Happy and Mindless in Arabia, Zimbabwe Dissed
Happy Fourth of JuilletThe University Michigan survey of the "happiest peoples" has made it to the Arab media, especially the jubilant Saudi media. Saudi media today celebrated an international poll that found that Saudis are the 26th happiest people in the world, and that they are the happiest of all Arab peoples. In fact they seem to be happier than many people I would have considered quite happy, like Cyprus, Brazil, France, Greece, Hong Kong, and Italy! They are even happier than Bangladeshis, Iranians, Japanese, and Zembabweans (who happened to be the least happy).
There is an Arab saying: "Being mindless is a comfort", or as former Dan Quayle once paraphrased: "It is terrible to lose your mind", and maybe there you have it.
The poll found that the Danes (great and otherwise) were the happiest people in the world, and they do not even have Wahhabi shaikhs controlling their lives, telling them how to live- go figure. They are the happiest even though they are very democratic, elect their leaders, do not have tribes or a theocratic monarchy!
Puerto Ricans scored # 2, but perhaps that is because they pay less taxes than other Americans.
Iran is way down there, lumped with South Korea, Hong Kong and Bangladesh. That might be understandable in the case of Iran under a theocracy, but South Korea and Hong Kong??
Egypt is near the bottom of the happiness scale, but then what people wouldn't be unhappy after three decades of misrule by one man and his goons. They have the same absolute hereditary rule as many other Arabs, but without the benefit of the oil revenues.
Oddly, Turkey was number 57 on the happiness scale, and her official motto is "Happy is the man who can say 'I am a Turk'"!
The USA is number 16, not too shabby for a country where 45 million free people have no access to adequate health care, no?
I have my doubts about the methodology of this enterprise: I will look into it in more detail.
Cheers
mhg
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