Rewriting the Arab Narrative
Analysts in the U.S. and Europe did not expect revolutions in the Arab world, and those who did, did not expect them to come from such unlikely actors or be this widespread and peaceful.
Dr. Hayrettin Yücesoy, associate professor of history at Saint Louis University, says the West must confront its caricatured vision of so-called Arab societies in the wake of such well-intentioned revolution: “Fortunately, a beautiful theory is being spoiled by an inconvenient fact. The revolutions are forcing all of us to confront the nature of our own thinking. Pundits and many academics found that they had not only miscalculated the real dynamics of these societies, but also knowingly (or more disturbing, unknowingly) indulged deep-seated stereotypes…”
