Re: Bush planning nuke attack on Iran?

Neil X. wrote:

Everybody's Gonna Be Happy wrote:

Name one recent contribution to the world that came from the Muslim world.
One medical breakthrough, one technological advance, one groundbreaking
improvement in human rights or the rule of law. Just one.

India doesn't count; they have Hindus, who are cool.

I'm quite interested in Toad's challenge. Can any of the Muslim
apologists in this thread answer it?

To point out that Toad's assertion that 'most Muslims are anti-modernity' is factually incorrect, perjoratve stereotype does not make one a "Muslim apologist."

To discuss the problems of the Middle East, or Africa for that matter, without a discussion of the legacy of colonialism in creating those problems serves only to create further misunderstanding.

Yes, Iraq isn't responding to nationalist urges in a way that serves US interests. This is because Iraq is a fiction created by colonial powers that was held together only by force. If that leaves Iraq in a position where it is not making "technological breakthroughs" at the moment it is not because its people are "anti-modernity" -- even if they are becoming progressively anti-West. It is in large part a legacy of colonialism -- and the actions of a neo-colonialist superpower -- at play here.

Furthermore, to hold the history of the United States up as some sort of superior standard of nationalist development ("from the age of reason") without reference to the genocide of the Indians or slavery or Jim Crow is to reveal a jingoistic impulse, not an honest, historically-grounded discussion.
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