DOHA The fury of Muslims is directed not against the "West" but rather it is against America, Americans and those in the West who choose to ally themselves with America, according to Louis J Cantori, a noted US-based scholar and researcher.
Cantori, was speaking at a session on the forum on "Islam and the West" which concluded at the Four Seasons Hotel yesterday.
"It is the American and Americans who provide the provocation for the acts of violence carried out by extremists who themselves don't speak for or act in the name of majority IslamÂ…. Therefore the claim that this fury is directed against the West and western culture is patently false as is the assertion that it is "Islam" that is the author of violent acts," he said.
While a militant minority may be engaged in a sustained attack upon America and Americans, it is also the case that the moderate majority of Muslims are themselves engaged in the pursuit of democracy, he noted.
"The question of democracy is not only a matter of difference of meaning, but also by the fact that democracy is also a means to the spreading of American control and hegemony. This can be termed "democracism" that is the use of the ideology of democratisation in order to achieve domination and control," said Cantori.
He said, democratisation in the Middle East is proceeding on two simultaneous levels. "There is the level of American force and policy pressure and there is the level of tyrannical regimes "protective coloration" in the face of American pressure and far more important and widespread, there is the level of Islamic political oppositions and Islamic intellectuals," he added. |