Let's twist again

Submitted by K.Ahmed (United States), Apr 11, 2008 at 09:17

I believe the only thing I have made clear Is that I believe that the west needs to be careful of its own elitism. I am quite sure you and I could agree upon some core human rights - however both of us have been educated in the west and I assume raised in the west. However, I have had the opportunity in my youth to understand the way many in the middle east think and why certain things are viewed as "morally" acceptable if not required.

Do I agree with them, with most of them no. Some might be of value for the west to accept. My point from the beginning has been for us to not get caught up in this elitist delusion that western civilization is the end all be all. There is much in the culture of Islam that is good and has benefited the west, (like algebra, science, etc.). Much has been lost through its decline and the middle east finds itself caught up in its own history.

But as I said in my first response to Pipes article - europeans need to defend their culture and not allow it to be lost in some misguided attempt to assimilate its middle eastern immigrants. But at the same time the west needs to let the middle east figure out its own future without imposing our measurements of success, our values and our beliefs upon them.

Just as an aside I am a viet nam veteran and I saw this same type of clash of cultures their. I recall the Bhuddist monks lighting themselves up like torches for the things they believed in. I know of women and children blowing themselves up to inflict caualities among the US troops. We didn't describe it as their being religious fantatics, we described them as communist fanatics, (not the monks). But it is not religion, not ideology that drives these people, whether arab or vietnamese. It is the cultural belief in themselves as a people and us as outsiders. I am not saying make love not war - what I am saying that the day's of imposing our wills upon others is over. That we have to find a way to respect a culture while at the same time move the culture into the 21st especially as it relates to Islam.

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