No escape from a downward spiral

If the people of the Middle East continue on their present path, the suicide bomber may become a metaphor for the whole region, and there will be no escape from a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression, culminating sooner or later in yet another alien domination; perhaps from a new Europe reverting to old ways, perhaps from a resurgent Russia, perhaps from some new, expanding superpower in the East. If they can abandon grievance and victimhood, settle their differences, and join their talents, energies, and resources in a common creative endeavour, then they can once again make the middle East, in modern times as it was in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, a major center of civilization. For the time being, the choice is their own.

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One can only hope that, in time, the cause of freedom will triumph once again as it has already triumphed over the Nazis and the Communists. If it does not, the outlook for the Islamic world, and perhaps for the West, will be grim.

Bernhard Lewis in What went wrong? 2002