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It is no accident that most Islamic countries are governed by dictatorship, and the blame cannot be placed solely on the dominant powers that support such regimes to secure their own national interest. Politics is the interplay of power and legitimacy, and requires some relative legitimacy in social and cultural institutions. As Islam plays a major role in political legitimation in Islamic countries, we must consider that it must also assume its share of responsibility for making despotism possible.

Reaction to foreign domination, initially expressed in leftist and nationalist discourse, has become increasingly articulated through Islamic ones. But it lacks critical edge, and embraces no critique of the calls from across the Islamic world for a return to the cultural self and a defense of threatened identity. Hence, the concept of "self", fluid and contested, has been captured in a dogmatic and rigid definition. We do not 'convert' now to Islam, for example, but 'revert'. This is partly a reaction to the presence of inferiority complex in Islamic countries which are dominated by arrogant western powers.