Here’s something that I never really understood and it bugs be quite a bit. I’ve spent the last thirteen years or so watching Muslims in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan express their rage and hatred of all things American. It always seems more than a little bit hypocritical to me. So I’ve always wondered:
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Muslims in third-world countries always seem ready to throw violent riots when they perceive their religion has been insulted. Do they ever realize that Western fear / anger towards Islam is rooted almost entirely in incidents of terrorism and violence perpetrated in Islam’s name? I mean, do they ever stop raging about whatever perceived insults they have suffered to think, “You know, the West doesn’t seem to like us, but surely if I suffered murders, airline hijackings, and indiscriminate bombings, I might feel the same way. They also never seemed to take much notice of us until someone flew planes into buildings that one time… I wonder if that had something to do with their change in attitude?”
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Pakistan’s government and its people always complain about their sovereignty and America being evil and so on and so forth. I see them raging and protesting the air campaign in their territory. Has Pakistan ever engaged in any sort of self-reflection about their role in sponsoring terrorism and their crimes against the West? I mean, “Wow, those Americans are sure mad at us. I wonder why that is? I feel outrage when Americans airstrike our territory and kill our people. Surely the Americans must feel the same way when someone flies a plane into their building. I am so angry that I want revenge on the Americans. But if the Americans have suffered similarly, surely the Americans are just as angry as I am. Maybe they aren’t just bombing us at random? What if this whole state-sponsorship-of-terrorism thing has something to do with it?”
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Do Muslims in these countries comprehend what freedom and democracy really mean? Do they understand how these concepts apply to them and their cause? Like, “I live in a country torn apart by sectarian violence. People want to kill me because they disagree with my interpretation of Islam. I would surely like to live in a place where I could practice my sect’s manners, without any competing sects trying to kill me.” I mean, I see people who say they hate freedom and democracy, but it doesn’t seem to occur to them that freedom means they get to practice Islam freely, and have the freedom to protest people whose version of Islam they don’t agree with. It seems to me that this is what they want, right?
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Every Muslim country seems to have the idea that other countries versions of Islam are “wrong.” As in, the people from country X pray the “wrong” way or the people in sect Y believe the “wrong” thing. Do they actually comprehend that other people believe that their way is correct? Or that the version of Islam they practice has more to do with an accident of geography in where they were born? Does it ever occur to them that other people feel fear and hate the same way they do, and just as they don’t like feeling oppressed, they can reasonably infer that other people might not like feeling oppressed, either?