D
droid
Guest
Well yeees, these developments never occur in isolation, of course, but there's only so much apologetics and white guilt you can come out with, and it's important not to fall into the trap of seeing Muslims exclusively as passive victims, forever reacting in the only way they can to the actions of the West...their leaders have their own agendas, just as ours do, and they should be engaged with as such.
I don't think its fair to say that structural, historical causes are 'apologetic' and 'white guilt'. Look at the middle east. That entire region was carved up after WW1 and WW2, was the subject of multiple invasions and occupations, and the current authoritarian power structures evident there today were either put in place to shore up Western interests in the region or were a reaction to those interventions.
Take Iran. The Shah was put in place there by a CIA coup and the US continued to support and arm him for nearly 30 years, during which his secret (CIA trained) police: SAVAK had 'the worst human rights record on the planet' according to Amnesty International. The Islamic revolution was a genuine popular movement designed to remove the Shah from power, which was then (I believe) co-opted by extremists who eliminated their political opposition on the left in order to cement their hold on power.
Crackerjack mentioned above that Indonesia has only had a democracy for a few years (since 1998) - why is that? because an American supported coup ousted a nationalist leader and put in place a genocidal dictator who held onto power for over 30 years with their support.
Now, Im not absolving individuals of responsibilty here either. There will always be extremists with despicable ideas on the fringes of any society, but its only when the conditions are right that these groups gain popular support - the Nazis being the obvious example. I believe that ignoring these structural causes in favour of the implication that there is an inherent tendency in a 'culture' or people towards savagery is an irrational orientalist position that provides a false narrative - a narrative which has a political purpose in that it cloaks past and ongoing interventions.