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Egyptian TV host Ibrahim Eissa said in a December 20, 2020 show on Al-Hurra TV (U.S.) that it is a tragedy that many Muslims today blame the failures of the Islamic world on a Western conspiracy against Islam. He criticized Muslims who believe that Islam is being targeted by such a conspiracy and said that Muslims in the West enjoy better lives than those in the Islamic world. Germany-based sociologist, Professor Mouhanad Khorchide, who was interviewed by Eissa, said that Islam has begun to identify itself as a religion that opposes hostile "others." In addition, he pointed out that Muslims in the West even enjoy the right to criticize and curse the very countries they have chosen to live in. For more about Ibrahim Eissa, see MEMRI TV clips No. 7852, 7295, 7172, 6767, 6530, 6416, and 5150.
Ibrahim Eissa: "The tragedy is that we, as Muslims and as Arabs, love to make excuses for our despicable situation, and to ascribe it to a conspiracy that is being hatched against us. Part of the strong belief in conspiracy theories is due to the failure and frustration that we experience in the Islamic world. Those who call to implement the Islamic model of government always blame conspiracies for the failure of the regimes that raised the banner of Islam, just as the pan-Arab nationalist regimes in the post-colonialist era have promoted conspiracy theories to justify their failure on many issues. Every failed [leader] claims there is a conspiracy.
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"There are millions of Muslims around the world, who believe that there is a Western conspiracy against Islam, and that their religion is being targeted. And that is despite the fact that Muslims in Western countries are much better off than in their countries of origin, as a matter of fact. They do not want to return to their countries of origin, because these countries expelled them, deported them, or pushed them to emigrate. You can find Muslim cabinet members in Western governments. You can see them in Britain, France, and Canada — one may be the interior minister, the mayor of the capital, and so on. How can we solve this problem? How can we free these minds that are so madly in love with conspiracies?"
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Mouhanad Khorchide: "Unfortunately, Islam has turned into an anti-Western identity. When we are unable to define Islam from within, we turn to the 'other.' We need the 'other' so that we can say he is the enemy. We determine for the Muslim that he must fight the 'other,' overcome him, and get rid of him. Muslims need a hostile image of the 'other,' so they build this image for themselves. But if you come and see... As you said, in reality, the laws of European countries in general, and even in America, do not discriminate between religions. On the contrary, since the Enlightenment in 18th century Europe, equality between people has become a value that all Western countries try to uphold or realize. The second problem is in the discourse of the [Western] Muslims themselves, who say that they are oppressed and that there is a conspiracy against them. These Muslims live here, in Europe, and enjoy rights that they cannot enjoy in most of the Islamic countries. In addition, they are treated here, with some sort of equality. When you ask these Muslims if they accept, for example, churches being built in Islamic countries, they say: "No, it is haram.' At the same time, they say it is racism if we are forbidden from building mosques here, even though it is not forbidden in most European countries.
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"They are given the freedom to curse [the West] every Friday in our mosques. When I visit a mosque, it always surprises me how an imam who lives here in Germany says every Friday: 'These are descendants of apes and pigs...Oh Allah, do this and that to them, make the earth quake under their feet...' We must remind him that we live on their land...Go easy on us with your supplications. It is considered within his freedom of speech to say this every Friday."
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