I just read this GREAT opinion piece on Aljazeera.net. It pretty much sums up why so many Arab people have a problem with the west and is a MUST read if you want to have at least a basic understanding of why things are the way they are in the Middle East. Excerpt:
Why do they hate us so? That question was asked by many Americans after 11 September 2001. The query is based entirely on ignorance, which, by itself, is a result of a chronic American fault – a near total apathy towards history.
The vast majority of Americans are clueless regarding the past of faraway lands as well as their own. That is highly dangerous in so much as we share this planet with other ethnicities, and historical illiteracy breeds misunderstanding.
George Santayana wrote: “Those who forget the past are condemned to relive it,” or words to that effect, and many believe him, allowing the caveat that the principle also applies to those who never learned history in the first place.
Subsequently, during the agony known as the Iraq war, it becomes easy to be fixed totally on the present – the present being defined as that era beginning 19 March 2003, to now – and that is folly.
Noting that awareness of the past is a two-edged sword, meaning it is incumbent upon Arabs to learn as much as they can about the West, the fact remains that since the fall of the Arab empire in the 11th century, Arabs have not been in control of their own destiny, and, to a large extent, that condition exists today, Bush’s attack on Iraq being a case in point.
I think that there are a lot of people who should read stuff like this before they open their big mouths splurting ignorant slurs such as Why all Arabs are barbarians?” and “Why do people hate the west?”
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