Resisting essentialized stereotypes risks a mirror-trap apology for Muslim rulers’ atrocities

Evidence

Americans have scant opportunity to view the Islamic world except reductively, coercively, oppositionally. The tragedy of this is that it has spawned a set of counterreductions here and in the Islamic world itself. “Islam” can now have only two possible general meanings, both of them unacceptable and impoverishing. To Westerners and Americans, “Islam” represents a resurgent atavism, which suggests not only the threat of a return to the Middle Ages but the destruction of what is regularly referred to as the democratic order in the Western world. For a great many Muslims, on the other hand, “Islam” stands for a reactive counterresponse to this first image of Islam as a threat. Anything said about “Islam” gets more or less forced into the apologetic form of a statement about Islam’s humanism, its contribution to civilization, development, and moral righteousness. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 189 (#expands, via linked claim)

The Muslim as victim argument, however, does not explain conflicts between Muslim majorities and non-Muslim minorities in countries such as Sudan, Egypt, Iran, and Indonesia. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 734 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Victim-narrative explanations fail for conflicts inside Muslim-majority states — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 734; Reductive images of Islam spawn mirror-image apologetic counterreductions — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the…, 189

Broader Connections

• Reductive images of Islam spawn mirror-image apologetic counterreductions #expands (0.90) — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 189
• Victim-narrative explanations fail for conflicts inside Muslim-majority states #corroborates (0.80) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 734