{"id":2279,"date":"2010-04-01T00:50:27","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T00:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2010-04-01T00:50:27","modified_gmt":"2010-04-01T00:50:27","slug":"gaga_over_qutb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2279","title":{"rendered":"Gaga Over Qut’b (With Bonus Video)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abu Mookie weighs in on the “why do they hate us” controversy<\/a>, 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<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Exum is unimpressed on a number of counts…<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

Brain surgery
\nMultilinear algebra
\nThe strands and evolution of Islamist thought<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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):<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/center> <\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

And it’s certainly a key part of the history behind the movement – I don’t see how Exum can deny that.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.” <\/p>\n

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<\/b>. That does make the problem a little harder to solve, doesn’t it…<\/p>\n

And finally – who is this “Lady Gaga” person, anyway?
\n–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}