What is perhaps the greatest Muslim nation in the world is not a democracy. It’s an authoritarian state, the United Arab Emirates.
I think comparing the UAE to nations like Pakistan, or the Palestinian Territories, tells a very specific story.
It is not a racist story, as Latinxs and Asians have proven quite adept at establishing wonderful nations with melanin and yet without the sexism and homophobia that writhes lively in Muslim nations.
Consider for a moment, the Germans.
They are not allowed to vote for Nazism. Their democracy is very imperfect. Literally, the government says who you can and cannot vote for.
What the success of the UAE suggests is that democracy is not necessarily the path for Muslim nations to achieve the highest levels of modernity in the Muslim world.
This is not an indictment on melanin. It’s an indictment of Islam.
Egypt, if allowed to be a perfect democracy, would elect the Muslim Brotherhood into power. A sexist, homophobic and anti-semitic organization, the Muslim Brotherhood would crush Egypt’s economy, to say nothing of its women and homosexuals.
Egypt, like the UAE, is better off under a theocratic government that limits religious extremism, than under democratically elected Islamofascists that jail female rape victims and toss gays from the highest roof.
