Western anti-Muslim and Islamic anti-Western narratives reinforce each other

Evidence

While policy makers and diplomats do not speak publicly of their motives for allowing the assault on Bosnia to continue with impunity for three and a half years, those not in public office are more open. The Internet discussion groups (soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna, alt.current-events.bosnia, soc. culture.yugoslavia) offer postings angrily questioning why Christians should come to the aid of Muslims. The construction by some Western ideologues of a “green threat” of Islam and the self-fulfilling prophecies of a clash of civilizations, and the mirror construction by some Islamic militants of a Western great Satan-and the way in which the two ex treme views reinforce one another-is of course a huge topic. — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 641

Categorization

• QUESTION: The claim that the two extreme views ‘reinforce one another’ is asserted, not demonstrated — worth chasing how recursive enemy-construction actually polarizes both sides.
• XREF: connects to: Selective media focus on Muslim sexism constructs Western enlightenment as its opposite

Related

• Western betrayal of Bosnia strengthened the very Islamic extremism it feared (similarity 0.86)
• Leading Western newspapers would never print such venom about Christianity or Judaism, only Islam (similarity 0.83)
• Western press praised illiberal Christianity but blamed only Islam for violence. (similarity 0.81)
• Religious violence in the post-cold war era is a global, not Balkan, force (similarity 0.81)
• Medieval Christian polemics could only read Islam as affirming or negating Christianity (similarity 0.80)
• Interrogating Western-ness is required to expunge Islamophobia (similarity 0.79)
• Western discourse reduces all Muslim societies to a single malevolent essence (similarity 0.79)
• Media and political elites may have an interest in promoting the Islam-violence stereotype. (similarity 0.79)
• Western anti-Muslim hostility has been episodic and elite-driven, not a perpetual clash (similarity 0.79)
• Post-imperial Islam-West conflicts center on issues beyond territory (similarity 0.79)
• Hate propaganda need not be internally coherent to be effective (similarity 0.79)
• West-versus-Islam doubt binaries are projections of scholarly desire (similarity 0.79)
• The West’s Muslims are fictional characters in a story about itself. (similarity 0.79)
• The image of Islam, modernization ideology, and Israel’s value form a mutually reinforcing triad. (similarity 0.78)
• Four interconnected groups jointly project the Muslim-enemy image (similarity 0.78)