Responding to "Edward Said"

Upon watching Edward Said and hearing his thoughts on how Americans view the Middle East, I was struck particularly by his mention of contact, and I myself can easily see that Americans have contact with the Islamic Middle East primarily in two ways: one, through political ties to Israel; and two, through the World Trade Center bombings on September 11, 2001.

The problem with the first, Edward Said explained more eloquently than I can hope to do. The Israeli people are as guilty towards the Palestinian people as the Palestinians are towards them.  Our ties to Israel are no derived from any moral right, but from political advantage.

Ironically, the conflict in the Gaza Strip has (at least in part) been of "Western" making: Jewish emigrants flooded Palestine during virtually every period of extreme oppression by "Western" Europeans, from fifteenth-century Catholic Spain to Nazi Germany.  While the blend of Jewish and Islamic people in the Gaza Strip has resulted in violence from both sides, the stereotype has been applied exclusively to the Muslims.  Similar racist attitudes are what lead to the Holocaust in the first place.

The World Trade Center bombings were carried out by radical groups which represent a very small minority in the Islamic religion.  Upon reading the Qur'an in Humanities I class (shout out to Professor Akman and Professor Cope) many of my classmates remarked that the jihadists are contradicting the teachings of their own religion.  While this is true, demonizing jihadists falls short of addressing the real problem: most Muslims do not violate the Qur'an by committing murder or murder-suicide.

I do not promote apologizing for the violent actions of Islamic extremists. I think that stating that their actions are "our fault" (do to Imperialism or whatever else) excuses the inexcusable, and furthermore, it treats them almost like children (aren't the parents to blame, they must not have raised them right).  What is important is to remember that they are not representative of the Middle East as a whole.

The only point on which I may be so bold as to contradict Edward Said was in video 3/4, at about 7:03, when he says that the Muslim people living under dictatorships are in "desperate need" of American "government patronage to support them".  Well, perhaps not contradict.  I would follow his statement with a question: How can we hope to "support" a population that we belittle, demonize, and do not understand? And, what do we risk becoming if we attempt to do so without understanding? (See "the British in India", "the British in Ireland", "African American history"... the list goes on and on...)