Everybody knows already that Russia’s Minister of Agriculture tried saving the country’s economy with a bold plan of selling pork to Indonesia. Even Putin giggled.
Fewer people know that a there is a much more effective measure already in place. The Russian government “loses” taxpayers’ tax returns and makes them pay the same taxes 2, 3 or maybe even 6 times in a row. Putin giggled some more.
To be completely fair, Indonesia exports pork and I’ve certainly heard of nominal muslims eating pork there (and wild pigs). But traditional indonesian islam was notably lax and syncretic with lots of other practices (especially hindu and chinese) thrown in.
But the current trend in the muslim world (I call the Sunni convergence) involves ever greater adoption of Saudi wahhabist norms (like the expansion of hijab and burkas to palces that never much wore them) and less and less tolerance of other religions or the non-religious.
Of course the dumb Russian minister wouldn’t know any of this and so what he said was dumb.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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