SOME Muslims Know What's Going On

I lifted this from a Malaysian Muslim's blog. This guy has it right. It is NOT our fault that Muslim nations are mired in poverty and violence, it is theirs. I corrected a few typos (it's the editor in me) but will not hattip because, despite his common sense, some of his rhetoric is still clearly nutty and I don't give credit to hate sites.

We use trains and planes, but they are not our trains or planes. They (Westerners) manufacture them and export them to us. True, we can buy the most magnificent things in the world -- products for our homes and for ourselves. Our people can buy the most luxurious cars -- Rolls-Royce or Mercedes 500 or 700, models S, M, and L with all the luxuries. We own them, but we don't manufacture them. We don't even produce a single screw in any of these cars. Others do this for us. The income of the entire Arab world, including the oil-producing countries, does not reach that of a European country such as Spain. Spain – let alone Germany, France, Britain, or Italy. Just Spain, which is at the bottom of the list of industrial countries... The income of the entire Arab world does not reach it. How come? Because we don't work, and if we do work, we don't do it professionally. They conducted a survey of the average time that a government employee spends working in a certain Arab country. The average was 27 minutes a day. 27 minutes! The rest of the time he drinks coffee, reads newspapers, and goes on errands here and there. Only a small number of people work. The rest do not. In the mid 1970s I went to Germany. We arrived in the morning. I asked the guy who took me from the airport to the convention hall… As I was passing through the empty streets, I asked him how come the streets were not busy, like in our countries. He said: "People are at work." After 7 p.m. he took me back to the hotel, and the streets were empty. I said to him: "What's going on, the streets are empty again." He said: people are back home from work, and they are exhausted. All they want is to eat their dinner, watch the news, and then go to bed, because early next morning they have to wake up for hard work. They commute more than an hour to work and back, and spend an hour at lunch. They work non-stop. We are a nation that doesn't work. How can we develop if we don't work? When we do work, we don't do it professionally. We keep saying "Don't worry, later, later…" Islam teaches us to do things professionally. Doing things professionally is a religious duty. The Prophet said that Allah ordered to excel in everything. He imposed excellence and professionalism. Professionalism must be followed in everything. "If you kill, do it properly, and if you slaughter, do it properly." Even when killing, you must do well. Unfortunately, we do not excel in either military or civil industries. We import everything from needles to missiles. This is our nation. We still haven't manufactured an engine in our Arab countries. We assemble parts, but have no manufacturing industries. India has manufactured a car, and even a plane, while we still go around in circles like a bull in who turns a grinding mill or a water wheel until it reaches exactly where it started. How come the Zionist gang has managed to be superior to us, despite being so few? It has become superior through knowledge, through technology, and through strength. It has become superior to us through work. We had the desert before our eyes but we didn't do anything with it. When they took over, they turned it into a green oasis. How can a nation that does not work progress? How can it grow?

This guy is speaking mostly about Malaysia, but he is right about the Islamic world. There are 21 Muslim countries in the world. They sit atop 75% of the world's oil reserves. Yet COMBINED, they have a GDP (gross domestic product) that is less than the country of Spain. That is not the fault of the United States nor any other non-Muslim country. That is the fault of a religious, political and economic system that is mired in the 7th century and refuses to modernize. That is the fault of Muslim leaders (i.e. royalty, clerics, fanatics.) who refuse to give up wealth and power to feed the poor. That is the fault of corruption that is endemic in every single one of these countries. The Arab streets need to rise up and and TAKE the wealth and power from their slave masters. Only democracy will elevate them. Only democracy will empower them. And I mean real democracy, not the corrupt joke that is Indonesia. They need to join the rest of humanity in the 21st century. Only in a free society can people be all they want to be. Muslim countries the world over are not free.