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Oh, just caught this. If I said 20, it's a typo. I moved here at the end of '11. I spent my previous 10 years in Europe. I moved to Turkiye because I love the music here. Microtonal theory is fascinating, and as a percussionist, turkish and arabic drumming are second only to Indian. Hopefully we will move to Rajasthan in a few years after my wife and boyfriend retire.

Currently, there is not, as all nations of muslims are ruled by a-secular, illiberal dictators.

It should go without saying that you cannot have religion be part of a secular democracy.

Turkiye has not been a secular nation for a very long time. Go read hurriyetdailynews.com, a moderately pro-government site. Currently the government is trying to make it illegal to be gay by attaching it to a bill that supposedly protects the rights of turbanli (covered women). The full text of the bill practically Turkiye into every other shariah nation.

Also read up on "Imam hatips", which are failed religious school the government forces us to pay for. Nobody wants to go to them, because the educational quality is garbage, so they actually started forcing students to go to them.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's democracy could have been the most inspiring democracy the world has known, but the democracy itself died within 10 years of him. I think we're on our 6th constitution since then.

During the 2 year "state of emergency" after the coup, he rewrote the entire constitution.

Currently there are over 250 politicians in prison from the HDP (Kurdish party), and EVERY major name in the CHP is being prosecuted, or has been convicted of "insulting the cumhuriyet" in the past 3 months.. This is the most democratic nation in the ummah. :(

> Sure, they just created Algebra, cameras, algorithms and many foundation of our modern world. What a coincidence for a society that hates modernity!

Algebra is what, 3,000 years old? That's your idea of modernity? Really?

> So you stayed in a region you unfathomably hate for 20 years for a job you could've done anywhere? And you didn't even pick rich countries either, starting to sound like someone who's just making stuff up.

You're putting words in my mouth. I enjoy teaching refugees and trying to convert them to atheism, I love the geographic and landscape here, and I love my queer/gay/liberal/artistic friends and family here. I just dislike the religion and the religious. I feel the exact same way about christianity, judaism and hinduism.

It's great being here. All my friends here are either expats or liberal beyaz turkular who work in entertainment, and feel the same way about Islam and religion as I do.

You know, I've never actually been on reddit? HN and Slashdot were the only sites of that format I ever visited.

Please, citation needed about the last time a western government stoned, beheaded, or hung to death a gay man for sucking dick?

Sufis are still fairly right-wing, except maybe the hippy westerners who go spin themselves doing the semih in the unofficial mevlevi lodges in Yelova or Konya. I've done the one in Konya actually, it's a great musical experience.

Meanwhile, Turkish men are the most metrosexual in the world, and let's just say it 's easier to get laid in Taksim than it is in the Castro. I feel that Istanbul is actually a far gayer city than San Francisco, but everybody stays in the closet in order to survive.

You have a funny concept of free.

If I am not free to be exactly who I am, then I am not free.

If I am forced to follow a religion under penalty of death, I am not free.

If I am forced to not leave that religion under penalty of death, I am not free.

If I am forced to be straight, I am not free.

A free nation allows everybody to be free, not just the mainstream.

I like to suck dick.

If I get caught sucking dick in a Muslim country, I die.

If I suck dick in the west, maybe I get my own dick sucked in return.

Tell me again about the freedom of the islamic world.

How was this not substantive?

I gave you a very solid example of how in one large province of Indonesia, democracy and the rule of law were entirely removed and put in the hand of islamic "leaders".

How is Indonesia not an Islamic nation when now several of its provinces are legally ruled by shariah law interpreted by mullahs, not by representatives or leaders elected by the people, and when the government makes federal (parliamentary?) laws enforcing various muslim beliefs and laws?

You should ask the king that question.

"One person"

Like I said I've been in the islamic world for a decade. I've studied Arabic/Turkish music in Iran, Egypt, Turkiye, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. It's not like "I met one muslim". I have spent about 20 hours per week for the past decade teaching Syrian and Yemeni refugees in Istanbul and Ankara.

Please point me to a democratic, secular islamic nation. Just one? As far as I can tell this only existed for the brief period from when the Turkish Cumhuriyet was established until Ataturk drank himself to death. Most are kingdoms run by rich tribal warlords.