A Muslim response to
@Jordan B Peterson
Dr Peterson, I appreciate that you have invited Muslims onto your show and sincerely engaged them in order to understand Islam.
However, your latest video titled “Message to Muslims” frankly comes across as patronising and ignorant about the current status of the Muslim world.
The problem isn’t conflict between or within religions. The conflict exists due to colonial and neo-colonial policies that have had a lasting impact on the Muslim world.
Let me give you a few examples. Zionism was a political movement that started in the U.K. calling for a homeland for the Jews. 31 years after Britain occupied Palestine in 1917, they helped established a Zionist entity that resulted in the forced expulsion of about 1 million Palestinians. Israel then continued to expand its occupation of Palestine territory, causing resent, anger and destruction within the original inhabitants.
At the same time, we know that it wasn’t only a matter of Israel being founded (by the West) after the British occupied the region, but Western countries, in particular America, committed to supplying billions of dollars to the Israeli state (in the form of military aid) while turning a blind eye to the killings and oppression of Israel against the Palestinians.
So why is there anger? Not because of some problem within, but a broader problem with colonialism and the continued Western support for regimes like Israel while turning a blind eye to their oppression and killings.
Similarly, we see that western states helped create the current political regimes that reside in the Muslim world. A big topic; but an easy example is the Egyptian regime that receives military aid for creating milibus regimes, thus not allowing the people to choose the type of governance they want. The Egyptian military thus not only controls politics, but also the economy, media and even education. As such, anyone caught criticising the military and its leadership face imprisonment, torture and even death. To reiterate, this is a military regime that has close ties with Western states as seen through military aid and economic ties.
And these same regimes would stoke sectarian and religious conflict, like the false flag attacks on Coptic churches in Egypt in 2011 in order to secure their authority by distracting the people away from their egregious crimes of the regime and attempts to paint any Islamic opposition as potential threats to minority populations.
There are so many other examples, but one last one is the current sectarianism that plagues Iraq. It primarily resulted from the west’s invasion of Iraq in 2002 and the resultant fallout that saw sectarian militias, some of whom were directly supported by western occupying forces, to police other sects and areas.
The point is that one cannot whitewash Western states and their political agendas within the Muslim world, considering their interventions have directly contributed to the current turmoil within the Muslim world. And as we know, this agenda is driven by largely capitalist interests.
If then you want to see stability in the world and foster real engagement of Muslims, my request to you is to introspectively look at western states policies towards the Muslim world not only over the last 130 years or so but also the current political interference we see today. It’s only by engaging in this honest introspection and holding powerful states like America to account for their actions in the Muslim world can we foster better understanding on both sides.
Sharif Abu Laith
Thought Adventure Podcast
