Moderate Muslim Malaysia

Bryan Caplan, associate professor of Economics at George Mason University, was in Malaysia recently. I have been following his writings for quite a while. His latest entry in EconLog is about "Moderate Muslim Malaysia"

Professor Caplan summarised what he saw in Malaysia as follows:

1. At least in KL, there was a nearly uniform distribution of styles of dress - everything from Asian Britney Spears to burkhas without eye slits. No one seemed to notice or care.

2. Muslim teens in conservative dress freely held hands and engaged in other PDAs. The head scarf is a much weaker signal of behavior than it is at GMU.

3. The big KL bookstore I wandered carried not only Discover Your Inner Economist and Radicals for Capitalism, but also Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion.

4. Most of the public propaganda focuses on Malaysian nationalism, not Islam. It's offensive in its own way; how can you talk about the wonders of "Malaysian unity" without mentioning bloody anti-Chinese pogroms of the 60s? But I saw no evidence of an official effort to treat non-Muslims as dhimmis.

5. I saw no public signs of anti-semitism - even in the display on the Palestinian conflict in the Islamic Arts Museum.

6. There were two big Muslim controversies going on during my visit. A council of mullahs had ruled that yoga and "tomboyism" were contrary to Islam. But at least one major newspaper, the New Straits Times, reported on these fatwas with thinly-veiled contempt.

Read his full blog post here.