History Is Written By Those Who Win

The History Of Other Cultures Is Non-existent Until It Erupts In Confrontation With The United States.

The Arab Rulers Are Basically Unpopular. They Are Supported By The United States Against The Wishes Of Their People. In All Of This Rather Heady Mixture Of Violence And Policies That Are Remarkably Unpopular Right Down To The Last Iota, It's Not Hard For Demagogues, Especially People Who Claim To Speak In The Name Of Religion, In This Case Islam, To Raise A Crusade Against The United States And Say That We Must Somehow Bring America Down.

The Just Response To This Terrible Event [9/11] Should Be To Go Immediately To The World Community, The United Nations. The Rule Of International Law Should Be Marshaled, But It's Probably Too Late Because The United States Has Never Done That; It's Always Gone It Alone.

What Is Quite Worrisome Is The Absence Of Analysis And Reflection. Take The Word "terrorism." It Has Become Synonymous Now With Anti-americanism, Which, In Turn, Has Become Synonymous With Being Critical Of The United States, Which, In Turn, Has Become Synonymous With Being Unpatriotic. That's An Unacceptable Series Of Equations.

The Sense Of Islam As A Threatening Other - With Muslims Depicted As Fanatical, Violent, Lustful, Irrational - Develops During The Colonial Period In What I Called Orientalism. The Study Of The Other Has A Lot To Do With The Control And Dominance Of Europe And The West Generally In The Islamic World. And It Has Persisted Because It's Based Very, Very Deeply In Religious Roots, Where Islam Is Seen As A Kind Of Competitor Of Christianity.