Western influences on Egypt: A data point

September 3, 2007

I'm back in Egypt after a summer break in cool Sweden. More about all that later. Meanwhile, check out this little screen capture from Facebook. It's the "top books" discussed by members of the Egypt group on Facebook:

Granted, it's a bit of a self-selecting, early-adopter crowd over on Facebook, but still: Alarmists who see a resurgent Islam beating back western influences need to explain the many cases where the influence is clearly flowing the other way.

I am still convinced that the resurgence of Islamism in many parts of the Muslim world is not just due to a perceived sense of rising western influence, but an actual rise in western influence. It's partly a defensive reaction, rather than the preëmptive action many in the west make it out to be.

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