Our 'Bad'

Wily Harpoon Siddiqui absolves Arabs of responsibilty for the pathetic state of their, er, pathetic states, laying blame for their abjectness entirely in our "racist" laps:

When we allow ourselves to be pushed into thinking about a people and a region as a monolith, sans diversity and differences, we view them only in stark stereotypes. We allow racist notions to become respectable.

Thus “the Arab street,” a contemptuous phrase the media dare not use for public opinion elsewhere. There is no “Canadian street.” No “American street.” No “British street.” No “French street.” But Arab public opinion, emanating in the street — emotional and irrational — is to be dismissed.

Similarly, we are told that all Arabs/Muslims are hard-wired to mistreat women. Like blacks being prone to violence and Catholics to abusing boys.

And in the middle of this glorious Arab spring, we are instructed to keep our enthusiasm in check and ponder instead that democracy may not be part of the Arab DNA.

These crude formulations do serve a purpose. They keep the focus of Arab troubles exclusively on Arabs, as though we have had no part in the mess.

For decades, Arabs have been denied democracy mostly by client regimes of the United States and Europe that financed and trained the dictators’ security set-ups. The mandate of these dreaded outfits has been to keep “the street” quiet, lest it resonate with what we did not want to hear...

Yeah, it's our fault that Islamic teachings see women and non-Muslims as being second class to Muslim men. It's our fault that, due to these same teachings, a strongman is the preferred paradigm of Arab leadership. And it's our fault that Arabs, who are awash in oil wealth, have delusions of superiority (again, a function of Koranic teachings); these delusions cause endless frustration because they fall far short of the reality that they continue to lag behind, especially when it comes to that uppity Jew dhimmi state.

Tell me: does anyone really buy Harpoon's hogwash?