[Tzunamitom]

If you're looking for a religion to blame, start with capitalism. Islam has nothing to do with this.

While you're at it you can start by looking at how unrepresentative of the Muslim world (if you an even use that term) the Gulf countries are - India and Indonesia are both home to many times more Muslims than the Gulf but yet you continue to judge the adherents of a religion by the actions of a few small countries made significant by their oil and gas reserves.

[lake99]

> Islam has nothing to do with it

@waps has already posted a link to [1]

> start with capitalism

Do you think it is "capitalism" when employers are not honouring contracts that they created, and their employees signed? After you have learnt what capitalism means, you'll see that the article is rich with examples of violations of capitalism.

I don't know about Indonesia, but India is, not by any stretch of imagination, representative of the Muslim world. [2] I don't know why you bring up India as an example of things going right in the Muslim world.

[1] http://www.islam-qa.com/en/94840

[2] http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=811484

[Tzunamitom]

Dear Sir,

I would love to debate with you. If I did I would point out studies that show the historical necessities of state intervention into laissez-faire capitalism to prevent abuse of asymmetrical relationships, I would point to monopolistic behaviour, and the tendency of an unrestrained capitalistic system to undermine the workings of its own free market. I would draw upon my own experiences of living in the Gulf, visiting labour camps, talking to migrant workers (mostly themselves also Muslim), and perhaps gently suggest that your armchair judgment of over 1.5 billion people (25% of the world's population) based on a couple of hastily googled sites from a fringe cleric and a single reported court case is not necessarily accurate or fair. I might ask you to compare the number of Muslims in the Gulf with the number of Muslims in India and Indonesia, and then tell you happy anecdotes of my many visits to these countries and the wonderful people I met. I might explain the difference between doctrinal theory and practical exigencies, and faulty interpretations based on fear and greed spread by power hungry clerics (I'd pause of course to muse at the irony drawn from the parallels with capitalism), and then discuss similar dichotomies evident in the practice of Christianity in the West. I'd conclude with the realisation that the problems inherent in the treatment of migrant workers are myriad and complex, and cannot be distiller into a simple judgment against any belief system.

I'd love to do all these things, but sadly I am a longtime believer in the maxim that "If you argue with a fool, then there are two fools arguing", so sadly I must decline.

[lake99]

You seem to enjoy making the effort to write all this rhetorical crap! With bits like "historical necessities of state intervention into laissez-faire capitalism to prevent abuse of asymmetrical relationships", I hope you don't claim credit for independent thinking.