Mark Steyn answered a critic of an article of his by saying that he (Steyn) had simply quoted the prime minister of Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir Mohammed "one of the least worst Muslim nations." Dr. Mohammed had said:
"We produce
practically nothing on our own, we can do almost nothing for ourselves,
we cannot even manage our wealth," he added... In spite of a number of
Muslim nations being extremely wealthy, there is not a single one of them that can be classified as "developed" by any criteria.
"[We are] lagging behind in modern knowledge, financial and
technological skills and in many instances, effective governments," he
lamented. In addition to poverty, ignorance and instability have become
such common features in the Muslim world that its detractors assume
these afflictions are the natural consequences of following the
teachings of Islam, Mahathir said. [Steyn's emphasis]
To which Steyn added:
He's right . . . The "Muslim" world is not politically developed, economically developed, intellectually developed, scientifically developed - objectively speaking. Nor is it "free". I mention in America Alone the 2005 Freedom House rankings of personal liberty and democracy: Five of the eight countries with the lowest "freedom" score were Muslim. Of the 46 Muslim majority nations in the world, only three were free.Of the 16 nations in which Muslims form between 20 and 50 per cent of the population, only another three were ranked as free: Benin, Suriname, and Serbia & Montenegro (which has now split into its constituent parts). As I add, "It will interesting to follow France's fortunes as a fourth member of that group."