You’re getting these responses because Americans have been trained Pavlovian style to never ever claim that some cultures are better than others. This is despite most, including those who think they don’t, implicitly believing this
Most African countries got independence in the 1940 - 1970s. Israel was established in 1948, while Singapore became independent in 1967. While most African states busied themselves with denouncing colonialism, playing around with the Soviets, or murdering any ethnic minority that didn't agree with the party line, Singapore went from being a slum to an economic powerhouse; Israel is essentially indispensable to the west as the economic/military intelligence key to the Middle East now.
So, i's hard to celebrate any advancement when we could be much further. Western optimists might feel otherwise, but perspective is everything, I guess?
Singapore was one of the richest Asian countries on a GDP per Capita basis in 1960. It was comparable to other middle income countries in that era like Southern Europe and South America [0].
LKY talking about Singapore as if it was a third world hell hole is just disingenuous PR to make the PAP look much more impressive. Even Taiwan and South Korea were much poorer than Singapore back then, but they've both caught up to Singapore by 2023. In fact, if you compare Singapore with other cities in first world Asia, then it's largely been outpaced by Seoul and Tokyo.
[0] https://cepr.net/documents/publications/econ_growth_2005_11_...
To give two more examples, in 1960 South Korea's GDP/Capita was similar to Sudan and significantly lower than Taiwan's which was similar to Northern African countries (Tunisia, Morocco). Algeria was much richer than either, I assume thanks to oil.
What if we argue a 1971 Ford Pinto is actually just a good a car as a 2003 Honda Civic. Sure, it's old, the fuel tanks rupture in an accident, and it had the largest recall in automotive history, but at least it was affordable, allowing societal mobility?
What is this phenomenon called?
Which one is the worst?
As a result, it's easy for the government to subsidize their citizens heavily and build lots of shiny skyscrapers to attract western tourists without developing human capital significantly.
Call me Islamophobic but I say this as a Nigerian, living in a country with the largest Muslim population in Africa (second-largest in the world after Indonesia) where people still get lynched and burned for "blasphemy."
Islam, fully implementing the Koran, is basically the opposite.
It requires fidelity at the threat of death and the forced conversion of outsiders. It requires civil and religious law to be the same.
Iran for instance instantiates the tenets of Islam in fact.
The Christian theocracies are basically historical dead letters at this point- and were mostly overlays on existing government structures:
The Roman Empire for instance continued to be Rome after the Emperors became Christian- it never really, despite the Pope's best efforts, become more than a light overlay on existing government structures, with King's utilizing theories of 'Divine Right of Kings' as a useful way to perpetuate their existing hierarchies. Even countries like Armenia that claimed explicitly to be Christian states aren't actually ruled by the priesthood- they have established national religions in many historical instances, not a truly religiously run state like Iran where the mullah's are the ultimate authority.
Rome/Papal States, Peter the great, Geneva/Calvin, some slice of the Byzantine empire, along with pre-United States Utah (and in a smaller scale the city of Nauvoo,) where you have had the clerical and government structures completely united in a Christian state that I can think of off hand. England in a much looser sense qualifies. And in these cases you generally again have, relative to Islam, a non-radical, especially as it relates to outsiders, experience.
> It requires fidelity at the threat of death and the forced conversion of outsiders.
Islam does not require forced conversion of outsiders. It can be said to require dominating Earth as a goal, but Christians and Jews lived peacefully under Islamic rule for millenia.
Fidelity at the threat of death is only if the person committing adultery is married and at least 4 people witnessed the incident. This requirement is rarely satisfied, while being enough too deter people to stay away from this act.
> Iran for instance instantiates the tenets of Islam in fact.
Iran is Shiite. They are a deviant sect. Doesn't mean all their practices represent Islam. There will be multiple deviant sects in any religion with billions of population. Vast majority of Muslims are Sunnis who are following the original teachings.
Important to note is all Islamic punishments regarding sins apply to Muslims, not people of other religions. They are (and historically were) free to do whatever they want, barring things like insulting people and betraying the state, which are also punishable under current secular law.
Christianity got killed first in the hands of St. Paul who basically changed Bible to his liking - and then by the Roman emperor whom I forgot his name who selected 4 out of the 400 Bibles available at the time in that famous meeting.