Abu Mookie weighs in on the “why do they hate us” controversy, triggered by a WSJ oped that points back to Qut’b and suggests that Islamists are unhappy with the West’s libertine ways…from Brett Stephens in the WSJ:
Pop quiz – What does more to galvanize radical anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world: (a) Israeli settlements on the West Bank; or (b) a Lady Gaga music video?
If your answer is (b) it means you probably have a grasp of the historical roots of modern jihadism. If, however, you answered (a), then congratulations: You are perfectly in synch with the new Beltway conventional wisdom, now jointly defined by Pat Buchanan and his strange bedfellows within the Obama administration.
Exum is unimpressed on a number of counts…
You see where Stephens is going with this one, right? I mean, you don’t really need to even read the rest of the column, the point of which is that Islamist outrage over decadent western culture is a more significant driver of conflict and anti-American sentiment in the region than Israeli settlements.
I have no idea if this is actually true. It seems to me that I have seen both empirical evidence and anecdotal evidence lending credence to the idea that outrage over the plight of the Palestinians is, in fact, a driver of conflict and/or anti-American sentiment in the Arabic-speaking world, but there may be more sophisticated research and analysis out there that proves otherwise. And Stephens leans heavily on the writings of Sayyid Qut’b to support his arguments, which makes me nervous, because for all his talents, Stephens is no scholar of Islam, and a few things that should not be studied as a hobby include:
Brain surgery
Multilinear algebra
The strands and evolution of Islamist thought
Exum uses his crafty local knowledge to show us some hot n’spicy Arab music videos (like this one by Haiffa Wahby, which I’ll just gratuitously include):
To make the point (I assume) that Lady Gaga is blameless, there’s a lot of Arabic-language steamy stuff out there – so why should the mad mullahs by offended at us?
The problem with that, of course, is that the video is clearly modelled on Western videos, and that I’d suggest it’s likely that a) it wouldn’t exist had there been no MTV; and b) part of the ‘spice’ of the video is the explicit (hee hee) Westernization of the singer.
The problem Qut’b wrote about was his fear that the purity of Islam had been and was being polluted by the culture of the West…and so it is, and so this video demonstrates. It’s the Burger Kings in Jeddah, the Western pop being played on iPods throughout Medina…it’s the impact Western culture inextricably brings with it when you participate in trade with the West. Japan learned that lesson, and so is the Arab world.
While I’m not going to assert that’s the sole point of friction, I’m hard pressed to believe that it’s not a significant point of friction.
And it’s certainly a key part of the history behind the movement – I don’t see how Exum can deny that.
As a sidebar, I have a healthy respect for expertise. But I’m also deeply suspicious of expertise that wraps itself in a cloak and claims to be impenetrable. A bunch of climate scientists just showed us what was under the cloak, and it wasn’t pretty. So when Exum claims that we need to leave the interpretation of Islamist motives entirely to experts in Islamism…I’ll yield, but only slightly.
And as a final sidebar, Exum slips one in here when he explains that culture isn’t “a more significant driver of conflict and anti-American sentiment in the region than Israeli settlements.”
I’m opposed to expanding the settlements (and have written about it for years).but the hard nut isn’t Arab anger over the expansion of the settlements, it’s Arab anger over the existence of Israel. That does make the problem a little harder to solve, doesn’t it…
And finally – who is this “Lady Gaga” person, anyway?
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I have this conviction that the primary problem in the Ummah is that authority and sovereignty aren’t defined, so power is up for grabs. Authority and sovereignty are relatively settled issues in the West, so the absence of that settled quality seems completely alien to us. Or to put it another way, Islam never dealt with Hobbes. And in an odd and very uncomfortable way Lady Gaga reminds the Ummah of that.
I’m not sure how useful it is to know the precise reasons that some muslims are angry with us, because for the most part we’re not going to change our behavior to accommodate the angry ones anyway.
If I oppose Israeli settlement policy, it’s because I happen to think it’s wrong, not because other people are angry. If I don’t like Lady Gaga, it’s because I don’t care for her music, not because someone else dislikes her.
Besides, painting things with as broad a brush as possible, I’m not sure there’s any one particular thing, or even a small cluster of things, that we or the Israelis or anyone else is doing. It’s a culture clash based not on specifics or merits, but based on fear of change and cultural contamination. It doesn’t matter where the change leads, it’s change. It doesn’t matter what culture is the contaminant, it’s not their culture.
So says the totality of my very much non-expertise, anyway.
Marcus, I just think it’s really tough to “reconcile” with a culture/religion that hasn’t resolved or settled its sovereignty issues. Who do you even talk to? Who settles arguments over policy and doctrine? So in that sense as well, it doesn’t matter what makes them mad.
BTW, this sovereignty dilemma within the Ummah is well-known. It was a major theme of Khaldun, for instance. Islam is a storm and the wind is still blowing, and we’re probably watching the throes of the resolution right now. Who will win? How will we know? Up in the air.
For those who’ve seen Tropic Thunder (2008)…
Les Grossman is running both our culture and our foreign policy, among other things.
Is it possible to avoid the vulgarization and degradation of our culture without voting Les Grossman off the island or at least kicking him to the side of the road? No.
Is it possible to abandon Israel without voting Les Grossman off the island or at least kicking him to the side of the road? No.
Are we willing to vote Les Grossman off the island or at least kick him to the side of the road? No.
If we were willing, could we? No.
If we were willing and able, would that solve our problem with Islam? No.
We could and did vote the Soviets off the island, helping them on their way to defeat in Afghanistan. The Soviets weren’t even our friends. What was the result? Jihadis were super-charged with enthusiasm to take us down too. The same effect would be more potent with Israel.
Did the Russians get any charity for accepting defeat? No, they are fighting a cruel war for survival inside their own country.
Appeasing Islam is a non-starter on every level. Our choices are to struggle or go under, and there will never be any other choices given the programmed, dogmatic supremacism and aggressiveness of Islam.
They hate us for our Popstars!
While I think their views on our ‘decadent immorality’ plays a role in this conflict, I think it’s beyond any impact lady Gaga could make at this point. Furthermore, as David Blue says, we couldn’t control her right to do ….. whatever it is she does.
I do think it’s worth considering that many arab nations don’t see America as a nation, they see what we export: a conglomeration of bad movies, advertising, porn and pop stars that often contains the worst aspects of capitalism.
For those of you who think that the war of ideas is already upon us, you shrug and move on. For those of us who think the clash is here but war is still preventable, it’s even more important to export the best aspects of capitalism: Freedom that brings empowerment, and not just enticement.
Lady Gaga is the new occupier of the Madonna niche within the entertainment ecosystem. Unlike the previous occupant of that niche, she did not create it.
Glad I could help with that.
As for Islam, to me, it is very clear that we need to export more wholesome cultural attributes.
I recommend a program that includes Barney and “The Village People,”:http://www.officialvillagepeople.com/ instead. Maybe some of them could switch their outfit for a burqa… how about Alex and Ray, to avoid any cultural issues with the imperalism of Western security forces in the Ummah?
That should do it.
Neal Stephenson made this point long ago, of course, when he wrote, in 1999, ” ‘In the beginning, there was the command line…’ “:http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html
bq.. ” Orlando used to have a military installation called McCoy Air Force Base, with long runways from which B-52s could take off and reach Cuba, or just about anywhere else, with loads of nukes. But now McCoy has been scrapped and repurposed. It has been absorbed into Orlando’s civilian airport. The long runways are being used to land 747-loads of tourists from Brazil, Italy, Russia and Japan, so that they can come to Disney World and steep in our media for a while.
To traditional cultures, especially word-based ones such as Islam, this is infinitely more threatening than the B-52s ever were….”
bq. “Between the beautiful virgins that greet Muslim martyrs in Paradise (link) and the Village People, honestly I find the virgins more attractive.”
So, that means you’re heterosexual.
Me too. Though I still want to see the Village People doing “YMCA” with some of them in burqas. There’s something inexplicably hilarious about it.
What they’d do with the jihadi form of “In the Navy,” I don’t want to even think about. I say, surprise me…. >;->