Doostdar writes: “The
novelist and journalist Michael Muhammad Knight has recently argued that his
own flirting with jihad in the Chechen war of the 1990s did not grow out of his
then commitment to Salafi Islam, but from American values: ‘I had grown up in
the Reagan ‘80s. I learned from G.I. Joe cartoons to (in the words of the theme
song) ‘fight for freedom, wherever there’s trouble.’ I assumed that individuals
had the right—and the duty—to intervene anywhere on the planet where they
perceived threats to freedom, justice, and equality’” How can Doostdar’s use of
the phrase “American values” be perceived, understood: ironically? a
self-indictment? a sardonic critique of what is assumed uniquely American?
Incidentally, Doostdar’s invoking of a notion of values as uniquely American in
itself points towards the very thing she criticizes: that is, the reality of
events, or simultaneously the irreality of events, being solely disseminated
and comprehended through a Western/American ideological framework (the structure
of which is continually implemented and perpetuated by transparency of Western
media). The phrase itself again points further towards the notion of cultural
exchange: more precisely, what becomes invisible/obscured/lost in cultural
exchange?
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