian or Indonesian... kind of like in military..soldiers have their own "soldier culture", distinct from outside world and easily identifiable. Turkish girls, Iranian girls, Indonesian girls, Indian girls, and Central Asian girls etc couldn't be further in terms of behavior, history, upbringing, social settings etc...but they all wear Hijab, in its own unique manifestations. All of this shows that Islam, other than being a spiritual religion, is a civilization of its own. It makes many different identities into one super nation that can be called as 'Islamic People'.
Christianity doesn't even come close in this regard. It has doctrinal difference (unitarian vs trinitarian), different versions of 'holy books', and so on...
Comparing Christian and Islam would be like comparing broken tribalism of previous times to the phenomenon of nationalism in modern times. Nationalism is far more comprehensive, permanent in nature, and tremendously more influential to human history and behavior and on much larger scale. Same goes for Islam.
At one point, you can say that 'Church' was also a civilizational force/institution that exerted most influence in people's daily life..but those were called the dark ages and now they don't exist anymore. With Islam, one doesn't need any 'church' or 'pope'. It is a civilizational force itself..it is all 'in-built' in its core...it is permanent in nature...
Even in the West, you can easily observe this phenomenon. There are hundreds of different peoples..but Muslims easily stand out than the rest. They have their own behaviors, they have their own laws for food, divorce, marriage, inheritence etc that they observe.Many of them have their own unique behavior too..like many Muslim women would kindly refuse to shake hands with males because this goes against their code of conduct of life. They have their own, unique dressing style in a way that you can "feel" the presence of Islam/Muslims. No other group of immigrant/people can be termed along with Muslims in this regard.
I guess this is also one of the reason why many Westerners find Islam and Muslims difficult to deal with.With others, like indians/chinese etc, they assimilate quite well--literally becoming exactly as "westerners"---but with Muslims, you can easily feel the presence of another people..of another, unique civilization that refuses to give itself up 100% in order to become "western" in entirety.
And may be if your Islamic world is more literate leaders like Saddam Hussein would never be in the first place, leaving ignorant Americans on our side of the world, wondering what Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, or Egypt look like.
May be you would stop interfering in Muslim Lands? Let 'people's choice' work? But no, the continuous western intervention in Muslim countries have broken the process of institutional evolution that is so fundamental to stability.
Don't forget that Europe went through centuries of institutional evolution, death, destruction, and world wars to "mature" into what it is today..and oh, they didn't have outside superpowers interfering and fucking up everything either.
but yea...
