Earlier this year (pre-covid!) in the lounge of an Istanbul hotel, me, an Austrian professor, a Morrocan student and two sisters from Spain, one a Dr, the other a community organiser got into what turned into a fairly heated discussion on Muslims’ progress in the West & the rest.

It started with the professor asserting that for Muslims’ in Europe to progress, they should be listening to the far right’s criticisms. He pointed to the high rates of crime & lower levels of socioeconomic development of Muslim minority communities

This was quickly contested by myself & esp the Spanish sisters who were able to highlight the fallacies of his argument - namely the far right being driven by racism rather than genuine concerns over Muslim progression, as well as the underlying causes of extremism

However the discussion then turned to the Muslim world when the Moroccan brother very innocently said that he thought the fault lay with Muslims-“I always wonder why is there no Steve Jobs in Morocco?” was his specific question

At this point two things happened-first I interjected & started to explain that Steve Jobs was not born, he was made. The education, training & funding he received before eventually starting Apple are conditions not present in Morocco-blaming the people/society is an easy target

But as I was explaining this, I saw the professor was visibly pleased with the Moroccan guy’s comment. He ran with this point & start condemning Afghanistan of all places, comparing it to Vietnam which (60 yrs after the war) is making progress

As the discussion went on the professor proceeded to make some pretty racist assertions. This whole discussion highlighted 2 things for me:the distance between “Muslim countries are so backward & terrible” to “Muslim communities are what the far right says they are” isnt that big

Both statements ignore the structural conditions, institutions & histories that have contributed to the realities that we see & are more concerned with attributing blame than being solution-oriented

Secondly, the indoctrination of many young people in Muslim countries to worship Western progress perpetuates such ignoring of the broader context. The brother was innocent in his question, but his internalised self-hate was exploited by the professor

By contrast the sisters from Spain (who were truly amazing!) were under no such illusion & were confident in calling out the professor’s racial biases (& veiled threats, he queried why Muslims would expect to *not* be killed by Europeans, “didnt you learn from the Holocaust?” )