Why They Hate Us
Alexander Joffe says it's at least somewhat because they don't understand us:
We should deplore the fact that Muslims learn about us through al-Jaeera and state-controlled media. Even worse, the United Nations’ Arab Human Development Report has noted that the total number of books translated into Arabic from other languages is less than the number translated into Greek. The report also found that more books are translated into Spanish in a single year than into Arab in the last 1,000 years. Copies of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion seem to be readily available (and in convenient TV movie form).
The question now becomes: to what extent would translating our greatest works into Arabic really change Arab ideology? Chris Hitchens's new book is dedicated to trying to replace religious ethics with literary ethics, but it seems that before that can happen there needs to be a base of liberal values (liberal in the classical sense). Otherwise, it seems that we're just giving them more reasons to hate us: if they hate us because we let our women drive (and they do), then letting them know that we also let them vote and hold office won't make them hate us less - quite the opposite.
We should deplore the fact that Muslims learn about us through al-Jaeera and state-controlled media. Even worse, the United Nations’ Arab Human Development Report has noted that the total number of books translated into Arabic from other languages is less than the number translated into Greek. The report also found that more books are translated into Spanish in a single year than into Arab in the last 1,000 years. Copies of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion seem to be readily available (and in convenient TV movie form).
The question now becomes: to what extent would translating our greatest works into Arabic really change Arab ideology? Chris Hitchens's new book is dedicated to trying to replace religious ethics with literary ethics, but it seems that before that can happen there needs to be a base of liberal values (liberal in the classical sense). Otherwise, it seems that we're just giving them more reasons to hate us: if they hate us because we let our women drive (and they do), then letting them know that we also let them vote and hold office won't make them hate us less - quite the opposite.
