Victimization

I sit in my ivory tower, so to speak, listening to Cairo slowly come to wake on a slow Friday afternoon. The muezzin has already called across the city for the Friday noon prayer. When I was out earlier I saw the sheep and goats being collected, next week they will be slaughtered for the Eid. The weather is finally such that I do not sweat from the simple act of walking to the fruit and produce stands ten minutes away. The cool air makes the pollution more bearable, perhaps even pleasant...or perhaps I have just been here for too long now.

I am doing what I seem to always do now: reading. The texts somehow fill me with a slight melancholy these days. The problems are so great, the anger still boiling, the emotion running so high that it is near improbable to think that barriers will ever be penetrated. Maybe I project my own personal life and history onto the problems of this troubled region. One peoples and their circular arguments become one voice in my head that sounds more like a memory of my own past. It is the same style of arguing I come across in my own life and my own interactions. Perhaps I should stop being vague at the risk of offending.

I think I have read at least ten different pieces lately that discussed why the long history of American intervention in the Middle East increased radicalization. September 11th was not about radicals hating freedom and democracy. This type of rhetoric hides the truth from ourselves. Ultimately, September 11th was "blow back" from our policies in pursuit of our interests...it was the price of winning the cold war really. I am willing to accept all of this, but all to often it gets clothed in an air of legitimization. The dialogue goes one step too far in saying that it is all America's fault for being a target of political violence. As my friend says to me, if you follow through with this argument then you can then turn around and say that Al Qaeda is at fault for the US war in Iraq. Al Qaeda and radicalization brought it on the Middle East, not America. But you would never hear that argument coming from this side of the fence...at least I have not heard it. No, here you read about how America is the "in denial" colonial power stepping in with cultural imperialism, if you will...a more subtle and twisted version of the British...that's all I ever hear these days. Whether or not we are aware of it, we tread in the blood-stained boots of the previous colonials, all their sins are marked upon us. All of these various arguments have their valid points, but they all so often stop before their reasoning might touch upon any fault of their own. No one ever uses their own logic to apply to themselves. Everyone has been wronged. Everyone is too emotional and wrapped up in their own perspectives to try to look across the fence for a second.

It reminds me of debates in my personal life..."you should treat me like such and such but I will not apply that same logic in how I treat others. Why? Oh, well its a different situation because I have been so wronged. That standard does not apply to me personally in this situation."

I read again and again that ideology, colonialism, religion, etc. skews America's view of the Middle East and creates "Islamaphobia." Or Islamic movements aren't really religious, they are just political fronts covered by a thin veil of religiosity so that the rhetoric contrasts with the West's evil secular view that is meant to strip away cultural meanings from a conquered people. So is it religion or isn't it? It's religion if we can use it as an argument against the West and it's not religion when that might suggest that there is a problem in the region. I'm getting tired of it. I am getting tired of the constant victimization. I really am.