In a summary by Claudia Mende , I have found only this worth quoting: “Following initial euphoria for an Arab world on the brink of a new era, people in the West have largely lost interest. Outmoded stereotypical views of the Arab world have re-emerged. Too religious, too backward, the region and its people are different after all – just a few widely-held western opinions. The West continues to back stability But when issuing judgements such as these, the West should critically scrutinise its own role in the Middle East. After all, while Europe and the U.S. may have always paid lip service to democratic values and human rights, some of their policies run directly contrary to these. Arms shipments to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria and the United Arab Emirates prop up repressive regimes and stoke conflicts. In the name of democracy, the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, toppled Saddam Hussein and created a fiasco. When current military leader of Egypt Sisi violently ousted the democratically
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51