If you two are Muslims, you should remember that it's disallowed to dictate who's following the religion correctly and who is the "better" Muslim in your eyes.
Religion might be about that, but Islam is in part about forcing the religion onto others. So how do you reconcile secularism with those aspects of Islam? Isn't secularism basically a Christian concept?
Does your secular version of Islam differ from Christianity in any substantive way (i.e. aside from pure symbolism like dates, names of festivals, etc.)? If so can you give examples?
And as a quick parentheses, Gaddafi's Libya offered free electricity, free housing, free healthcare (even if surgeries had to be done abroad), free full education. Might not have been the perfect country; there wasn't much freedom of expression and salaries were still low, but eh.
And then, once Gaddafi refused to stopped pushing for an African monetary union backed by gold, rebells backed by France and Qatar and the US suddenly popped up. Now Libya is a wasteland compared to what it was before.
Heck, even Iraq has made a full U-turn and broke its alliance with the US and moved towards Russia as the US offered too much assistance to ISIS. There are videos of US airdrops to ISIS filmed by Iraqi troops.
Libyan myself....was totally against him. Despite the free healthcare, education and free housing, have you actually seen the quality of them? They are not good enough to be paying for! ....why do you think there are so many Libyans like my parents have decided to migrate (knowing that i've lived here for most of my life) ? it's because they know if they chose to stay especially during his regime, they wouldn't be able to provide the best education and healthcare for their children. This saddens me because look at Libya now, it wasn't like before when King Idris had it under his control. He built Libya to be such a developed country when Dubai was basically sand dunes. What kills the most is that Gaddafi used to give loans at such high rates for other countries like France, Dubai and even America to develop whilst watching his own country go into poverty! He killed so many of his civilians during the 2011 crisis. It was a nightmare! During his regime no one would dare to say anything about politics or anything about him or he would kill them. He hanged many university students at once just for saying he was unfair (i.e. his laws). There was no freedom! This is why the Libyan civilians chose to go out for peaceful protests in 2011 until he chose to start a war! Until now, Libya has gone from bad to worse! Hope Libya does find its way and develops soon because i'm seriously missing it..and might visit it soon since my last visit in 2012..
Libyan myself....was totally against him. Despite the free healthcare, education and free housing, have you actually seen the quality of them? They are not good enough to be paying for! ....why do you think there are so many Libyans like my parents have decided to migrate (knowing that i've lived here for most of my life) ? it's because they know if they chose to stay especially during his regime, they wouldn't be able to provide the best education and healthcare for their children. This saddens me because look at Libya now, it wasn't like before when King Idris had it under his control. He built Libya to be such a developed country when Dubai was basically sand dunes. What kills the most is that Gaddafi used to give loans at such high rates for other countries like France, Dubai and even America to develop whilst watching his own country go into poverty! He killed so many of his civilians during the 2011 crisis. It was a nightmare! During his regime no one would dare to say anything about politics or anything about him or he would kill them. He hanged many university students at once just for saying he was unfair (i.e. his laws). There was no freedom! This is why the Libyan civilians chose to go out for peaceful protests in 2011 until he chose to start a war! Until now, Libya has gone from bad to worse! Hope Libya does find its way and develops soon because i'm seriously missing it..and might visit it soon since my last visit in 2012..
You visited a warzone simply because your parents were born there???? What were they thinking? O_O
Damn it almost makes me wonder whether Gaddafi's decision to sell oil on the gold (and not on the dollar) had anything to do with his swift US-backed removal after 40 years of being a bad guy...
Anyway, do you believe the articles that say the collapse of the petrodollar is imminent (albeit from frimge sources) or do you think that's tinfoil conspiracy hogwash?
Libyan myself....was totally against him. Despite the free healthcare, education and free housing, have you actually seen the quality of them? They are not good enough to be paying for! ....why do you think there are so many Libyans like my parents have decided to migrate (knowing that i've lived here for most of my life) ? it's because they know if they chose to stay especially during his regime, they wouldn't be able to provide the best education and healthcare for their children. This saddens me because look at Libya now, it wasn't like before when King Idris had it under his control. He built Libya to be such a developed country when Dubai was basically sand dunes. What kills the most is that Gaddafi used to give loans at such high rates for other countries like France, Dubai and even America to develop whilst watching his own country go into poverty! He killed so many of his civilians during the 2011 crisis. It was a nightmare! During his regime no one would dare to say anything about politics or anything about him or he would kill them. He hanged many university students at once just for saying he was unfair (i.e. his laws). There was no freedom! This is why the Libyan civilians chose to go out for peaceful protests in 2011 until he chose to start a war! Until now, Libya has gone from bad to worse! Hope Libya does find its way and develops soon because i'm seriously missing it..and might visit it soon since my last visit in 2012..
You visited a warzone simply because your parents were born there???? What were they thinking? O_O
Actually...The war ended in october 2011 when gaddafi himself was killed...Libya was safe and the war has ended. Libya is far by most a beautiful country and nothing can stop us from visiting its kind and welcoming family there. My parents would never take us to a war zone...not even if they were given the whole world!
Libyan myself....was totally against him. Despite the free healthcare, education and free housing, have you actually seen the quality of them? They are not good enough to be paying for! ....why do you think there are so many Libyans like my parents have decided to migrate (knowing that i've lived here for most of my life) ? it's because they know if they chose to stay especially during his regime, they wouldn't be able to provide the best education and healthcare for their children. This saddens me because look at Libya now, it wasn't like before when King Idris had it under his control. He built Libya to be such a developed country when Dubai was basically sand dunes. What kills the most is that Gaddafi used to give loans at such high rates for other countries like France, Dubai and even America to develop whilst watching his own country go into poverty! He killed so many of his civilians during the 2011 crisis. It was a nightmare! During his regime no one would dare to say anything about politics or anything about him or he would kill them. He hanged many university students at once just for saying he was unfair (i.e. his laws). There was no freedom! This is why the Libyan civilians chose to go out for peaceful protests in 2011 until he chose to start a war! Until now, Libya has gone from bad to worse! Hope Libya does find its way and develops soon because i'm seriously missing it..and might visit it soon since my last visit in 2012..
I'm really glad to hear the account of someone who has actually lived in Libya!
Yes, I understand that he was DEFINETLY not too great a ruler at all.
However, I would think that it is undeniable that US involvement has sent Libya back in time decades. Under Gaddaffi, there was some sort of peace and stability, and while education and healthcare were not the best, we must consider how poor Libya actually was. Despite the immense wealth of the petrol industry, etc, the government still did a lot for its people as compared to other states. Although, yes, that is not an excuse, but still something to consider.
And in the way of receiving 'the best' for your kids, obviously nothing really compares with Western education as of yet at least in the way of accessibility. It is rather unfair to blame Gaddaffi's rule for not offering the best educational facilities.
Bottom line is, being able to keep your head down and have social safety nets, education and healthcare is far better than what you have in Libya now.
Well if u can see....not the only one who's talking politics...uuuh nd says u.. Ive seen ur thread somewhere else talking about bashar so yh....I didnt say anything bad against u or ur opinion so I'd rather we stay kwl yh ?
Unfortunately, we wont see a rise in secularist muslims anytime soon due to oil-rich saudis throwing their money at madrassas in Europe and Asia who are teaching young muslims the most vitriolic, hatefilled version of Islam