Western analysis, due to its dangerous oversimplification of Islam and othermatters in the Muslim world, has traditionally seen the appearance of anyindigenous movement calling for change and improvement in the name of Islamas a major threat. Muslims continue to be viewed in the stereotypical perspectiveof the “us-against-them” syndrome, a practice which prevents a propercomprehension of the dynamics and dilemmas faced by Muslims in thepostcolonial era. The Western media and, to some extent, academia thrive onsuch themes as minority rights, nuclear proliferation, human rights, anddemocracy, which they use as barometers. Based on the data which they collect,they then pass sweeping decrees about Muslim countries. Internal diversity andconflict receive a great deal of attention, whereas human achievements andcivilizational artifacts are considered as “foreign” to the Muslim ethos. Islamas a religion is reduced to so-called “fundamentalism” and a mere puritanicaland/or coercive theological orthodoxy. Moreover, no distinction is made betweenIslam as a religion and Muslim cultures and societies, nor between Muslimaspirations for unity and the realities of national and ethnic differentiation. Theresult is a Western view which both distorts and demonizes a large part of theMuslim world.As if this were not enough, Muslims in the post-Cold War era are now beingpresented and “imagined” as the next enemy. Among the factors responsible forthis are a) the multiple nature of the Muslim world, given its geostrategic locationright next to Europe; b) Islam as the second major religion in the West; and c)the assertion of a new generation of Muslim expatriate communities at a time ...
