FD,
You have to go further than U.S. politics (this also applies to dezhen's post, which was excellent, and IMO largely on the mark and I'll get to it in a minute).
I agree that Western policies in the ME are not always viewed favorably, often with good reason...but not always.
However,
While I agree that the latter is true, wouldn't you say that the motivating factor for a good amount of AQ's support is the former, and that lack of the former might well reduce AQ to a fringe organization with a very small and thus ineffective membership?
I disagree with the above statement because the motivating factor is not Western policy related. Man this is complicated. I'd have to write a small novel.
Let me give you a quick outline as best I can. These are generalizations. Inasmuch as I am talking about Millions of people, individual miles may vary...It's like the "ugly American." Not all are that way, but there is truth in the statement. We can be quite boorish in our behavior around the world....
In general, the ME is in decline, and has been for a good long time. This was not the result of western policy towards the region, but the product of internal rot and stagnation in the Ottoman Empire, which manifested in a variety of ways that I don't really want to go into. It's similar to "Reagan won the Cold War!" Um no....Reagan was president when the USSR began its implosion. The spending might have helped a touch, but he hardly forced the USSR to topple.
There is a real sense of lost grandeur and lost respect. Islam is not just a religion. It is a way to structure society. It is a way of governance. Ideally, the state governs in accordance with Islamic law (which does not translate either to a theocracy, or to the AQ vision of the world, or an autocratic state BTW, unless you are an Iranian Ayatollah or buy in to the AQ message, or are trying to justify a repressive regime, like the KSA).
Thomas Friedman once called humiliation the single most underrated force in human history. I'm inclined to agree. As a collective society, the ME has a sense of cultural humiliation - a once great empire of artisans, intellectuals and warriors now relegated to a secondary status. Culturally, the ME is insecure. Think about your experiences with insecure people. They LOOK for insults. They LOOK for perceived slights. And they usually find what they are looking for, regardless of actual intent or context. They are extremely sensitive towards social status. They are extremely sensitive to protocol and formality - and they do not excuse lack of such things as cultural difference. It's the kind of stuff that derails business meetings and political agreements.
Anecdotal story from a Foreign Service Officer I know - in a meeting with four VIP Iraqis, a U.S. General wore a flannel shirt, jeans and work boots. He had three or four armed guards with him. He sat at the head of the table and rolled his sleeves up. In the U.S. this is a guy who is one of you and ready to get down to business - a no nonsense fellow.
Each of the Iraqis left with the message that this was a guy who had no power to do anything. First, a representative with power would never dress like that. Secondly, the presence of armed guards indicated he was scared for his life and didn't control anything. Third, they were all offended that they'd had to meet with somebody who obviously didn't have the same status to control things they did.
Yeah, a lack of cultural understanding on the General's part, but the Iraqis were also looking for insults.
Couple this sense of Islamic humiliation with a total lack of opportunity, and you have a volatile mixture. The ME countries have mostly adopted policies that have caused economic stagnation and decrease job availability to their own people. Things aren't getting better, they're getting worse as GDP drops per capita.
People start looking around for answers. Well, these same people aren't educated in models of the world. The concept of the humanities is a small one. Fewer books are translated into Arabic each year than any other language on the planet.... and most of these are technical manuals and engineering texts, not treatises on economics, global political theory, etc. There is a general lack of knowledge about the rest of the world, or demand for such knowledge.
However, lacking such context, there is a readily available explanation. Internally, the Islamic world has been declining because they have strayed from the path of righteousness. We see this here in the United States with Pat Robertson and others who argue the United States is in decline because it strays from the path of god. But we have a host of secular counterarguments because of humanities educated people. (I would also note that the argument is phrased differently by our fundamentalists because we have a concept, validated by the Bible of separation of Church and State - we can go into that later if you like).
There are few such counterarguments in the ME - the ones that DO have them are typically moderate Muslim reformists, and quite frankly, they aren't that well known or popular amongst the populace (which isn't surprising, since most ME people don't have the requisite background in the humanities to grasp the argument effectively - doesn't matter how smart you are if you don't have the knowledge)
Externally, the Islamic world is in decline because the world conspires against them. This fits several things. First, it capitalizes on the sense of cultural insecurity. Secondly, it fits the message, reinforced in many Mosques, that the Islamic world is Allah's chosen place, to which great things will be given. If they AREN'T getting great things, then some force must be responsible. 'Them' against 'us' satisfies the requirement nicely. Thirdly, and this is a general human trait, it projects the problem, meaning "it's not your fault." That's a hell of a lot easier to swallow than the message that you might be at least partially to blame.
In fact, many ME regimes have ENCOURAGED this message in moderation, because it takes attention off of their inability to "deliver the goods" of governance. The radical Islamists get to spread their message of "returning to Allah," - as long as they don't implicate the host regime as un-Islamic - and blame the non-Islamic world for their own decline. Very useful for taking the internal pressure off the failings of your own regime.
Of course, it's an uneasy truce. When the local radicals start denouncing the regime as apostate, the crackdown begins. UBL was expelled from KSA for declaring the House of Saud apostate....Egypt beat the **** out of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad for challenging the regime, etc.
Anyway, this message "finds what it's looking for." Every action, every policy involving the ME, or a company or trade or anything is an attempt to keep them down. It's a sulf-fulfilling framework that leads to preposterous conclusions about policy, motive, intent and global system structure based on...well, just about anything. For instance, a popular opinion in the ME is that the tidal wave and earthquake in Indonesia was a result of U.S.-Isreali joint nuclear testing in the Pacific, because no earthquake or tidal wave that big could ever have happened naturally. The U.S. and Israel did it as part of a conspiracy to kill Muslims. A popular debate.... But in the world of policy and public mood, perception is reality.
Where was I going with this....oh yeah.
IMO, the biggest "western harm" done to the ME has nothing to do with any specific policy, and certainly not with any actual (recent) intent to exploit the ME. Rather, it is the cumulative effect of the globalization process as well as general western pressure to adopt reforms coupled with old world Imperialism in the region. Namely, there is a lack of development in Islamic Jurisprudence. There is a strong cultural bias in the ME against "non-Islamic" models and systems - you can't institute them in an Islamic system. How do you justify a system built on secular humanism (Man's Law) within the context of a society that doesn't recognize the concept as valid? You can't push that type of reform and expect a positive result
Old world colonialism (and the Ottoman Empire, which relegated the religious adviser to a secondary role over time) stunted the growth of Islamic Jurisprudence. It kept it from growing into a system that can handle the demands placed on a modern government. There has been real progress in Islamic Banking law, which has shown remarkable flexibility and resilience in the global market. Great Islamic template for future reform in the region.
Underscoring the old idea that change must come from within....
Dezhen is of course correct that most of the Islamic world is appalled by terrorist acts, and none of my writing should be construed as an indictment of Islam or Muslims. I was attempting to outline what I perceive as driving forces.
[cont]
"In the world of martial arts, respect is often a given. In the real world, it must be earned."
"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. "--Bertrand Russell
"Liberals - Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own. "--Benjamin Disraeli
"A conservative government is an organised hypocrisy."--Benjamin Disraeli
Originally Posted by Kung Lek
Reply With Quote
But i was referring more to the generic mindset that people have (at least as i have experienced), as opposed to specialist views experts in the area have.
