The Foreign Service Journal, November 2011

U.S. - I S L A M R E L A T I O N S N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 39 transmitted since the Islamic Middle Ages. Modern Arab societies lack a tra- dition of self-criticism, of rational analysis. Without the ability to ana- lyze successfully the doings of the world around them, or even of their own societies, the Arab public ego has experiencedmany reverses. It has be- come defensive and insecure. Public discourse is dominated by a zeitgeist that attributes any bad news to the workings of various exterior, malevolent powers: British in- telligence, the Zionist conspiracy, the CIA—never to one’s own shortcomings. Such an alibi absolves Arab egos from any blame or responsibility for every setback. Take one fairly recent example: the Egyptian govern- ment’s refusal even to consider the possibility that on Oct. 31, 1999, the pilot of Egypt Air Flight 990 deliberately flew his plane into the ocean, killing himself, the other crew members and the 271 passengers aboard. To investigators at the Na- tional Transportation Safety Board, the cause of the crash was obvious: the pilot had intentionally pushed the aircraft to its doom. But to this day, the Egyptian government uncritically pursues ever more ingenious and far- fetched strategies of denial. Multi- plied across any number of similar instances, however, Arabs come to feel themselves to be impotent, the playthings of unseen but always hostile forces. It is hard for us Westerners, even “speaking as a friend,” to help heal the uncomprehending, wounded pride of a great civilization. We will not be listened to. There is no ecumenical tradition in Islam. There are mosques all over America — there is even one in Rome — but Christians may not bring so much as a Bible into Saudi Arabia. It is inconceivable that anywhere in the Islamic world, the head The politically engaged intellectuals who could help a young Arab make sense of the modern world scarcely exist in the Arab world.