Comment by srean | Hacker News Reader

Comment by srean | Hacker News Reader

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> and is that due to butterfly effect ?

Yes very much so. The initial condition and the differential equation were not that different for the two countries. The trajectory however turned out to be drastically different. The statesmen in charge during its formative period did not take steps which would have otherwise made such a scenario less likely. Small changes in courses of their actions early in its history, a decision here and there had major influence on how the country would shape up. They were not thinking ahead.

It was a mistake to put religion in the center of politics. It was a mistake to cultivate this identity of the wronged population. Likewise for the now popular narrative of competing to be the better muslim, the roots of that narrative go farr back in time. Although Zia is the popular choice to ascribe the blame to, it had started way before. Bhutto (the father and the golden liberal boy) was for example very much in the business of deciding who is a true Muslim and who is not, deciding that Ahmadias are to be persecuted for not being pure enough Muslims, passing parliamentary laws to that effect. Check out why does Abdus Salam's grave in pakistan says

   "...became the first <defaced> Nobel laureate for his work in physics".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdus_Salam#mediaviewer/File:Gr...

If Indian politicians play the same game, the consequences would be no different. We would get a non-muslim pakistan.

> And still you are more worried about fascism in India!

Yes and for a reason, because history does rhyme.

> Muslims in Pakistan regularly kill minorities

Perhaps you have a very cherry picked view of Indian history... since when has Hindu's in India not killed minorities. It seems to be a mandatory right of passage to take charge of national politics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_riots_in_India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_India

For those who are not very familiar with India, if you look closely you will see that some regions are regular and repeat offenders in post independence India whereas others are not affected.

Blaming only leaders for the intolerance of Islam is far fetched. And Hindu's killing minorities cannot be equated to what happens in Pakistan, if not only what happens but at what scale happens mattered.

Ah ! I see, the "We do it a little less here, so it would be fine, but sometimes we try to catchup on the scores" defence. Well played sir, I rest my case, that logic is irrefutable.

"little less" and "difference of scale" are not same thing.

It seems everyone is out to get Islam today. And I think I know the main reason ... Islam as a religion leads much more often to religious states. One graphic should illustrate this for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_religion

And when a state has a lot of people who believe sharia law should be the law of the land, the courts and politicians have to grapple with what are essentially 6th century moral and legal ideas. And not just 6th century in fact, but made by one of the only prophets who commanded an army, and went to war, and wrote things like this:

http://www.islamawakened.com/quran/8/67/

"It is not fitting for a prophet that he should have prisoners of war until he hath thoroughly subdued the land. Ye look for the temporal goods of this world; but Allah looketh to the Hereafter: And Allah is Exalted in might, Wise."

You'd be hard pressed to find Old Testament prophets speaking this way or being described in this way. In fact, the Jews are admonished for "killing their prophets" who basically went around speaking.

So the "differential equation with initial conditions" analogy is very much a big factor.

Judaism formed to have an exclusionary character - it's hard to become a Jew, and so the Jews were always a minority, never ambitious to make the whole world Jews.

Christianity formed with a "peaceful proselytizing" character, for one thing because when it formed the apostles were the ones being persecuted and they didn't have the power to raise an army and convert people by the sword.

Islam on the other hand was formed that way and the political character of Islam is hard to defeat by populations full of sharia law-abiding, devout muslims. Disestablishment of the Church took a long time, but ultimately there is far less in Christianity that says the Church and Government must be one. In fact, statements like this emphasize the separation of Church and State:

http://biblehub.com/mark/12-17.htm

So yeah founding conditions matter, and I think that's why you see so many Islamic states and why there are more Muslims around the world living in democratic countries who truly believe that if their society was transformed from a democracy into an Islamic state, everyone would be better off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYAcLudBbhg

Personally I think Islam is not alone. I think various forms of socialism (Communism, Nazism) are also like "mind viruses" or group memes that tend to want to take over the government. If you look at it epidemiologically, certain ideas simply take over the population (the vector of transmission is almost always primarily young men, especially in bad economies or situations, e.g. hitler youth, or hamas, or vietkong, etc.) and states built around these ideas are intolerant and squash dissent. In my opinion, the greatest political danger lies in ideologies whose proponents obtain power.

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