Flashy, but problematic assertions from Roger Hardy
Much of the talk about winning Muslim "hearts and minds" is shallow and misguided. The issue is often seen, especially in the United States, as a matter of public relations – as if America has an image problem in the Muslim world, and dollars can buy it a better one. Or it is seen, in a facile way, as a matter of bolstering "good Muslims" while clobbering "bad Muslims". Without a surer grasp of Islamism and its discontents, the battle for Muslim hearts and minds will be lost.
What bugs me about Hardy's assertions is that they are full of air and not much else because he tied together awkwardly and dangerously the issue of discontent with the so-called West and its foreign policies and the one of "identity." Talking about Muslim hearts and minds is as dumb as talking about a "western" identity for we know that an American is different than a French and has different sensibilities. The point is that too many people tend to homogenize groups of people when they want to make an ideological and grand point that fits their world-view, but does not reflect the realities. In short, I'm rebelling here against the notion that "Muslims" are so different from other people that policy makers trying to appease tensions and address apprehensions while dispelling misunderstandings should forget about the simple fact that people just hate being stripped of their individuality and being told that they matter less than anybody else because of something that they haven't chosen. It seems to me that by claiming that Islamism is different and misunderstood, Roger Hardy just reinforces the old and dangerous stereotypes that values and reality are relative and that some people are allowed to be barbarian and that the rest of the world should accept it. What bothers is that Roger Hardy would never make the same point about Christian fundamentalism and that's the problem.
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