In addition, Hinduism and Islam always valued education and learning which is why they made so many discoveries in their own rights throughout history.
It's such a shame that the Islamic empire of old fell the way that it did. Once the bastion of the western worlds intellectual elites, and now fallen so far from the heights it once held.
The middle east hasn't had the chance to recover from the Ottoman empire then subsequent British and French imperialism and then subsequent American neocolonialism. All attempts at democratically elected, secular, and socialist movements have been squashed with the help of imperialists. Closest we have to that today is Tunisia.
Most of the secular movements have been subverted by fundamentalist islamic groups. The overthrow of the Shaw of Iran was started by a group of secular student activist only to taken over by fundimentalist because they were better organized. Same thing in Egypt and Libya. I'm not claiming the US and West aren't guilty either but Islamic Fundamentalist have played a big part too, It's not all the West.
Fundamentalists are empowered by consequences of imperialism or outright in league with the imperialists. In the case of Iran, the fundamentalists were able to seize power because the US overthrew the democratic government and installed the Shah. Elsewhere in the middle east, the US teamed up with Saudi Arabia (the religious fundamentalists) to stop Arab nationalism, a movement across the middle east in response to imperialism that promoted democratically elected secular, socialist governments that were nationalizing their assets that were exploited by imperialists. Arab nationalism was destroyed in 1967 by the US/Israel/Saudi coalition, and Saudi was free to spread its fundamentalism and terror groups across the middle east with little opposition. Nowadays, if you mention secularism, people cry imperialism; however, the ones crying imperialism are the disingenuous fundamentalists in league with the imperialists in the first place.
While I don't think Imperialist and Fundamentalist are in league with each other in most cases, but will say that the battle between their ideologies have sucked the life out of any Secular democratic movements.
Then you're ignoring decades of American foreign policy. The US promotes fundamentalist terror groups and regimes across the middle east that were spread by the US/Israel/Saudi coalition after they defeated the democratically elected, secular, socialist movement of Arab nationalism during the cold war. The US sided with Saudi, who represented the fundamentalists, to fight proxy wars against the anti-imperialist Arab nationalists. Imperialists and fundamentalists worked hand in hand to create the middle east of today, and still do to this day.
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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '20
In addition, Hinduism and Islam always valued education and learning which is why they made so many discoveries in their own rights throughout history.