posted September 25, 2001 09:39 AM            

The media's Islamic blind spot
News reports are obsessing on how the terrorist attacks happened, but not why.
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By Eric Boehlert

Sept. 25, 2001 | Islamic and Middle Eastern experts who have spent their careers attempting to educate Americans braced for the worst in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. They feared an immediate backlash in the press. Americans have historically expressed low regard for Islam, given the violent political struggles it's been associated with, and the press has often catered to public ignorance and distaste.

These experts' verdict on the press to date, however, has been mixed. Many are heartened: Coverage of Islamic issues has been better than some expected, suggesting the possibility that America's general understanding of Middle Eastern and Muslim issues has improved, even if only slightly. Yet at the same time, there is a growing consensus that the press has fallen well short when it comes to exploring and explaining the all-important question: Why? Why did suicidal hijackers attack the U.S.?

"In terms of reporters and editors, there is a much better understanding of what Islam really is," says Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, comparing current coverage to what occurred during the Gulf War a decade ago.

"I've been fairly pleased," adds Charles Kimball, an Islamic scholar who is chairman of the religion department at Wake Forest University. He's been fielding dozens of phone calls from journalists, says Kimball, who "aren't looking for sound bites, but who want a better understanding."

Scholars also point to President Bush's visit to a Washington mosque, his strong words in support of tolerance and the close attention the media has been paying to Muslim-related hate crimes at home as welcome developments.

"I'm gratified by that," notes Yvonne Haddad, professor of Christian-Muslim relations at Georgetown University.

Taking a broader perspective, her Georgetown colleague John Voll, professor of Islamic history, notes that there has been steady improvement over the past several decades. "I really think the level of information, on the part of the average person on the street, is higher and more sophisticated than it was at the beginning of the 1960s," he says. "I've heard no mention anywhere of this [attack] being a communist plot. That sounds silly now. But ideologically at the beginning of the Iranian Revolution in late '60s and early '70s, [religious leaders] were labeled communists disguised in black robes. Islam is now taken seriously by the American public and not seen as a cover for something else."

That's the good news. The bad news, according to the same experts, is that the mainstream American press has largely been ignoring what many experts see as the root cause fueling Islamic terrorism: America's own foreign policy. Even as media executives are publicly defending on-camera displays of flags and patriotic slogans, insisting that these fits of patriotic fervor don't affect actual news coverage, skeptics are charging that the press has so far been studious in avoiding serious examination of past American policy failures, and in questioning Bush's rhetoric.

For instance, many in the Middle Eastern studies field were stunned when Bush used, without irony, the word "crusade" to describe America's new battle with mostly Muslim terrorists. Or when he explained, in a statement essentially unchallenged by the press, that attackers struck the World Trade Center "because they can't stand freedom."

"When you say, 'They can't stand freedom,' you have to put a couple of phrases on the end of that," notes Voll at Georgetown: "They can't stand freedom in the United State while the U.S. government provides muscle for suppressing freedoms around the world, and specifically in the Middle East. People there are convinced citizens in the United States have freedoms others don't have, [and] that the United States is also the chief supporter of suppressing democracy."

Can't stand freedom? "That's bullshit," says Walter Denny, professor of art history and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Massachusetts. "In a national crisis people always try to frame a struggle using their own ax to grind."

Despite the disturbing silence from the press, Denny says, "The most important question we should be asking ourselves is 'Why do you think they hate us so much?' And if you look at our foreign policy that question is not too difficult to answer."

The key grievance, he says, is hypocrisy.

Even if it were possible to set aside the specific Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been inflaming passions for half a century, Denny notes that throughout the Middle East the United States time and again has sided with authoritarian regimes in Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, Jordan and elsewhere. These are governments that routinely curtail basic rights, such as freedom of the press, for their Muslim citizens. So rather than despising freedom, many Muslims despise America for standing in the way of their own freedom.

"We [the United States] don't trust democracy there. We believe stability is better than democracy. But it's a false kind of stability," notes Denny. "We want to believe in shahs and kings who like us very much. We want to believe they're popular in their own countries. But the American capability for self-delusion is so extreme we put all our money on the Shah of Iran when that horse was dead at the starting gate."

Such views, widely shared by Middle Eastern experts, have been kept well hid during the last two weeks by media outlets, either relegated to the foreign news hole in newspapers, or all but ignored by cable's 24-hour television news coverage.

"People are looking for who is responsible and they want to lash out," says Ann Betteridge, executive director of the Middle Eastern Studies Association at the University of Arizona. "But I'd like to think the question of why is the next step along the way. But I fear it may not be."

Instead, nearly all attention has been focused on how, rather than why. At first, the question was, how was the attack pieced together logistically? Later, following a few spasms of discussion about Islam and the Middle East in the days following the attack, the press focus shifted to military maneuvers. But why did it happen in the first place?

"Whoever did this horrendous act must have hated us a lot. But nobody questions our foreign policy, so the United States people don't know why [so many Muslims] are angry," says Haddad at Georgetown. "Instead we're told it's just hatred, and I blame the press for that."

Haddad, suggesting that press failure stems from more than simple ignorance, says radio and television producers often call her for an interview request, conduct a preliminary Q&A to hear what she would say and then quietly withdraw the invitation.

"The press censors what they don't want to hear," she insists. "There is no question in my mind. I don't care and I'm not angry about it. If people want to know what those in the Arab world are thinking, I'll tell them."

CBS News anchor Dan Rather offered a glimpse into what some prominent journalists were thinking when he appeared on "The Late Show with David Letterman" last week. There, he insisted that Middle Eastern anger stems from the fact that people there "see themselves as the world's losers. They'd never admit that. They see us, we have everything. We win everything. They see themselves and think, we should be a great people but we're not. It drives them batty. They hate us for who and what we are."

"That," says Betteridge, "is totally off the wall." (Perhaps even more remarkable, Rather also hyped a wild rumor to Letterman's national television audience -- "I don't know this for a fact" -- alleging that hijack sympathizers who knew about plans for the World Trade Center attack climbed onto rooftops in New Jersey to cheer the strike as it happened.)

posted September 25, 2001 10:35 AM            

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[Middle Eastern Terrorists] see themselves as the world's losers. They'd never admit that. They see us, we have everything. We win everything. They see themselves and think, we should be a great people but we're not. It drives them batty. They hate us for who and what we are.
--Dan Rather

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[This message has been edited by Paranoid Android (edited September 25, 2001).]

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posted September 25, 2001 11:08 AM            

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"When you say, 'They can't stand freedom,' you have to put a couple of phrases on the end of that," notes Voll at Georgetown: "They can't stand freedom in the United States while the U.S. government provides muscle for suppressing freedoms around the world, and specifically in the Middle East. People there are convinced citizens in the United States have freedoms others don't have, [and] that the United States is also the chief supporter of suppressing democracy."

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Even if what is claimed in the quote above is not what has happened, it could be seen as what happened by some. (Bolded for those who don't read the whole post.)

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Lore> I want to go to the Jehovah's Witness paradise, 'cause you get to pet baby pandas.

babybabble

posted September 25, 2001 11:15 AM            

Whatever its mistakes, the idea that America brought the onslaught upon itself is absurd

WHO is to blame? The simple answer-the suicide attackers, and those behind them-is hardly adequate, just as it would hardly be adequate simply to blame Hitler and his henchmen for the second world war, without mentioning the Treaty of Versailles or Weimar inflation. But that does not exculpate the perpetrators of last week's onslaught, just as the Versailles treaty does not excuse Auschwitz: whatever their grievances, nothing could excuse an attack of such ferocity and size. So what explains it? A surprising number of people, and not just gullible fanatics looking for someone to hold responsible for the hopelessness of their lives, believe that to a greater or lesser extent America has reaped as it sowed.

If this charge is to be taken at all seriously, it must first be separated from the general anti-Americanism fashionable in some left-wing circles in Europe, say, or even Latin America. It may be reasonable to dislike the death penalty, a society so ready to tolerate guns, even the vigour of a culture that finds its expression in unpretentious movies and McDonald's hamburgers, but none of these could conceivably explain, let alone justify, a single act of terrorism. Similarly, though globalisation clearly arouses fury among protesters, and concern among some more moderate critics, it would be ridiculous to think that last week's attack was prompted by any American antipathy towards welfare payments, closed economies or restraints on speculative capital movements.

The charge that in politics the United States is arrogant, even hypocritical, may deserve more notice. America has recently brushed aside some good international agreements (on nuclear testing, for example, a world criminal court, land mines), as well as dismissing some bad ones (the Kyoto convention on global warming) with an insouciance unbecoming to the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gases. Its understandable determination to pursue a missile shield threatens to upend the system of deterrence and arms control that has so far saved the world from nuclear Armageddon. It has refused to pay its dues to the United Nations, even as it has cut its aid for the world's poorest. Its eagerness to prosecute African and Balkan war criminals while refusing to allow its own nationals to submit to an international court has made it seem unwilling to hold itself to the standards it imposes on others.

Were these actions unwise? Possibly. Have they caused resentment? Yes. But could that resentment plausibly have motivated a single one of last week's suicide attackers? No.

The seeds of discord

Perhaps it would be more profitable to look deeper into the past. During the half-century of the cold war, the United States undoubtedly subordinated principles as well as causes to the overriding concern of defeating communism. The great upholder of laws at home was happy to trash them abroad, whether invading Grenada or mining Nicaraguan harbours. It propped up caudillos in Latin America, backed tyrants in Africa and Asia, promoted coups in the Middle East. More recently, it has been willing to kick invaders out of Kuwait, to strike at ruthless states like Libya and Iraq and, moreover, to go on trying to contain them with sanctions and, in Iraq's case, with almost incessant bombardment. Is it here perhaps-especially in the Middle East-that America has gone wrong?

No. The Economist has not been an uncritical supporter of American policy in the Middle East. We have been more ready to argue the Palestinian case than have recent administrations and believe that the United States could sometimes have done more to restrain Israel. We have also pointed out that the policy of sanctions against Iraq, whatever its intention, in practice punishes innocent Iraqis and thus allows Saddam Hussein to blame the West, notably America, for the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children. Perhaps nothing does more to fuel anti-American resentment in the Arab world. Such criticisms as we have made, however, in no way imply that we think America was wrong to fight the Gulf war or to try to disarm Saddam afterwards. It was also right to stand by Saudi Arabia as an ally, however much that annoyed zealots. Similarly, whatever Israel's mistakes, America can hardly be accused of having failed to try to bring it to a peace: every administration of recent years has attempted to bring the two sides together, and none has come closer than Bill Clinton's last year.

America defends its interests, sometimes skilfully, sometimes clumsily, just as other countries do. Since power, like nature, abhors a vacuum, it steps into places where disorder reigns. On the whole, it should do so more, not less, often. Of all the great powers in history, it is probably the least territorial, the most idealistic. Muslims in particular should note that the armed interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, both led by America, were attacks on Christian regimes in support of Muslim victims. In neither did the United States stand to make any material gain; in neither were its vital interests, conventionally defined, at stake. Those who criticise America's leadership of the world's capitalist system-a far from perfect affair-should remember that it has brought more wealth and better living standards to more people than any other in history. And those who regret America's triumph in the cold war should stop to think how the world would look if the Soviet Union had won. America's policies may have earned it enemies. But in truth, it is difficult to find plausible explanations for the virulence of last week's attacks, except in the envy, hatred and moral confusion of those who plotted and perpetrated them.

The Economist

[This message has been edited by Paranoid Android (edited September 25, 2001).]

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posted September 25, 2001 11:19 AM            

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Lisa! In this house we obey the Laws of Thermodynamics!

posted September 25, 2001 12:22 PM            

For years, the media have put plenty of articles and reports out there telling the world (except for places like China, which until this week even blocked American news Web sites) what our leaders have and have not done regarding foreign policy. The American people should be able to put two and two together. But when it comes right down to it, I'm not sure we'll ever understand all the rage and hatred.

I think the American media have done plenty to spread the word about other nations' perception of the attacks and the terrorists' motives. And when you're blaming the United States for the attacks, it's a very touchy subject even two weeks after they happened. That's something that most media just won't touch — not now, not ever.

[This message has been edited by Y2Karen (edited September 25, 2001).]

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posted September 25, 2001 12:50 PM            

Grrrross.

I also don't like how people keep thinking they have to defend America against the charge that they deserved it. No-one ever said they deserved it, except this one confused and embittered kid from Kosovo.

To me, it appears that the Economist article is a strange sort of meta-spin control. They have and will continue to criticize America's foreign policy decisions, and they're afraid of losing their credibility and being dismissed as having an anti-American bias. They're not really making much of a point. It says too much that's obvious or moot. I don't like the sound of it at all. But if I'm right, and it's intended to lead the reader away from considering them biased... then it's kind of brilliant.

Morat> I think the term "crusade" speaks for itself, even if your point had been buried. That's a bad word.

Y2K> You're right, good point. "Why" is not really the realm of news reports. It's sort of a bonus you might sometimes get if it'll sell advertising.

For me, the article was less about journalism directly than it was about all the other people who are reflected and informed by it. We're not hearing about anyone important wrestling with these questions. We're being given information that suggests a closed minded slant.

I don't think the rage/hate/etc is very hard to understand, if you combine what you can find out about US foreign policy with a bit of psychology and sociology. You can understand how people get whipped up, entrenched in their ways, embittered and fanatical. It seems logical to me.

The problem I'm having with the media is not that they're not telling us why... it's that the gross body of them is trying its damnedest to guide our minds around the questions... fuelling hate and jingoism with subtle phrasings and selective emphasis*.

...which is only tenuously connected to the article posted, now that I think about it... but er it's a good article anyhow. ^_^

posted September 25, 2001 01:01 PM            

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Whatever its mistakes, the idea that America brought the onslaught upon itself is absurd.

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quote:

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America's policies may have earned it enemies. But in truth, it is difficult to find plausible explanations for the virulence of last week's attacks, except in the envy, hatred and moral confusion of those who plotted and perpetrated them.

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[This message has been edited by Paranoid Android (edited September 25, 2001).]

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posted September 25, 2001 01:13 PM            

Er... beyond a point. And it's obvious that the article was enirely limited to what lies beyond that point, due to their careful mention of criticisms they had made.

posted September 25, 2001 01:29 PM            

Despite the noble intentions of our Founders, we're propped up some pretty bad dictators, Shah's, Kings and fascists in our history.

A great many of them in the Middle East. Now, you can say "But we were fighting communism. The cold war".

And I'm sure that's why we did it. But to them? We helped some nasty bastards stay on top, and once the Cold War was over, we didn't seem to care anymore.

We've got a reputation (and a deserved one) of demanding different treatment than we give . We were all behind the ICC, as long as we couldn't be tried there. We helped strongarm nations into Kyoto then refused to sign.

To Europe, it's annoying. We can act like a big selfish child. But they're mature countries, free and stable.

To third world nations, whose only exposure to us has been through our support of whatever corrupt regime promised to oppose the Communists, and to our rather predatory businesses, we can come of as Satan incarnate.

They aren't jealous or what we have. They're pissed because we've actively prevented them from having it.
Here is an interesting take on it.

I had a much better one, but darned if I can find it now.

This is fairly close.

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Lisa! In this house we obey the Laws of Thermodynamics!

--Homer Simpson

posted September 25, 2001 01:31 PM            

(edited because it's funny that I got disfractionated whilst observing an immiediately previous disfractionation.)

posted September 25, 2001 01:41 PM            

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I addressed the silly, silly idea that anyone thinks that America "brought the onslaught upon itself"
--JD

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The war that the United States has been waging against the nonwhite peoples of the world for over half a century came home yesterday.
--Some Dipshit

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posted September 25, 2001 01:45 PM            

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Er... beyond a point
- me

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posted September 25, 2001 02:45 PM            

I'm not saying, nor have I said, that the U.S. brought it on. I agreed that foreign policy has more to do with hatred of the U.S. than a 10 and 1 war record. If anyone doubts that the U.S. has supported unpopular leaders, they need to do some checking.

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Lore> I want to go to the Jehovah's Witness paradise, 'cause you get to pet baby pandas.

babybabble

posted September 25, 2001 02:54 PM            

It has a lot to do with how we treat the rest of the world. And if we don't take into accounts the real, complex, reasons terrorists target us, all the cruise missles and bombs in the world will only make things worse.

One reason I've been a proponent of the Kojak/Hague solution. Minimal force, minimal impact to civilians, and rule of law. It won't inflame tensions and might even lesson them.

Give us a little more respect and maybe a little more faith. Which is valuable currency in the world these days.

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Lisa! In this house we obey the Laws of Thermodynamics!

posted September 25, 2001 03:03 PM            

• American support for Israel
• American army bases in Saudi Arabia
• Operation Desert Storm
• economic sanctions against:
  • Iraq
  • Iran
  • Libya

posted September 25, 2001 03:42 PM            

quote:

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Trying to find our bearings, my husband and I went into an American-style cafe in the Hamra district, near Rue Verdun, rated as one of the most expensive shopping streets in the world. Here the cognitive dissonance was immediate, and direct. The café's sophisticated clientele was celebrating, laughing, cheering and making jokes, as waiters served hamburgers and Diet Pepsi. Nobody looked shocked, or moved. They were excited, very excited.

An hour later, at a little market near the U.S. Embassy, on the outskirts of Beirut, a thrilled shop assistant showed us, using his hands, how the plane had crashed into the twin towers. He, too, was laughing.

Once back at the house where we were staying, we started scanning the international channels. Soon came reports of Palestinians celebrating. The BBC reporter in Jerusalem said it was only a tiny minority. Astonished, we asked some moderate Arabs if that was the case. "Nonsense," said one, speaking for many. "Ninety percent of the Arab world believes that Americans got what they deserved."

An exaggeration? Rather an understatement. A couple of days later, we headed north to Tripoli, near the Syrian border. On the way, we read that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who donated blood in front of the cameras, was rejecting any suggestion that his people were rejoicing over the terrorist attack. "It was less than 10 children in Jerusalem," he said.
--Italian journalist in Beirut

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posted September 26, 2001 10:53 AM            

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"Nonsense," said one, speaking for many....

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Your quote would never get printed in a real paper, Paranoid Android. And why? Because it's unsubstantiated, twisted, inflammatory, racist BS, is why, as well as being piss poor journalism. If they printed that anywhere outside of the web they'd get their ass sued off.

Why is it so hard for you to understand that the reasons for bombings and terrorist attacks CANNOT be summed up in soundbites and one sentence answers.

Look at it this way: in all the revolts, civil wars, revolutions and uprisings in the past, including your own glorious one, is the suggested reason that the oppressed masses rose up because they were jealous of the pretty things the opressors had, or because of the oppression itself?

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Ack, bec's geometry homework wants to sell me a Tiny Wireless Camera! - Cropherb, via IRC

Barbies are melting TODAY. - Jesse Dangerously

posted September 26, 2001 11:32 AM            

Let me say once more: I cannot verify the veracity of that particular quote. I can however point you towards a Reuters report conveying related information:

quote:

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Arab leaders voiced shock and horror at devastating attacks that leveled symbols of American power on Tuesday, but a chorus of cheers rose from streets that resent U.S. backing of Israel.

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[...] it's unsubstantiated, twisted, inflammatory, racist BS, [and] piss poor journalism.

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As to your second, wholly unrelated point: The reason for the terrorist attacks can be summed up in one word: hate. (Why can you not understand that?) Explaining why there is such hate in the first place cannot be explained so easily. (Why can you not make this distinction?)

[This message has been edited by Paranoid Android (edited September 26, 2001).]

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posted September 26, 2001 11:46 AM            

quote:

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Look at it this way: in all the revolts, civil wars, revolutions and uprisings in the past, including your own glorious one, is the suggested reason that the oppressed masses rose up because they were jealous of the pretty things the opressors had, or because of the oppression itself?

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posted September 26, 2001 12:31 PM            

quote:

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The reason for the terrorist attacks can be summed up in one word: hate. (Why can you not understand that?) Explaining why there is such hate in the first place cannot be explained so easily.

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As my third point was supposed to suggest, people don't rise up against people who they don't think are keeping them down. People philosophised about Marxism, but rebelled against the Tzars.

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Ack, bec's geometry homework wants to sell me a Tiny Wireless Camera! - Cropherb, via IRC

posted September 27, 2001 08:32 AM            

I think the 'arab' world has as much reason to hate us as the 'german' people had to hate jews in the late 20-early 30s.

Germans had it hard, inflation, bad government, Versailles, economic zeroness.

Jews were better off, most of them owned property if not shops.

envy becomes hate, hate becomes blame, and contrast becomes causation.

Of course, this logic says the 'arab' attack on us is as justified as the holocaust, which may show my bias a little. Put it this way, America has it better than any other nation on earth, sez the news the world over. Add a zero-sum economic understanding, and you have the conclusion that whatever they have they've taken from us, and WHAM a crusade is born.

..oh, and I don't think crusade was the wrong word. A crusade in general usage is a war started with (sometimes) poor planning and much heartfelt devotion to the cause. It also inplies a groundswell from the common folk. I don't know how close that is to Webster's definition, but that's how I've heard it used in conversation around Kentucky.

Of course, Kentucky ain't the whole world.

Good thing too.

posted September 27, 2001 12:24 PM            

America didn't deserve this attack. The Jews didn't deserve the holocaust.

The situation has been that people in both countries wanted to blame SOMEBODY. They have been given somebody to blame, and they are blaming them. But the ground for blame had to be ploughed first, and it was, in Germany, with the Versailles treaty. The situation could have been changed by not dehumanising the enemy in the first place. The repercussions of one decision were not fully realised for 30 years. People who fought for the Nazis were not even born duing WW1, but they grew up during the depression, when they were starving, and the only person who offered them hope was Hitler.

If someone other than Hitler had offered hope, who's to say that they wouldn't have gone for something other than National Socialism?

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Ack, bec's geometry homework wants to sell me a Tiny Wireless Camera! - Cropherb, via IRC

posted September 27, 2001 08:48 PM            

How does the fact that they could have not done it mean that their reasons are false? They had their reasons, their rationalisations, and they did their actions. OK, their rationalisations may have been flimsy, but they were theirs.

But what does that have to do with the point? My point was, they are the only people there offering a reason, or a hope. People's families are shot by people carrying guns bought from the USA -> People align the USA with their enemies -> someone comes along and says "I can solve all our problems, in this life and the next, by killing all Americans" -> there is no other option available -> the inevitable.

It's a classic case of a perceived "my way or the highway." People will do anything to get out of poverty, especially if the cause is twisted. Do you think a six year old starving to death in a slum can weigh up the ramifications of bombing some people he's never met, but who he's been told are pure evil, in a country he's never seen, but has been told is the land of the devil. So when that 6 year old has aged 12 years and been blaming all of his ills on America, why wonder if he's a twisted guy who wants to kill you? I know a guy, a good friend, who grew up in a stronly Protestant part of Ireland, and was suprised when he met a Catholic and there were no little horns sticking up out of his head. Yup, that's what his parents taught him when he was little. And if he'd never met a Catholic, and been given no reason to doubt it, he could be teaching that to his children now.

What's my point? Um... that if you don't want to be demonised, you have to provide contrary evidence. Not to OBL, not to the Taliban, but to starving six-year olds in slums. Those are the people who change reality. Those are the peacemakers or terrorists of tomorrow. And tomorrow is something that you really need to think about.

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Ack, bec's geometry homework wants to sell me a Tiny Wireless Camera! - Cropherb, via IRC

posted September 27, 2001 08:55 PM            

That doesn't make Hitler right. That doesn't excuse his actions or make him any less evil.

But it did contribute to how he was able to be so evil. And America and Europe took that lesson to heart in WWII. We helped rebuild, not punish. And we got strong allies from it.

This is not a lesson we should forget. Destruction begets destruction. By all means, if there is war there is war.

But we didn't help rebuild after the Cold War. We left our messes in the Third World and went back to our lives. And that mistake is haunting us. It's one we shouldn't repeat.

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Lisa! In this house we obey the Laws of Thermodynamics!

posted September 28, 2001 11:22 AM            

No matter how much this whole thing doesn't make sense to us, it makes sense to the ones who did it. We have to remember that even the people who do terrible things like this are still human.

No one deserved the Holocaust, and no one deserved the attack on the WTC. The only way we can make things right is to start remembering that the perpetrators are still human, and that what they did makes sense to them, even if it doesn't make any sense to us.

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posted October 01, 2001 11:08 PM            

By the way, OpticBoom (nice to see you back!) "crusade" was the wrong word not because of what it means to Americans, but because of what it means to Arabs. In America, it's a word tossed around on a lot of subjects, because it's lost its original connotations of holy warfare and come to mean more or less what you said.

In a lot of the Middle East, the Crusades are remembered as a time when European Christians came in, conquered a lot of land, and threatened some of the holiest of Muslim cities. (No, not just Jerusalem, though I'm blanking on the names of the more important ones the Crusaders attacked more briefly.) Anyway, it's not perceived as distant and dim past to the extent it is in Europe and America, and so the use of that word called up a lot of unfortunate echoes.

[Edited to add the thumbs-up]

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You simply cannot hand the Dark Lord Of Whatever a Snoopy napkin that says "Happiness is a Warm Puppy" on it. --GL

[This message has been edited by genuine artificial (edited October 01, 2001).]

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posted October 02, 2001 04:26 AM            

Ironically, I only remember this because of Robin Hood, Prince Of Thieves.

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