Intercultural Understanding is better than Ethnocentrism

By Tom Kando

This piece will please “conservatives,” or at least those who are sometimes fed up with too much political correctness. It is a spoof on the familiar cliché that we, in the West, must try to understand the “other”’s legitimate grievances, and not be always so ethnocentric.
The leaders of the Islamic struggle against American imperialism are facing increasing internal criticism. Osama Bin Laden, Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Hetzbollah leader Nasrallah, among others, have to deal with a growing segment of their own people who feel that they are acting too aggressively against the American imperialists.
While agreeing that the struggle against America and the Western world will be long and cannot be shirked, these voices fear that the extreme and violent response to American hegemonism is likely to stoke the flames of anti-Arabism, and to create more hatred and resentment towards Muslims among millions of Americans and Christians in the Western world.

These dissenters argue that, instead of responding to American grievances through violence, Muslims should make an effort to understand the root causes of that resentment. They should study American and Christian culture and values, and develop an understanding of the sociological and historical causes behind the West’s and the Christian world’s deep seeded mistrust of Muslims and Arabs, including centuries of oppression of millions of Europeans and Christians by Moors, Turks and other Muslims, and centuries of economic dominance by Muslims, who for long enjoyed technological and military supremacy in the Middle East, in the Mediterranean Basin and in much of Europe. They should also understand that it is a misreading of the Bible to assume that it preaches violence against non-Christians, and that a majority of Christians do not advocate violence.

This group of critics points out that, by reacting to American resentment violently and by failing to understand the American mind and the reasons behind American grievances, Muslims exacerbate the conflict and create additional millions of American militants every day.

They note that, in the end, the conflict can only be resolved through mutual understanding, for as long the Muslim leadership insists on dealing with America with an iron fist, this will merely drive more and more Americans towards hatred, prejudice and violence. leave comment here