October 06, 2005
One possibility
I just finished a well-written story by the estimable Bruce Sterling, entitled "We See Things Differently". It's a 1989 vision of one possible future, a future which turns out not to have occurred. I'll post my comments on the story in the continuation, so as not to spoil the ending.
Sterling has visions of a soulful Arabic culture overcoming decades of Western oppression, uniting under a benevolant Caliph, and conspiring with Europe and Japan to suck the soulless Americans dry in order to reconquer Asia. Hasn't quite happened this way.
Why? I'd argue that for all the Muslim world talks about the richness of its culture and vibrancy of its traditional life, it's still a deeply misogynistic culture - our culture may be patriarchal [not that there's anything wrong with that {just kidding! (sort of)}] but it isn't actively misogynistic either - rife with an overinflated sense of personal honor and an underdeveloped sense of humanity. No civilized society holds suicide attacks on civilian targets as being useful and appropriate tools of warfare.
