What's causing the turmoil in Islamic countries? Rest assured it is not a You Tube video. | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    We continue to find, in our judgment, the best reporting on the Islamist uprisings around the world in the British and German press. For example, Ghaith Abdul-Ahod, writing in the UK (England) Guardian provides this analysis of what is behind the violence. The maelstrom of anti-western violence in the Arab world has little to do with an anti-Islam propaganda film released on YouTube.

    It has more to do with decades of perceived western imperialism - and the organisational skills of the Salafis, known for their no-compromise, literal interpretation of the faith.

    Such rightwing Islamists were wrongfooted by the Arab spring. For years, the jihadis and Salafis thought they had a monopoly on revolution and were the only viable opposition to the Arab dictators.

    When the regimes were threatened by popular uprisings, the Salafis took weeks and months to respond. In Libya they initially called for the demonstrators to support the ruler of the land, Muammar Gaddafi. As it became clear that the revolutions would not instantly deliver the brighter future people had marched for, the Salafis began to use that discontent to their advantage.

    They are brilliant at agitating on the streets - working on the unemployed, the frustrated, people who feel life should be better. In Tunis, the Salafi agitation began months before the propaganda film - the Innocence of Muslims - surfaced. They attacked cinemas, secularists and artists. In Bahrain and Syria they worked along sectarian lines, and in Egypt they launched vicious confrontations with the Coptic Christians.

    In Libya, the Salafis have been systematically burning Sufi shrines and trashing Christian cemeteries, while the government has felt too weak to confront them. Some of the demonstrations - in Damascus, Khartoum and Tehran - will have been backed by the state.

    Anti-western sentiment is rife in the Arab world. Germans, British, Danish - all are deemed guilty for the colonial crimes of the past and present. The US, of course, is perceived as the most arrogant of all, with 50 or more years of perceived bigotry, support for Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, sanctions on Iran and occupation of Iraq.

    Barack Obama's Arab honeymoon was squandered by drone attacks on Pakistan and Yemen and his impotence over Israel. As Salman Rushdie wrote recently in the New Yorker about the people who led the fatwa against him: Click here to read the rest of the story.

    This piece only touches on it but we believe to fully understand the uprising one must factor in two other conditions.

    First these uprising are only partly political or even religious. They are also, in large part, economic. Or more specifically, they are rooted in economic frustration. Much of the unrest comes from the disappointment that the "Arab Spring" would correct the devastating poverty in Egypt, Libya and other Muslim countries that do not posses abundant resources, such as does Saudi Arabia, Iran and even Iraq. Unemployment in many of these countries among significant groups is in excess of 50%. Those condition historically and traditionally have almost always led to either one of two things: dictatorships (to insure stability) or political unrest.

    The second condition, mentioned by Abdul-Ahad is the competition among the various Islamic groups. The American press continues to assume all Muslims are the same and think the same. That is far from true. In Libya it appears this uprising is being driven by the Salafis. One sees similar sectarian competition in Iraq and Syria.

    Anyone who tries to tell you that this situation is caused by an You Tube video is displaying their ignorance, even if they do work in the White House..

    And finally, if anyone talks about this situation and does not given credence to the role that Al -Qaida is playing trying to stir up turmoil.

    There is more to come. Be assured.

    And be assured that what is causing the turmoil in Islamic countries is not a You Tube video and anyone, including the Obama Administration, who tries to tell you that is simply displaying their ignornace. It is much, much more complex than that.