Orientalist denial of Arab democratic capacity persisted through and beyond the 2011 Arab Spring

Evidence

Even in the twenty-first century, the natives, the unwashed masses, still don’t know better. Their systematic organizing and Twitter-based publicity for free elections, more political parties, and greater political freedom are best ignored; instead the West, which still knows best, should guide them to accept Islamic forms of governance for which they are better suited. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 384

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Bernard Lewis maintained Arabs were unsuited to Western-style democracy even after the Arab Spring.; Arab Spring mass demonstrations falsified Western claims that Arabs reject democracy — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race…, 1389

Broader Connections

• Arab Spring mass demonstrations falsified Western claims that Arabs reject democracy #complicates (0.85) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 1389