[tmdh]

Here is what I will say about Saudi Arabia as I lived there for 18 years from my birth as a non-Saudi:

Most non-Saudis have a job at a company. Most of my friends' fathers had large businesses of various types. And almost all the people who have jobs have fair wages.

I felt so safe living there, going out to the beach with my family at 2 am is no worry at all.

Most of the people in Saudi Arabia are very friendly.

I know I'll get downvoted, but as a Muslim, this is the best place to live. Muslims want the Sharia law and all the other Islamic stuffs including hijab, prayers and what not.

[pavlov]

> "...as a Muslim, this is the best place to live. Muslims want the Sharia law and all the other Islamic stuffs including hijab, prayers and what not."

Afghanistan also has all the Islamic stuff. Is it a good place for a Muslim to live?

If not, what's the difference? Is it just the oil money that allows a class of people to live in luxury while exerting Sharia law on the others?

[maccard]

That's a ridiculously narrow view of what the OP said, and you know it. The US is deeply Christian, as is Zambia. Is Zambia as good a place to live as the US?

[pavlov]

What makes the USA a good place to live (for many) is certainly not the borderline theocratic laws that exist in some states.

What makes the Saudi Arabia a good place to live (for some) is not the extremely theocratic laws. Muslim quality of life isn't improved by beheadings and hijabs, as evidenced by Afghanistan.

[HDThoreaun]

Well no, clearly the theocratic laws have improved op’s quality of life. It’s just that the oil money has too. Why does it have to be one or the other?

[paulryanrogers]

They seem to be trying to understand if it is the laws alone or a combination that make life there so ideal. Because a country without so much wealth may prove the law alone isn't actually that great.

[nullcaution]

> The US is deeply Christian as is Zambia.

Statisticaly no, the US is only 63% Christian, while Zambia is over 95%. Further I would argue that the actual american figure is lower due to Christianity's persistent cultural foothold in the country. If you count the number of people going to church weekly that figure is going to be much lower.

[quickthrower2]

Which solidifies their argument.

[nullcaution]

Im not on anyone's side, why would you assume that? Im just pointing out something that is factually incorrect.

[quickthrower2]

I didn’t mean to say you were. Not an ad hom, just an observation.

[InCityDreams]

Going to church != Christianity.

[nullcaution]

Explain? This isn't super helpful tot the discussion if you disagree without supporting your claim. Feels kinda Reddity.

[wwtrv]

> US is deeply Christian

US is and always was a secular state.

[maccard]

The country with In god we trust printed on their currency, who has "one nation, under god" as part of a pledge that children learn as part of routine schooling, who has the most senior politicians and judicial representatives polarized on religion sure as hell isn't secular in practice.

[feet]

All of those things were implemented after 1900 because people were scared of communism

[maccard]

That doesn't change the fact that the US is what it is now. We don't say that Iran is a secular nation because it was 50 years ago.

[hasdha]

I think this is a relative concept. It's less secular than pretty much all other developed nations and also less secular than many other less developed countries

[pavlov]

The USA is more consistently secular than any other Western country. Its constitution is essentially unchanged for 250 years and is designed to separate church and state.

In the same 250 years France had swung between extremes of religious monarchy and ultra-republicanism, back and forth. England’s monarch is also the head of its national church. Even progressive countries like Sweden and Finland have national churches with taxation rights enshrined in law and automatically collected by the state tax authorities.

These are just some examples of how many European countries retain deep state-level power to the church while the society has shifted towards secularism.

[krapp]

And yet no American Presidential candidate could be elected without professing faith in Christianity and Biblical literalism, because the American political system is overfitted for rural, and thus Christian, cultural influence. To the point that one of the two political parties that matter frames itself as the defenders of traditional Christian values. And thus the American Supreme Court is currently repealing decades of progressive law, removing abortion rights (based entirely on Christian principles) and making mandatory school prayer legal again.

America invokes the name of God on their money and their schoolchildren evoke "one nation under God" in their pledge of allegience. State governments constantly fight to be able to teach creationism and intelligent design in schools. Christianity is the reason you can't buy alcohol on Sundays in many places in the US. Christianity is the reason American media censors sex more so than violence. One could go on nearly ad infinitum.

Sure, there's no (officially sanctioned) national religion (It's Evangelical Christianity though) and churches don't collect taxes (rather, they don't pay taxes) but despite the secular (really, Deist) foundations of the Constitution, one would have to be blind not to see the degree to which the US is still very deeply influenced and controlled by Christianity.

[dpdpdp]

One nation, under God. Indivisible, with....

[feet]

One nation, afraid of godless communism, implementing nonsense in the 50s

[tn890]

> but as a Muslim, this is the best place to live. Muslims want the Sharia law and all the other Islamic stuffs including hijab, prayers and what not.

Very insightful, surprised to hear people like it there, I'm glad.

I think the problem with Sharia law and such is when people come from say Saudi Arabia or similar middle eastern countries and expect to bring their backwards ass laws with them to EU countries.

[dang]

Religious flamewar is not welcome on Hacker News. Please don't post like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: you've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines in other places too - please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33768659. We ban accounts that do that repeatedly, so if you'd please fix this, we'd appreciate it.

[wwtrv]

I bet white straight males who owned property loved living in antebellum south...

[thro_213r692s]

To be fair, thats what their religion preaches.

[akg_67]

Problem is same with western countries (EU/US). People emigrate from western countries to Asia and bring their backward ass laws with them to Asia and want Asian countries to conform to them.

TLDR: Bigotry is a two way street. Either appreciate the differences or STFU. You don’t have monopoly on deciding whose laws are backward.

[sofixa]

That's a pretty stupid false equivalency. I can be annoyed by Singapore's laws against chewing gums, but that isn't in any way comparable to inhumane treatment of segments of the population for who they are (women, gay, etc.) or where they come from (Indian/Pakistani/etc. near slaves) in some places.

Treating people as shit, or executing them is objectively bad. Merely for their sexual identity/preferences is objectively even worse. You don't have to be from a specific place to be able to appreciate that.

[stareatgoats]

> objectively bad

I agree that treating people like shit or executing them is bad and most people would agree with you, but it is not objectively bad, since "bad" in the way you use it here is a subjective value judgement, by definition the polar opposite of objective. Just saying.

[paulryanrogers]

Technically maybe. Though I think it's a much stronger case for objectivity when one is murdering, imprisoning, and enslaving fellow humans to please imaginary friends or destructive traditions.

[stareatgoats]

I think you will find that most dictionaries defines objectivity and subjectivity as binary opposites, and that there can be no such thing as a subjective opinion that can morph into objectivity, even if the phenomena are ghastly.

But I'm sure you find people who agree with you, all those who want to have their opinions elevated to objective truth, much like churches of old that claimed to have God on their side. To me such a stance is usually indications of prejudice and naïve realism [0], and perhaps worse; relieves one of the hard work of trying to see the other side, preventing one from building a solid case for ones own (subjective, but morally better) stance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology...

[HDThoreaun]

There is nothing objective about right and wrong.

[croes]

>Muslims want the Sharia law and all the other Islamic stuffs including hijab, prayers and what not.

Doubt.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/10/iran-crackdo...

[recuter]

Why do so many young Saudis change clothes literally at the airport bathroom (witnessed this multiple times) party and act western every chance they get away from such supervision?

[tmdh]

What? I used to wear western clothes. Occasionally I would wear Saudi dresses, e.g. at a funeral.

[hasdha]

What's acting western for you? Drinking alcohol and wearing jeans?

[recuter]

Sure, for example.

Wearing jeans arguably hastened the end of the Soviet union: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeans_Revolution

Alcohol is haram. I hear the attitude towards Jeans in SA is now more lenient but less than a decade ago would get you in hot water with the religious police.

You get the gist of it. The moment they leave that country many of its young people act very differently in ways that would not be allowed/frowned upon back home.

What is up with that? A decadent Rumspringa before they willingly return to the warm embrace of Sharia or an escape from a compulsory punitive society in which they are unwilling participants?

[bitcharmer]

> Most of my friends' fathers had large businesses of various types. And almost all the people who have jobs have fair wages

I don't think you grew up in reality that the majority of population face. Your experience is vastly different from the common folk.

> Muslims want the Sharia law and all the other Islamic stuffs including hijab

It's a shame you don't respect women's choices about that (ask Iranians living under Islamic regime) and generally support oppressive system but I guess this is in everyone's conscience.

[stavros]

> Your experience is vastly different from the common folk.

Have you grown up in the reality that the majority of the population faces?

If not, it's a bit presumptuous to be telling someone who has grown up there that you know better than them what their country is like.

[matkoniecz]

> If not, it's a bit presumptuous to be telling someone who has grown up there that you know better than them what their country is like.

If someone has decent evidence of situation then it is not.

I have never lived in USSR but I have enough knowledge to dismiss some misleading claims, even if they are coming from people who lived there.

[matkoniecz]

> I felt so safe living there, going out to the beach with my family at 2 am is no worry at all.

That sounds normal for me. Why you would worry about going out during night?

[stavros]

In some places you have to worry, I guess. Sounds like OP is from the ones where you do, and is (probably rightly) amazed by the ones where you don't.

[MikeDelta]

I appreciate your comment on life in SA, but your statement on what Muslims want goes too far: you don't speak for them. I know many who hold a very, very different view.

Every individual has their own opinion.

[sorokod]

Sounds nice, are you male?

[NicoJuicy]

It isn't safe because of Sharia law.

It's safe because they need foreigners to work there, since they themselves don't want to work and live off government oil money.

[WeylandYutani]

What I like about Saudi Arabia is that it knows how to play America and the West. Saudi history is inspiring to every country blessed/cursed with oil and foreign corporations.

[wwtrv]

Or you could look at actually inspiring examples like Norway...

[bitcharmer]

Requirements to be inspiring:

1. Have lots of oil

[paulryanrogers]

Human rights optional

[watwut]

I feel safe too and I don't live in Muslim country.

[akudha]

Muslims want the Sharia law and all the other Islamic stuffs including hijab, prayers and what not

No normal, rational human being would want to cover their face. If they do, then it means they’re raised that way and brainwashed. Or they’re straight up lying, for fear of prosecution.

[dang]

Please do not take HN threads into religious flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[pocketarc]

> No normal, rational human being would want to cover their face

We’re raised to cover our bodies in clothes. You accept that as normal but draw the line at covering your face?

Edit: Updated the quote I was replying to.

[phatfish]

Saudi Arabia has the climate that one could survive without clothes. In many other places you would be very cold.

In the coldest places it is even necessary for someone to cover their face to avoid frostbite.

Let's not pretend enforced face covering anything except the subjection of the female sex. "Enforced" includes the peer pressure to conform even if it's not breaking a law.

[wwtrv]

> that one could survive without clothes

I'd love to see you to try and survive naked in the desert for an extended period of time. Temperature isn't everything. Also at night it might get pretty cold.

[zakki]

We are enforced to pay income tax. We accept it. And that is not a problem. Why a religion that enforced its law to its follower become a problem?

[wwtrv]

If you can't tell the differ between paying income tax and executing women who try to resist being raped (or imprisoning those who don't), there isn't much point in having a good faith discussion with you, is it?

[adammarples]

Well a) lots of people do have a problem with income tax but at least b) it is spent on public goods, not just burned. What is the great public good of forcing women to cover their faces? This argument is so broad as to be meaningless. Oh I'm sorry, we have income tax so what's wrong with <travesty>?

[paulryanrogers]

> Why a religion that enforced its law to its follower become a problem?

Does Sharia law not apply to unbelievers? Do followers choose the faith only in adulthood? Or are people involuntarily indoctrinated from birth? Are apostates and unbelievers granted the same rights and privileges as everyone else?

[rajup]

Umm taxes are a by-product of laws which in most cases come about by representative democracy. Not some 1500 year old book written by some randos, which happens to be set in stone.

[MikeDelta]

I draw the line at the gender inequality where only women have to do this or they get beaten by men.

[watwut]

Probably because taking down hijab is symbol and first thing to do when there are protests against muslim religious dictatorships.

It is also a thing ex Muslim women complains about a lot. It is a thing that systematically and repeatedly ceases to be worn the moment you remove violence and threats from the equation.

Muslim states including Saudi Arabia exert considerable violence against women disagreeing with these laws. They would not needed the violence if it was all voluntary.

[yucky]

I felt the same about people wearing those non-N95 masks over the last couple of years, but a huge chunk of the population made it part of their personalities.

I'm agnostic so I don't really have a horse in the race, but it turns out a lot of people (maybe due to anxiety) actually loved an excuse to keep their faces covered in public.

[erenyeager]

Such an ethnocentric view. If you believe the one Creator commanded you to wear modest clothing, then indeed it is most rational to follow. And covering your face also gives a kind of privacy in society that many western women would not have the luxury of.

Anyways, many commenters here could benefit from a broader cultural perspective rather than a narrow minded, tunnel visioned view of the world.

[feet]

Where does the belief of some creator come from?

[stavros]

I don't have an opinion, but I'll say that the argument form of "no normal person wants to do X; if you want to do X, there's something wrong with you" should be beneath us.

I hope we know better than casual No True Scotsman arguments.

[recuter]

I'd just like to thank you, as a (cannibal) resident of Nukuhiva, for respecting my culture. Everything is just a matter of perspective after all, it is good to keep an open mind.

[stavros]

I guess maybe I should adjust the standard of discourse I expect on HN.

[terryf]

The other guy is right. Moral relativism is not the way.

There are limits to acceptance as you imply in your comment.

Freedom is measurable and matters.

How long is the list of things that you can do for which the state can repress you in Saudi Arabia? How long is the list in Belgium?

Is there a fair trial process?

Are there equal rights to people?

Yes, some people want to cover their faces and that is fine. Some others don't. That should be fine as well.

[HDThoreaun]

Moral realism is not the way. There is absolutely no reason to believe in universal right and wrong. Might make you feel good but that doesn’t make it true

[stavros]

No, both of you are strawmanning my argument. I said "No True Scotsman isn't a valid argument" and you got "moral relativism is OK" from that.

There's a vast difference between "saying 'no sane person wants to do X, therefore if you want to do X, you're insane' is wrong" and "everything is morally OK".

[bitcharmer]

This refers to your comments more than others. There's a lot of mental gymnastics you're engaging in.

[akudha]

Why don’t you have an opinion? They’re treating women so bad, their policies are stuck in 1200s, and we are in 2022. Does that not bother you at least a bit?

Honest question about the argument - how would you phrase it (I wrote that comment)?

[stavros]

I wouldn't make that argument that way, I'd say I don't like what they're doing. It's not useful to say "no normal being would do that", given that millions of "normal" human beings do it.

It makes it sound like they're inhuman monsters and that we'd never do that. The truth is, if you and I were raised there, we probably would, just like we eat meat.

[akudha]

Ok, fair enough.

The truth is, if you and I were raised there, we probably would

But that is kinda what I said though, isn’t it?

Anyway, I wasn’t trying to make them sound like monsters (except the rulers, they sure are).

I’ll try to word things better, next time.

[stavros]

It's not so much about the wording, it's about this line of argumentation separating us from them. I especially dislike this line of thinking when thinking about Nazi Germany and the atrocities there, because people tend to think "no sane person would do that, and we're sane, so we won't do it".

Instead, a much better line of thinking is "normal people can do this, under specific circumstances, so we should be very careful not to fall into the same trap ourselves".

[algorias]

This is unsurprising to hear. But the problem I have with middle-eastern countries is not how they treat straight male muslims.

This happens in many other cultures as well. E.g. Christians are super nice people. But if you reveal you're gay, then suddenly about half of them start treating you like crap.

[lzooz]

You are free to live somewhere else then. I don't like the rules of Saudi Arabia so I don't live there.

[arnvald]

You have such choice. Some 17 million Saudi women don't.

[lzooz]

Not everything is the West's problem.

[ramphastidae]

It’s not about east vs west. It’s about basic human rights.

[bes__]

Conception of which is purely western category of thought.

[algorias]

Sometimes I have to travel through those countries. E.g. my employer demands that I take the cheapest flight to attend a conference.

[TheGhostOfBoris]

> my employer demands that I take the cheapest flight to attend a conference.

WTF!

Several of my employees bowl from the pavilion end. Is utterly unthinkable to insist on them transiting through a territory so hostile to their very existence in order to save a few quid on expenses.

Your post is mind boggling to me. Is this how you expect to be treated as an employee?

[algorias]

Well, it's more of a question about what you're willing to make a fuss about.

[etrautmann]

What does that mean?

[skissane]

bowl from the pavilion end is euphemistic slang (chiefly British) for a gay man. It comes from cricket - the “pavilion end” is one end of the cricket ground.

[TheGhostOfBoris]

Would you like me to draw a map for you?

[int_19h]

Are you, though? Until very recently, women couldn't even leave Saudi Arabia without their (male) guardian's approval.

[Crusoe123]

I'm sure Nazi Germany was great for some Germans too, if they willfully ignored all the bad stuff going on.

[FiberBundle]

Unfortunately the Nazi regime was popular with the majority of Germans.

[hnbad]

Do you base this on the last "free election" that literally just had a large circle for "I want Adolf Hitler to be the Führer and sole leader of Germany" and a smaller one for "no"? Because in the last election before that[1], the Nazis didn't even get 50% of the vote and that was after heavy suppression of dissent and left-wing parties.

I don't think there were any objective opinion polls you could base this on after the point at which disagreeing with the Nazi regime resulted in a visit from the police or worse.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_elec...

This was the last federal election in Germany and followed the Nazis openly attacking left-wing parties, fully controlling state propaganda, practically prohibiting all opposition parties from campaigning and literally shutting down opposition newspapers, plus staging the Reichstag fire -- and they still only got 43.9% of the vote at a 88.7% turnout.

The previous federal election only got them 37.3% of the vote at a 80.6% turnout but this was enough to get Papen and Hindenburg to form a coalition government with Hitler at the helm.

[FiberBundle]

That's just my take from reading history. I think it's the general consensus in scholars who study Nazi Germany that the Nazis had the support of the population after having gained power. Evans [1] e.g. goes into depth on this, though I, unfortunately, don't have the time now to look up any references.

[1] Richard J. Evans - The Third Reich in Power

[hnbad]

I think you're conflating different factors to create a false, but common, narrative that obfuscates the banality of the Nazis' rise to power.

The Weimar Republic was in essence Germany's first real experiment with democracy so many people in positions of power were still heavily invested in the old ways (whether directly as in the monarchists who wanted to reinstate the emperor, or less directly as in those who wanted to scale back democracy to establish a form of new aristocracy). At the same time you had communist movements trying to take democracy to its logical conclusion (but they were also split into competing factions because things like the Bolshevik revolution were happening around the same time) and a general populace exhausted from a long and failed war of attrition that had seen more death and suffering than any previous war on German territory.

The Nazis didn't get into power by winning the hearts and minds of the people, they got into power by allying with wealthy conservatives who were afraid of leftists and saw the Nazis as a natural antidote against communism. This allowed them free rein to suppress the opposition while also playing out the conservatives as too timid and ineffective because they had been unable to form a stable coalition government.

The death bed wish of Hindenburg was for Hitler to step down and restore the Hohenzollern monarchy. This was after Hitler had already become chancellor and was on his way to becoming the unchecked autocrat via the Enabling Act, which the conservatives co-signed. Hitler of course ignored this but it should tell you all you need to know about the delusions of the conservatives who enabled him.

Once the Nazis were in power, of course their support in the population grew because they claimed responsibility for everything good while creating a smokescreen of grandiose nonsense achievements, breaking ties and treaties with other countries as a show of force (which after the defeat of WW1 rekindled the national pride) and eventually "fighting back against Polish aggression" to start WW2. But at that point all political opposition had been silenced or murdered so of course people were more likely to support them. Questioning the government was not just frowned upon but became actively dangerous. And of course as the war progressed for many it became a sunk cost fallacy.

Reducing this to "actually the Nazis were popular" creates a false sense that there must have been something unique about 1930s Germans to have elected such an obvious evil as the NSDAP when in reality 1) the 1933 NSDAP still allowed for plausible deniability much like certain far-right parties do today, 2) the right (i.e. conservatives) saw the NSDAP as a stabilizing force because they saw the left as a threat to order and 3) even at their peak they couldn't get the majority of votes in a fair election.

People support institutions that do bad things if those bad things are sufficiently normalized. And a good dose of nationalist fervor or revanchism helps the medizine go down.

[FiberBundle]

I never said that the Nazis came to power by winning the majority in an election and am well aware that they only came to power as a result of a huge mis-calculation of the conservatives.

What I claimed was that the Nazis were popular after having gained power. In fact Nazi ideology even remained popular after the Nazis were defeated. Tony Judt has survey results [1] in his book 'Postwar', e.g. a majority of Germans were of the opinion that Nazism was a good idea but poorly applied. 37% in the US occupied zone said that the extermination of the Jews was warranted.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification#Surveys

[wwtrv]

Nazis weren't really that popular until the beginning of WW2, just that the opposition parties hated each other even more and were unable to unite in opposition (a bit like the Russian revolution).

The conquest of France was an unifying (and legitimizing) moment when even the people who were passively skeptical of the regime mostly got behind it (actual opponents were almost all in exile or imprisoned by that point)

[watwut]

By the time WWII started, opposition was closed in literal concentration camps. There was heavy suppression of oth democratic and communist parties from the moment Hitler took power on 1933.

Also, the calls for opposition to unifie miss who the opposition was. As in, it was composed of both pro democratic and actual communist party that took directions from Stalin. Who were pro dictatorship too at that point.

I mean, it is popular talking point from from tankies. But, social democrats not unifying with actual communists despite Hitler propaganda claiming they are the same makes sense.