In fact, when the Islamic regime falls, as it eventually must, Iran is likely to become the first country to see massive, voluntary renunciation of Islam. Millions of people, especially young urbanites, will turn to the Bahai faith, since it is an indigenous Iranian religion. In Algeria, where the Islamic radicals haven't taken over (yet) but have wreaked unimaginable havoc, the indigenous Berber minority, already alienated from the Arabized majority for ethnic reasons, is increasingly turning to Christianity. The behavior of the fundamentalists has led many in the Berber heartland of Kabylie to conclude, in the words of a newspaper account translated last year in The Middle East Quarterly, that "Christianity is life, Islam is death." |