Letter: More on secularism
I agree with Hein Htet Kyaw’s main argument , but want to register a few initial queries and reservations. The USA assisted Islamist movements in Afghanistan in their battle against the Russian occupation (1979-88). But it was not “resurrecting” them, and did not have a control over them it later lost. For the US strategists, it was enough that the Islamist movements tied down and undermined Moscow. The rise of political Islam as a right-wing force channelling social rebellion in the Middle East and elsewhere was, as Hein says, “locally rooted”. It was not invented by the USA, any more than...