nongaddarliberal
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I lived in a country called Tajikistan for 3 years, where India has been helping them out with many different projects such as opening up factories, and IT centers. We are also reported to have a military base there. To give a background of Tajikistan, it is almost identical to Iran culturally and linguistically. It is a former soviet republic, so they never had any Islamic rule of any sorts for the past hundred years. They were thoroughly secularized by the Russians during soviet rule. As a result, it is called a "liberal" muslim country. One day, I was having a conversation with a Tajik student in one of their libraries, where I was tutoring him English. We both happened to be the same age. The conversation somehow veered towards the concept of evolution. It became quite heated, with me giving him all the scientific evidence and proof of evolution, with his only retort being "my ancestors were not monkeys". I went over and got a biology book, opened up the chapter on evolution, and tried to explain it to him again. His faced turned red, and in one sudden movement, he tore off that page from the book, and threw the book on the floor. He then shouted "non believers like you will not understand. All your science books cannot convince me to go against the Quran. Better you also rid yourself of this belief, or it is the hellfires for you in your afterlife!". This was all in broken English of course.
The librarian, upon hearing the commotion, came up to us and asked what the whole ruckus was all about. She then had a look of absolute shock when she saw the torn up book on the floor. I immediately told her that it was of his doing, and I was about to apologize to her on his behalf. But he suddenly started saying something in Tajik to her, and she stood there silently listening. After a few minutes of his rant, she gestured for him to leave. She looked at me and said " You cannot talk of these subjects here". I was shcoked. I had the impression that this was some progressive liberal country. She and many others later, tell a very similar narrative. The youth are far more religious and radical than their previous generations, and are starting to come under wahhabi infuence.
If this is the state of a so called liberal muslim country, I shudder to think of what these fundamentalist Islamic republics are like.
The librarian, upon hearing the commotion, came up to us and asked what the whole ruckus was all about. She then had a look of absolute shock when she saw the torn up book on the floor. I immediately told her that it was of his doing, and I was about to apologize to her on his behalf. But he suddenly started saying something in Tajik to her, and she stood there silently listening. After a few minutes of his rant, she gestured for him to leave. She looked at me and said " You cannot talk of these subjects here". I was shcoked. I had the impression that this was some progressive liberal country. She and many others later, tell a very similar narrative. The youth are far more religious and radical than their previous generations, and are starting to come under wahhabi infuence.
If this is the state of a so called liberal muslim country, I shudder to think of what these fundamentalist Islamic republics are like.
) but PDF and it's members (paki) famous for wrong stats. Yes, it has more traffic than even forums of highly populated countries like China, India or Brazil (I observed) but it's mostly a mismanaged area where people always "create a new threads for everything" instead of posting stickies. Though, in some.moderation aspects, it's okay.
