Arab Sheep Herders
Photo Credit: Antonino Leto (Italian, 1844-1913)

The life of the typical Middle-Eastern Muslim today is one of poverty, misery, frustration, humiliation, boredom, despair, and anger. Before the Internet, before modern communications, the typical Muslim in a Muslim country (let's call him Ahmed) was merely poor. He did not know that the rest of the world had a better standard of living and offered more freedoms. Before, Ahmed's poverty was bearable because he believed most of the world shared his poverty, but now that he sees that most of the world is better off than he is, he's miserable and angry to boot.

Cities in Saudi Arabia are filled with young men like Ahmed (the majority of the population is under 19 years old) who are mostly unemployed (up to 25% CIA estimates 2009), uneducated, unmarried, with no prospects for the future (80% of the labor force is non-Saudi). When Ahmed lived in a tent, there was always a goat or sheep to relieve his pent-up sexual urges. Now he lives in the city where contact with women is forbidden and goats and sheep are hard to come by. So in addition to misery and anger, Ahmed is very frustrated.

Ahmed now sees that infidels hold all the power in the world with technological prowess, economic might, and military strength. The fact that Islam is egregiously backward and powerless is a humiliation beyond his ability to bear and an insult to everything he was taught about his faith.

Before the Internet, boredom was bearable. Now Ahmed has to contend with images of the corrupt and decadent western world flaunting its brazen, semi-naked women, with its wild music, partying, drinking, and unbridled sex. But all these are the rewards of Paradise promised to Ahmed if he lives a life of righteousness and good deeds. To his despair, Ahmed realizes he must wait for these joys in the world to come while immoral and filthy infidels are enjoying these heavenly delights today, now, in this world. How wrong is that?

As for anger, yes it is true - Ahmed is angry at America, but not because of our freedoms, but because he blames America for supporting the corrupt regimes that rule over his life.

When Ahmed lived in a tent, the great difference in wealth between ruler and subject was not readily apparent. Now the lifestyles of the Kings, princes, and tyrants who have greedily kept most of the oil wealth to themselves is easily revealed to anyone for a few dinars at an Internet Cafe.

I mention all this to show that the modern world and Islamic civilization are not compatible. As long as Ahmed was living in a cave or on a farm or in a tent, he was not a threat to the West. But modernization in Islamic countries only reveals how horrible it is to live as a Muslim.

When they were goat-herders on the sands of the Arabian Peninsula, they could ignore us and we could ignore them. Sadly oil riches, instead of being used to bring a backward Islam into the modern world are used instead to plunge the modern world into a backward Islam; see Oil Rich Muslims Are Science Poor.