As protests sweep across dozens of countries in the Middle
East and beyond, under the guise of rage against the now infamous film titled
“The Innocence of Muslims,” news analysts are quick to make sweeping and
general statements about the clash between Muslims and the West.  

Lack of
nuance inevitably results in the same Hungtington-esque Clash of
Civilizations conclusion: Muslims and Islamic culture are inherently
unable to coexist with a Western, liberalized society. While most readers are
oblivious of the domestic frustrations fueling the protests from Cairo to
Khartoum, images of burning American flags in these locales stacked up next to
each other – as they were on this weekend’s front page of The New York Times – make one message pretty clear: They hate us.  

The notion of “them against us”
has been drilled into the American psyche since 9/11, but it’s nothing new.
It’s the easiest way a leader can coax a nation to wage war – convincing entire
populations to believe their lives are existentially threatened by the other.
It’s the backbone behind massive military endeavors like the Cold War or the
current Iran-Israel nuclear crisis.

But whereas
in the Cold War, the Communist was the easiest scapegoat to publically demonize
in a societally acceptable way, the Muslim has taken on the persona of all dark
and shadowy evils plaguing this country. At a panel discussion I
attended in Washington, D.C. this summer, human rights lawyer Arsalan Iftikhar
made a telling point: There’s a reason 18% of Republicans believe President Barack
Obama is Muslim – it is the societally acceptable way to express a dislike of
his blackness.

As someone
who comes from a Muslim family, it frightens me to see this country accept a
rhetoric of open hatred against Islam. The coverage of the Sikh temple shootings
in Oak Creek made it clear that this is the case. Multiple segments were dedicated
to explaining how Sikhs are different from Muslims, a distinction completely
irrelevant to the situation. It insinuated that if the victims of the shooting
were Muslim, the violence would be somehow validated.

It’s easy for us as Americans,
safely sitting in a country that protects our human rights and dignity, to view
Muslims and Arabs as immoral goons. A lot of Americans, including myself, were
frustrated and shocked that a clumsy and ridiculous YouTube short could incite such
violence.

But coming
from a Muslim background and having lived in an Arab country for several
months, I can attest to the unbelievable importance of faith in the Middle
East. When government has let Arabs down – vast unemployment, corruption and
squandering of foreign aid have become commonplace – religion has been a
structure that Arabs of all faiths can
cling to. This by no means insinuates that violence was warranted, but it is important to understand the protesters’ motives. 

The newly
revolutionized Arab countries are taking on a more Islamized version of
government, a shift not inherently anti-American. What those pictures
of protestors burning American flags fail to convey is that the protestors are
angry because they have been denied some things that are very American: the
freedom to say what they want to say, the freedom to provide for themselves and
their families and the freedom to live the way they want to live.

Meher Ahmad ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in international studies and Middle Eastern studies.