Does religion fill the void that a lack of national identity creates?

no

I read the question wrong at first and thought “how interesting” I thought it said “Does religion fill the void that a lack of nutrition creates” lol

Maybe you’re thinking of drugs or alcohol.

For some no doubt. You need to just ask yourself what values you associate with and find a place to express them. For some it might mean making sure your voice is heard within the national agenda and for others it may mean opting out.

Any group, made up of people of like minds on a particular issue, provides affirmation and reinforcement of those beliefs. The group can be anything from a cult, a fan club, a labor union, a political party, a nation or a religion and everything in-between. See ya….Gary/wtf

nope

Which nation lacks an identity?

@laureth Which nation doesn’t?

Religion in fact strengthens national identity. Such as the orthodox religion and the russians, Catholicism and italy, the church of england, and england…. The United States is unique in the sense that it sponsors no state religion, however even the founders agreed it was founded as a christian nation, and if you are muslim, you may find yourself not fitting the mold as far as your national identity is goes.

However, national identity is kind of a complex thing, you can be of totally different nationalities, and speak different languages and still find something to associate yourself with other people of the nation you are identifying with. In The Soviet Union for example, which has just as many different nationalities as the United States, it was the fact that they were all soviets and communist that gave them a national identity. So, it depends on the nation in which you are in, and what that nation uses to identify itself. So, what is it that makes you American, Polish or Chinese. So for religion, you may find that religion helps you identify with your nation in Poland (if you are catholic) but this would not be true in china, since pretty much all religion is suppressed in china. But, just simply having a Brooklyn accent may give you national identity in america, despite what religion if any you choose.

I also thought it might help to think of some examples that show a lack of National Identity, A really good one that comes to mind are the Tibetans in China, They do not see them selves as Chinese at all, and this is the epicenter of all the tension between this group and their nation. The Kurds in Iraq are also a good example, no matter what country Kurds reside in, whether its Iraq, Turkey or Iran, they see themselves as Kurds first, and then citizens of their country second. If you look into both these situations, Religion is not contributing factor in both scenarios. Where as the Kurds are Muslim, in Muslim countries, and the Tibetans are Buddhist in a Country that has suppresses religion.

No. BUT, I think sometimes nationalism or faith in a leader is a replacement for God. I think communist regimes strive for it. Citizens of North Korea revere their Leader almost like a God. And, I would say people of strong faith are more likely (this is a generatlization that cannot be applied to everyone obviously) to be nationalistic, they seem to have the personality it takes to accept things they are told without question. So, if they decide they believe in a particular leader or doctrine they don’t waiver, and they faithfully accept everything said by that person. Things seem to be very black and white for these people.

I think it’s interesting that global region, er, where your’re born in the world physically, dictates your belief in God, and how you get down spiritually. So if I had been born elsewhere I’d, think this way, and so on. Wouldn’t it be great if as humans we’d transcend, rise above, or dig below, this, which is greatly tied into the men and or the woman they control, haha, that region, be it entire country. Wow, the world is one big pie, I think when I die, I will be in a 50’s diner, complete with livestock, and this sexy thoaty waitress will lean over and say, “so son, what kind of cult pie did you have” as she’s writing up my bill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEhDZN0RFjw&feature=related

My view of religion is to worship a higher power which I call God. I don’t see it as filling a void in my life because that can be done with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

Religion for me is the reinforcement of my faith. When I go to church I am surrounded by others who come to give thanks to God. However when someone does get involved with religion it can automatically fill a void because it takes up some of their time but it isn’t the main purpose.

@LKidKyle1985 – where did the Founders agree that this was a Christian nation? There is plenty of evidence otherwise.

It’s hard to imagine religion filling a void left by a lack of national identity because, for the most part, religions and national identities are very similar things. They overlay and/or compliment each other, and, at times, are pretty much the same thing. In another question a while back, I described many of the similarities between the myths of national identity and the myths of religious identity. (If myth is a bothersome term for you, then you could think of it as archetypes, instead.)

The question seems to assume that there is some place in personal identity which must be filled by an affiliation to an overarching spirit of community. While I think that there is a place in most of us that desires an affiliation with a community writ large, I don’t think everyone needs that sense of affiliation.

Many people identify more with their local community or their local sports team than they do with a nation or a religion. And of course, there are those of us who don’t really identify with either a nation or a religion. Some of us identify with a larger sense of humanity that exceeds the smaller national or religious identities. Some of us—misanthropic types—feel little connection at all to other people, much less a nation or a religion.

However, in the sense that religion and nation do very similar things for people’s identity, you could say one is interchangeable with the other. However, as I suggested above, usually these identities are overlays on each other, and are conflated together in ways that make it difficult to separate out.

@JLeslie
Do you think qualifying a statement like people of strong faith are more likely (this is a generatlization that cannot be applied to everyone obviously).
and then go on to use language that sounds like a bigot talking of an inferior race is a tack we should follow? It never ceases to amaze me how arrogant the mindset of the “enlightened atheist” is..

@SeventhSense I do not mean that the majority of people of strong faith are likely; I mean in my opinion people of faith are more likely than free-thinkers. Percentages. If you have 1000 very religious people, and 1000 atheists my guess is that a few more extreme religious people are going to be more willing to accept a leader and follow him without much question, once they have decided in their minds he is on the side of right. So maybe it is 5 religious people and 1 atheist out of the 1000 each. That is all I am saying, I am not trying to paint all religious people in a certain light. And, maybe I am wrong. I am certainly not saying you are likely to be that way if you are religious. I can only speak from my own experience I don’t have stats. Where I live the Republicans I know did not doubt and don’t doubt Bush or Limbaugh for a second, agree with everything, they almost seem mindless to me. However the Republicans I know from my college days are not like this. The difference between these Republicans seem to be how religious they are. Maybe it is a North South thing? Maybe I am all wrong. I make generalization all of the time realizing that it is not everyone in a particular group.

@JLeslie
The problem with generalizations is just that human nature and interactions are so easily passed off as a religious thing when more often than not it’s a political thing. And yes much religion is just a thinly veiled hypocrisy, prejudice or bigotry but likewise atheism and agnosticism have much to do with self interest as well. The capacity for a charismatic individual to hold sway over individuals, I can understand, and I think the most influential use the power of emotion. I think the best charismatic persons touch something deeper than intellect. For example, I don’t know what happened to young girls when they were first confronted by the Beatles in the 1960’s say, but they apparently couldn’t control themselves and screamed and fainted. Now were these all highly influenced young girls or was it mass hysteria? Who knows.

And one could also make the case that self reflecting mind of deep faith is often the least influenced such as the Dali Lama. And yes I know he not a theist but has very definite beliefs, rituals and concepts of the afterlife.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany was a member of the Resistance Movement when many secular persons or those of less faith gladly jumped on the bandwagon. He actually wanted to assassinate Hitler. He was imprisoned by the Nazis and was executed but never wavered from his convictions. If one holds the prejudice that the person of faith is ignorant, then this it’s easy to make the assumption that they are influenced by stupidity or gullibility. But if contrarily one says in humility, I know not what brought this person to their world view but I don’t understand it, or it’s not for me, then this allows for possibilities that one had not conceived and or considered which may draw us closer to true peace.

@SeventhSense Well said. I don’t want you to think I think people of faith are “bad unthinking people” I don’t. I know that many Christian’s resisted Hitler, risked their lives, and some were put to death for protecting Jews, mostly we hear of the Catholics, and I would assume the Danes were Christian who as a country moved almost all of their Jews to safety in Sweden. I did not know your example above.

Dali Lama is very different to me because he IS a theist, and because he believes there are many paths to goodness, because he is willing to accept science, and because from what I understand he does not exclude people who are from other faiths. Chritians think they are right period, that is offensive to me right off the bat, talk about generalizations.

But, when it comes to politics it seems to me that the Christian far right and the Republican party has done a masterful job at lining up the two, especially in the last 10 years. It is the Republican’s who actually get credit for this, and they use it, although it seems to be working a little against them right now. So many who voted for Bush said things to me like “family values. He will support Israel. I think I could have a beer with the guy” WTF?! Nice that he has a nice family, but can he talk to another head of state? And nice that he supports Israel, all American leaders are going to if not for the Israeli’s at minimum because they are our best ally in the Middle East, I don’t want him to be single minded because he is waiting for some temple to be built. And about the beer, that is just ludicrous, and some how he came out as this middle class Texan, when he was raised in a rich family in the oil business with lots of power and went to Harvard. I think because the Christian right wing identified the Republicans as “good” people on the side of “right” they just accept everything that is said, and have gone as far to say that anyone who disagrees is unpatriotic, that just pisses me off. I LOVE my country.

Maybe we are agreeing. Maybe we are just saying that the extremes are bad.

My last example of what is being done among Christian’s is this idea that public school teaches childen to be liberals and Univerisities do the same. It might be true that teachers and professors are more likely to be liberal, but it is not true that they are trying to pursuade children to be liberal, it is outright false. There might be a few examples around the country that you can demenstare that they are, but I can pull out the same amount saying the opposite. Hell, our high schools here teach the bible as literature.

Chritians(sic) think they are right period
Another massive generalization. There are hundreds of sects of Christianity and the majority were instrumental in placing a liberal Democrat in the White House. And the majority are not anti Science. The Ivy League schools and Northeast in general have strong convictions and are pro education, pro science and pro human rights. The only place which suffered serious casualties on 9/11 was NY and those most opposed to the war in Iraq were New Yorkers. I just love how these yahoos jump on the bandwagon out in Nebraska or Alabama and swallow like pablum the lies the hawkish Right sell them.
I feel for you and am hugely opposed to the right wing agenda. They just seem to be the most unifying force amongst the heartland Christians-God, guns and glory.

Also, the Dali Lama uses language that people understand. As a Tibetan Buddhist he is neither a theist or non theist. And the Bible actually has some beautiful literature in parts. But as a teaching tool of scientific theory, it leaves much to be desired.
For a different perspective, I would suggest I95 North. :)

@laureth When ever they referred to god, they called him god not Allah or Krishna or Buddha what ever. And the reason people came here in the first place was religion, and that religion was christian. So to imply that the founding fathers didn’t agree that this nation was christian when they founded it is a stretch. I am not sure what evidence you are talking about.

@LKidKyle1985 – Deists, who are not Christian, talk about God, but they don’t mean it in the same way. They believed in some kind of Supreme Being, as people did back then, but not that it was a specifically Christian God – they believe(d) in a God based on reason. Jefferson, in fact, wrote his own version of the Bible wherein he took out a lot of the stuff that he thought was probably crap. You can still find the Jefferson Bible today.

George Washington referred very little to God at all, and mentioned Jesus only in the context of being a good citizen – not as a religious icon. Benjamin Franklin was a deist, Tom Paine was a pretty militant Deist, and said, “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.”

But my personal favorite was the 1796 treaty with Tripoli which states loud and clear that the United States was in no sense founded on the Christian religion.

As Joseph Priestly wrote in his autobiography, “It is much to be lamented that a man of [Benjamin] Franklin’s general good character and great influence should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and also have done as much as he did to make others unbelievers.”

Sure, there were some Christians among the Founders, but many were not. A reference to “God” should not be taken as evidence that they were.

And yes, some (like the Pilgrims) came here for religious freedom, but others also came here for commerce (Virginia) or as convicts. But we don’t hear about those. ;)

@SeventhSense Don’t Christians think there way is the way into heaven? I know plenty of Christians who are smart, accepting people, who do not just follow their religion or politicians lock-step; some are Republicans and some are Democrats.

You said to try I95 north, did you mean that Christians in the northeast are different? I am agreeing, that is what I said above (do you realize I was raised in Westechester County, NY; metro DC in Maryland; went to school in MI, and lived in SE Florida? I only lived in the south for about 6 years total. My negative statements were about the Christians around me here in the south, I said maybe it is only a north south thing, more than a religious thing, and I was talking about the fanatic religious and the extreme right wing. But, they seem to have taken over control of the republican party, unfortunately. It does seem like the Republicans are trying to sort that out right now. And, there is no getting away from the fact that there are white Christian’s all around me, many of them with college degrees, who sound like idiots when I hear them talk about politics and patriotism, or questioning patriotism of the people who are not exactly like them. They also have a ferver about them when it comes to talking about our country. As I said I love being American. You may have heard me say before that I was raised by a father who has said more than once that, “America is paradise.” Most of these people who live down here have lived in the south their whole lives and have no real idea what the rest of the country is really like, barely know what relative it was who immigrated here in their family, and have little contact with other cultures.

Another point to be made is the local government here is AWFUL, and the people who live here expand that to hating all government. They are very black and white, good and evil, right and wrong, us and them.

I love to see reasonable Conservatives/Republicans on TV. People like Joe Scarborough and even Pat Buchanan who do not spin things and create hate, but just put forth their point of view without evoking (invoking?) fear. It is good to hear all points of view.

@laureth I am sure there are exceptions but exceptions don’t disprove a theory or idea or statement. The truth is in 1700s almost everyone in the country was christian, and the majority of the founders were christian. And this is really getting away from my original point which is, if you not a christian in the united states, like Buddhist or Muslim, you may have a more difficult time relating to the national identity more so than someone who is christian.
If you walked into the continental congress and asked, hey what religion does this country most closely identify with on a national level, No one would have yelled out Deism, They probably would have said, we are a christian nation.

@LKidKyle1985 Bullshit. You may see above that I wrote… you may have heard me say before that I was raised by a father who has said more than once that, “America is paradise.” We are Jewish. We are grateful beyound belief for the separation of church and state and that Jews have been able to live in America safely for 100’s of years. I am an America, it is my country as much as the Christians. The ideal of America that we strive to live and keep is just as meaningful to me as a Christian. My loyalty is as strong as a Christians, my appreciation for the founders, their inspiration, their ideas, and ideals is in me to my core, I strongly identify as an American. In fact I would say I possibly take our country for granted less, or at least the same, as the average Christian.

If they had meant it to be a Christian nation, would they not have laid it out as such? Instead they went through great pains to make sure the nation had no official religion.

Surely there were Christian founders, but like you said, exceptions don’t disprove the fact of a nation not founded on Christianity. ;)

Go @laureth .

(sorry.).

@laureth Look, I am not arguing about the fact that there is or isn’t a “state religion” because its clear that there is not. But I think the influence Christianity has had over this country since its founding is undeniable and hence why I was referring to it as a christian nation. Now we could argue all day about the exact definition of what a christian nation is, but there is no consensus on that even among experts.

@JLeslie You are rude and next time read what I said. I said “you may have a more difficult time relating to the national identity more so than someone who is christian”. I also said that religion is not always the defining factor in National Identity, however it can strengthen it(or weaken it). And the ability of it to strengthen (or weaken) it depends on that particular nation in which you are identifying with. I am not trying to say that Jews or people of any other faith are “un-american”, which is what I feel like you are accusing me of calling you. I am sorry if the role that religion can play on national identity offends anyone, But this is not a personal opinion or belief on the matter. I did not come up with the theory of national identity or what influences it, I am just relaying what it is as it’s understood. And I think professors and other students of politics would generally agree on the definition I gave, with slight critiques.

Furthermore to build on the point you made, I am protestant and my fiancee is Muslim and born in a country that was part of the former soviet union. Only in America, and a few other countries could this be accepted or even possible, and this diversity strengthens my identity as an American since diversity is one of the celebrated qualities of this country. My point is (and I used america as an example just because I think its easiest to relate to) if you do not identify with the same religion that the majority of other people also identify with in your country, your national identity with that country may be hurt. I also used poland as an example where if you are not catholic you may not feel as polish, or in china where any religious belief may make you feel alienated by the government.

@bumwithablackberry
Say whaaaat?

Opinions notwithstanding, it is a fact that America was founded by Protestant Puritan Christian zealots who believed America was the New Jerusalem. Later Westward Expansion was called Manifest Destiny and it was understood that it was divine ordinance to convert the Native heathens.

Thank you for providing an example of the christian influence on our “no state religion” government.

Plymouth colony was founded by Puritans – America was not. That is why the (Articles of Confederation and) the Constution were/are the governing documents of the nation, not the Mayflower Compact. There is a similarity of geography, but they are not the same entity.

However, if you are arguing that the people are largely Christian (but it’s not the official religion), I would give a nod of agreement. Please excuse the confusion at your phrase “however even the founders agreed it was founded as a christian nation.” It sounded as though you meant it was founded as a Christian nation.

Sorry this is so long…

@LKidKyle1985 I apologize if you felt I was rude, my point was not to offend, but to show my disdain at the implication that I might identify less with my country because of my religion.

Now, I really thought about what you wrote. It seems to me that the countries where religious minorities never gain the same national identity as the religious majority are countries who don’t have separation of church and state, or have hatred towards the minority. Why would you identify with people who are so hateful against your own kind? I was once kind of sort of in a conversation where this gentlemen was saying something very negative about Latvian’s. I said that most of my family came from Latvia, to let him know he may not want to continue on with is thought. Later as we talked more it came up I was Jewish. He said, “I thought you were Latvian?” I said, “Yes. My grandparents came from Latvia.” He had grown up with such horrible antisemitism in Latvia, I guess there you are Latvian or Jewish. I think of country as separate from religion, probably because I am American. My husband’s family says that his father married a Mexican like his dad is not a Mexican. His father was born in Mexico, roots for Mexico during Mundial, loves his country. But, the typical usage in the country of Mexico would be to say the Jewish man married a Mexican girl, even though they are both Mexican. So, with all of this I am agreeing with you that in some countries religious minorities do not feel a part of the country, BUT I think it is the countries fault, not the minority. It is not that the minority is identifying with their home country more, it is they are not allowed to feel a part of their new country in my opinion.

In my response to you I was really talking about the US, because you statement “if you not a christian in the united states, like Buddhist or Muslim, you may have a more difficult time relating to the national identity more so than someone who is christian.” You are talking about the US. So I was speaking as a Jewish American.

Your girlfriend, she is an immigrant, I don’t know how young she was when she came, but typically it takes a generation or so to identify strongly with the new country. This is true for Christians too. I have friends from all parts of Latin America, Italy, France, and they are happy to live in America, but do not necessarily strongly identify with America, they are Christians (well most are Catholics). Also, as time moves on, and people frequently travel internationally, I think there is some movement to feel like a citizen of the world in some ways, compared to the past. I would be curious to know how yoru girlfriend feels and identifies herself? My husband is an immigrant also. I would say his religion does not affect at all whether he feels more Mexican or American, but he was raised Catholic by a Catholic mother, and now is Jewish, he is such a mixed bad that I don’t know if we can go by him.

I had a strong reaction because of what has been said of late on TV and among some friends of mine—ugh. That when Obama said, “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus—and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth..” I thought it was WONDERFUL. Then I guess Obama said something similar in Turkey and Fox news picked out part of the quote, “We are no longer a Christian nation,” and twisted it. To my dismay more than one of my friends on my facebook said on a thread they were angry about these statements, they feel/believe we are a Christian Nation. I maintain we are a country where Christianity is the majority religion. You might have seen I live in the south right now, and I have right wing Christians all around me who rarely interact with people from other countries or other religions. Their idea of America is so narrow it is shocking to me. During a conversation at work one day I mentioned the statistic that America is almost 40% minorites, and they looked at me like I was crazy, they are so insulated here.

One last thought. When talking to a black woman at work some time ago, I discovered that she, and probably other black children do not feel proud to be America, do not love their country, she had not even though about why this might be important. Living in a land that you feel unnaccepted I think is detrimental to a person. I do not mean it is good to be so nationalistic that you stop questioning your government, but I think you need to feel like you live in a place that will give you a fair shake.

@laureth I agree, it was a little confusing the way I said it, I usually type on the fly, and the notion of a christian nation is a really confusing word to begin with, I was under the assumption that it just meant a country that had christian principles and ideas, not that it had a state religion. When I looked it up it turns out there wasn’t really a clear definition on it.

@JLeslie no worries, and thanks for the thought out response. Actually my girl friend hasn’t finished her immigration here yet, its in progress. Anyways, I am pretty sure she does not identify as American yet, or very much at least, and interestingly I don’t think she identifies very strongly with Uzbekistan either, since she speaks Russian, not Uzbek (they changed the national language since the fall of the USSR) and shes Tatar not Uzbek, making her even more of a minority. She talks badly about Russia (probably a product of the Uzbek media) but seems to romanticize the soviet union (since Uzbekistan didn’t achieve any kind of democracy or freedom and only suffered more economic problems since then). So like any minority misplaced in a country that doesn’t really like them, if I had to guess Id say she identifies with being Tatar. But this is just a guess, I will def ask her next time I get a chance to call her.

And for some reason I had a feeling you were from in the south, and I know what you mean, there are some right winged nuts in Ohio as well, and the things they say regarding similar topics just blows my mind. I haven’t had anyone talkin smack about Muslims in awhile, but when they do I have a whole speech waiting for them.

And I think you are right, when you look at the situation that the united states allows especially in black communities its pretty appalling.

@LKidKyle1985 To clarify I live in the south now, outside of Memphis, but I am from NY and Maryland outside of DC, went to school in Michigan and lived most of my adult life in southeast FL (which might as well be the northeast as you probably know). The south is like being in a different country to me sometimes. I once asked a question along the lines of…if all of the states were indiviual countries, and our federal government ceased to exist as it is today, which state would you chosse to live in? All I know for sure is I would RUN out of the south if that happened.

I find it VERY interesting that your fiance preferred the USSR. I really know very little about the politics and the feelings of the citizenry following the break up of the USSR. My granparents and great grandparents came from Russia and Latvia before the formation of the USSR, and my guess, guess, had always been that countries would be happy to have their independence back.

I think your fiance will feel greatly surprised at the acceptance in America regarding different religious beliefs. My father-in-law who was raised Jewish in Mexico, and several people I know from the middle east are amazed when they come to live here. I once had a Lebonese gentleman say to me that everyone in Arab countries should have to live in the US for 5 years, and then everything would change. Unfortunately, she is coming to America during a time that even in our media we have some crazy Christians being very vocal about Obama being a Muslim, implying that it would be a horrible thing, luckily that has died down quite a bit.

Yeah the thing is, in Uzbekistan, at least during the soviet union people had jobs and benefits and they had some money. But when it fell apart the only thing that happened was they elected the same guy who was in charge of that region during the Soviet Union so nothing really changed except their money was worthless, no one had benefits anymore and you still had no freedom cause if you talk bad about the president your end up in some political prison never to be heard of again. Plus I think there was a much stronger national pride for the Soviet Union than there is for Uzbekistan. And I think the people there think that uzbekistan is a democracy, so they are like hmm democracy isn’t that great, I prefer the soviet union. but in truth what they have is just a dictatorship.
And when it comes to the soviet union falling apart and everyone switching to democracies, it really isn’t because they preferred democracy over communism, its just that after communism failed there wasn’t much of an alternative.
Now, if you ask a Pole, or a East German or a Ukrainian what they think about the Soviet Union, they will probably say they are glad the USSR is gone, but they all had much better outcomes than Uzbekistan.

Yeah, I know someone who grew up in East Germany before the wall came down and he HATES Russians. Would Uzbekistan want to be part of Russia now? Or, since Russia is no longer communist that is not appealing? Is the dominant religion in Uzbekistan Muslim?

No, Uzbek’s have no interest in being part of Russia again, mostly because of the whole national identity issue. I think the main difference between Russia and the Soviet Union was there was an ability to identify with the USSR because they were all soviets, despite dominant religion or language. That is not true in the Russian Federation today, so now language, religion and ethnicity play a bigger role in national identity in Russia than in the USSR.

Also I think there is a generation gap in some of these former soviet union countries. To give an example, in Uzbekistan the older adult population knows Russian and reads Cyrillic. However since Uzbekistan’s independence they changed the state language to Uzbek, and switched to the Latin alphabet. So there is an older population who can’t read uzbek and a minority who only knows Russian and little Uzbek. Also the older population was around during the Soviet Union, and because of some of the stuff I just mentioned, probably still identify with it more than Uzbekistan. And with all the negative changes since then, I think that’s where the idea comes that they would prefer it over what they have now. And then you have the younger generation who has no personal experience with the Soviet Union, but they are told about it by there parents and at the same time they are frustrated by the current government who does not really serve its people. But, the USSR is not Russia, and to legitimize its existence a former USSR country is practically obligated to resist Russian influence or dominance. And they do this by readopting their native languages, (Kazakh, Ukrainian, Uzbek etc.) and instilling a belief in its citizens that Russia is terrible.

Also you have to wrap your brain around the idea that people in a lot of other countries do not value democracy like Americans do. For example, in America we are taught that representation is More important than how well the government works. If we had to choose between representation and bad conditions and a dictator and awesome conditions most Americans would want their democracy. But in foreign countries they are taught to value what works over what is democratic. So it doesn’t matter if you live in a repressive communist society, as long as you have your basic needs met who cares what the people in power do or think. I think if you ask someone if they agree or disagree with the statement “if you could combine the things they liked about communism with what they like about capitalism, this would be the best” they would agree.

And yeah, the majority of Uzbek’s are Muslim, Hopefully my explanation didn’t get too confusing and explained the why behind the answers to your questions. Also, I am not an expert on Uzbekistan or anything this is just the information I’ve gathered from talking with my fiancee and then connected with what I’ve learned in school. I was pretty surprised at first too when she told me people there still preferred the Soviet Union, as an American I was under the impression that the world rejoiced with the fall of the Berlin wall and everyone lived happily ever after. Well not true, and in fact the quality of life for Russians and their former territories has dropped significantly.

@LKidKyle1985 Thank you for the explanation. I was under the impression that the countries of the former Soviet Union were having difficult times due to the transition to Capitalism, so yu have confirmed that for me. I know some Russians have become very rich since Communism fell, but I am sure many are having a very difficult time.

Your point is important, whether the people value democracy more than having basic needs met. I think in America today there is an argument over the ability to have both. We have always been, or almost always, a hybrid. We are a democracy, well really a Republic, I personally would like to do away with the electoral college, even though I think it helps my “group” I identify with. We have some social systems, but we are capitalists, but we have some laws to control the greed (or we used to :)). We have term limits on our president, which I agree with and think maybe we should have them on congressman, to avoid a “dictator” type rule, but sometimes I wish after a 4 year break the same guy could run again if he was great.

I agree with the choice her country made to take back their language and seems like a good choice to switch to the Latin Alphabet. Do they learn English as a compulsory subject?

Yeah your Impression is right, and the reason for this is when they made the switch to a capitalist economy from a communist economy, the major issue was that there was no one in the country that 1) had any capital to start a business 2) No one really knew how to run or start a business and 3) The state owned all the property. So anyways, this obviously didn’t stop people from being resourceful but you can imagine the hurdles that was faced.

Also interesting enough the quicker a country made the switch to a free market economy the worse their initial economy was, but the quicker it bounced back.

As far as English goes, It isn’t compulsory. It’s just the only language that makes sense to learn. But they do start at a really young age, my fiancee has studied it for like 8 or 10 years.