Reza Aslan addresses the question of “why do they hate us?”:
Part of the problem has to do with the question itself. Who exactly are they? Are we referring to al-Qaida and its cohorts? Are we talking about Iran, Syria, and the other nation-states whose interests in the Middle East do not properly align with America’s? Or perhaps we mean Hamas, Hezbollah, or the myriad religious nationalist organizations across the Muslim world that share neither the ideology nor the aspirations of global, transnational groups like al-Qaida, but that have nevertheless been dumped into the same category: them.
Aslan is correct. The Arab and Muslim worlds — which, of course, are two different things — have different reasons for their dislike of the West in general and the United States specifically. However, there are common, general themes that underlie the specific differences: perceived historical oppression and the increasing presence of Western cultural norms that are viewed as decadent and immoral in those countries.
