By Fouad Ajami, Published: September 14
In this analytical article the author argues that the root of anger in the Muslim world at large and Arab World in particular is deeper than simple protest against offensive movie.
Describing the historic perspective the author writes;
“Time and again in recent years, as the outside world has battered the walls of Muslim lands and as Muslims have left their places of birth in search of greater opportunities in the Western world, modernity — with its sometimes distasteful but ultimately benign criticism of Islam — has sparked fatal protests. To understand why violence keeps erupting and to seek to prevent it, we must discern what fuels this sense of grievance.
In the narrative of history transmitted to schoolchildren throughout the Arab world and reinforced by the media, religious scholars and laymen alike, Arabs were favored by divine providence. They had come out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century, carrying Islam from Morocco to faraway Indonesia. In the process, they overran the Byzantine and Persian empires, then crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Iberia, and there they fashioned a brilliant civilization that stood as a rebuke to the intolerance of the European states to the north. Cordoba and Granada were adorned and exalted in the Arab imagination. Andalusia brought together all that the Arabs favored — poetry, glamorous courts, philosophers who debated the great issues of the day.
If Islam’s rise was spectacular, its fall was swift and unsparing. This is the world that the great historian Bernard Lewis explored in his 2002 book “What Went Wrong?” The blessing of God, seen at work in the ascent of the Muslims, now appeared to desert them. The ruling caliphate, with its base in Baghdad, was torn asunder by a Mongol invasion in the 13th century. Soldiers of fortune from the Turkic Steppes sacked cities and left a legacy of military seizures of power that is still the bane of the Arabs. Little remained of their philosophy and literature, and after the Ottoman Turks overran Arab countries to their south in the 16th century, the Arabs seemed to exit history; they were now subjects of others.
The coming of the West to their world brought superior military, administrative and intellectual achievement into their midst — and the outsiders were unsparing in their judgments. They belittled the military prowess of the Arabs, and they were scandalized by the traditional treatment of women and the separation of the sexes that crippled Arab society.
Even as Arabs insist that their defects were inflicted on them by outsiders, they know their weaknesses. Younger Arabs today can be brittle and proud about their culture, yet deeply ashamed of what they see around them. They know that more than 300 million Arabs have fallen to economic stagnation and cultural decline. They know that the standing of Arab states along the measures that matter — political freedom, status of women, economic growth — is low. In the privacy of their own language, in daily chatter on the street, on blogs and in the media, and in works of art and fiction, they probe endlessly what befell them”
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mr. ajami’s analysis sounds scholarly but i wonder if every hooligan who enters a foreign embassy compound, destroys it, kills its occupants and gives a bad name to islam and muslims is really thinking. Seven centuries ago muslims were so advanced and now we are not, so let me go and take it out on the western world”. plus, should we even look for a reason other than that these people are essentially criminals who are being incited by religious leaders? i seriously wonder if these people belong to the same religion i belong to, or do i belong to the same religion that these people belong to. are they even the same species? i wonder what brain chemistry makes them do this?
the only thing we muslims should do is to roundly condemn these guys and their acts without any if’s, but’s and becauses. there are many other non barbaric ways to show your displeasure at someone using his right to free speech(albeit with malice) by insulting a religion. one of them would be to ignore those idiots.
It will put us on different track if we start looking in to “what went wrong” but I do agree with Br.Amin that the Muslim scholars have to work out this phenomenon and lay out some assertive techniques to register protest against this kind of acts(I believe the more in the tunnel as some forces do not want peace within the Muslim world they want disruption continues in those societies).Brushing the eyes from these idiot is one solution too.
Here is my question,whenever this kind of unrest occurs,the media in those countries start condemning the concept of freedom of speech and expression,but under what concept of rights,these people demonstrate in the street and damage the public property,who gave them this right to creat hooligan situation at any diplomatic building and kill the employees.
By the way (if someone from the USA consulate makes a public announcement that make a quee and every one will be issue visa for USA,in ten minutes every one would be lined up for visa).
I am sorry to say that even this prestigious Forum didn’t condemn the act of the film making,the editorial board should have come up with this beside the condemnation of the violent reaction in Lydia and elsewhere.it should also ask its member to review the past and suggest some sort of proposals for the readers and viewers.
Tahir Mahmood
Clarification. The statement was my personal statement and not from the Forum.
Your suggestions will be discussed in the Board.
br. tahir., i don’t think the board of Forum has been empowered to issue formal policy statements; plus the forum is not monolithic, we have people with 72 different opinions and since we don’t have a full time board, even the board cannot get together in time to put together a consensus opinion. so it is best we have individual affiliates express their own opinion on the forum blog.
btw i did call the filmmaker and his likes idiots. but even though i see the argument of condemning such acts, in doing so we may be playing into their own hands; we make their dirty work more famous. look what we muslims did!.. we made this movie much more famous, millions more saw it and he got the satisfaction of showing the world that “islam is a violent religion”.