Port deal and cartoons issue: View of a Pakistani Analyst

Interesting article on the dual issues of Cartoons and the Ports deal for UAE firm in the US. Shahid Burki is one of saner analysts in the Pakistani media.

Why did the question of cartoons result in such an uproar in the Muslim world? According some analysts in the West, the reaction had more to do with the fact that the Muslims had been left behind economically and in terms of developing their human resources. That had created great resentment among the uneducated and unemployed masses. This resentment was directed not only against the West but also against the leaders of the Muslim society.

In taking this view in an article Thomas Friedman, the columnist and the author of the best-selling book, The World is Flat, quoted Pakistan’s Pervez Hoodbhoy extensively and approvingly. The Pakistani nuclear scientist had correctly diagnosed the reason for the economic malaise in much of the Muslim world, blaming it on poor education. But Hoodbhoy did not make the connection between the fact that “science and Islam parted ways many centuries ago