Inferiority Complex

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Sep 17, 2014 at 12:00

Dear Dr Pipes,

The sixty years old military intelligence document mentioned in your 2006 article states that the Islamic area then "had an inferiority complex.". In the 1940s the world indeed was emerging out of colonialism and it was not too surprizing if the colonized people in those days did not think too highly of themselves. In the seven decades since then world has made significant progress. China and India are on a path of progress and gaining respect around the world. Most of the eastern europe is doing well now and would have been much ahead of where it is now if it were not under communist rule for several decades. Some countries of Africa have shown significant signsof progress and growth.

The only exception to this rule are the Islamic countries directly connected to the Arabian penninsula by land. In spite of unprecedented flow of oil-wealth into the region, this area has nothing much to show for in terms of progress in science, culture, and human thought. Oil rich Islamic countries have failed to take care of their own people (just look at the number of Muslims killed by other Muslims in Syria). While the entire world is worried about population growth, Islamic populations around the world have higher birth rates than the local averages.

While most people in the world have learned to co-exist with each other without carrying their religions on their sleeves, Muslims are still busy in proving to the world that theirs is the best and only correct faith. And while most of the world is busy adjusting to a society where women may be ahead of men, subjugation of women under the pretext of religion is still the norm in most Islamic societies. I wonder if the brutal violence that we see in the Islamic world, such as the recent murders of three innocent journalists, is an expression of the Islamic inferiority complex. The religion and the body of law (sharia) which they are required to defend at all costs, has not been able to deliver to them.

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