The Future of the Moslem World, a six part guest feature of Winds of Change, by Tarek Heggy:
1. The Big Change in Islamic Societies
2. Muslims & The Clash of Civilizations
3. The Mentality of Violence... and the Games Nations Play!
4. A Movement Bred in the Isolation of the Desert
5. The Fall of the Oppressors and the Emergence of the Sword
6. The Crisis Facing Non-Wahabbi Islam
This is an important, perhaps even a critical, contribution to our understanding. But...
I fear that the primary cause of this ["Humanity’s failure to support and reinforce the gentle, non-militant brand of Islam"] is the ‘infantile culture’ of the world’s foremost superpower. The United States, despite its great achievements in tens of fields suffers from what I call in my lectures the “cultural infantilism of American policies”.
It would certainly help if the US became more sensitive to the cultural wealth of the people who inhabit this planet with us, but it might be even more useful for Tarek to consider that a Michael Moore-inspired-stereotype of the US isn't the best place to start if he wants to understand the problem from this end. The fact is that the US turned a new cultural leaf in the 18th Century, the understanding of which in the 21st Century might very well help a "gentler Islam" tame its internal strife. The very notion that the US is "cultureless" betrays a characteristic disinterest in the West that has as much to do with the totalitarian drift of Islam as any misunderstanding of Islam by itself, or by the West.
Posted by Demosophist at February 11, 2004 12:13 AM | TrackBack