So long as there are cultures in these places, and those cultures share some common threads that make them distinct from the cultures of other peoples in other parts of the world, there will continue to be a civilization than spans across Africa in the Sahel north to the Mediterranean Sea, the southwest quarter of Asia, and the numerous islands southeast of Asia where the predominant religion practiced is Islam. Conflicts in parts of the aforementioned regions do not make their inhabitants inferior, merely beset by a myriad of complicated problems that have yet to be resolved.
When presented with this subject so many things come to mind:
- European imperialism up through the 1970s
- Tyranny of the map, creating countries whose borders divide nations
- Soviet and American imperialism throughout the Cold War
- The tendency for most revolutions to swap out authoritarian regimes
- Globalization's diffusion of Western culture - which not everyone likes
- Local concerns about loss of self-determination to foreigners
- Regional rivalries boiling down to competitions for power
- Growing pains felt by many countries during industrialization
- Some countries get split down the middle by two civilizations
- Human progress is not a steady, linear path forwards
- It can be hard to settle for peace if one feels wronged
- Government corruption is often a major drag on human development
Furthermore, there have been plenty of times in history when Westerners have seemed savage by today's standards. In the U.S. long ago, for example, social mores were profoundly affected by Christian fundamentalism. Women were expected to stay almost entirely covered, social expectations included blatant double standards based on sex, people were routinely subjected to violence for what would seem like trivial infractions today, and mainstream culture was much more authoritarian in character than today - in many respects as recently as the first half of the 20th century.
This is the 21st century now, granted, but not every society develops at the same pace. Not every one of them travels down the same path. Different peoples get subjected to different environments, different experiences, and scheme up their own ways of dealing with problems as they emerge. It does not matter that a lot of the people in question here are Arabs or that they are Muslim. They are not "barbarians" or "savages" and, moreover, most adherents to Islam abroad are not extremists. Circumstances have simply seen to it that some folks will suffer through hard times for awhile.
