The only one who seems to have a complex about Arabs is you here..they have never been complexed by the Europeans..in fact they have occupied Spain and portugal and almost half of France for 8 centuries.. And Spread Islam to those Muslim countries you are talking about.. so deal with your complex and don't try to project it on Arabs..
I understand why what I am saying would be hard to accept, and offensive. I am certainly not saying that all Arabs have this complex. Many Arabs are confident, humble, enlightened people, who embody the essence of the Islamic character. Unfortunately, they do not wield much influence in the places that matter - government, media, even religious circles.
It has not always been this way. This inferiority complex only goes back to European colonization (maybe even dating back to the ascent of the Turks), not before. Spain, Portugal, and France were a long time ago, so they are not relevant. Moreover, it can be argued that non-Arab Berbers, Kurds, Persians, and even the natives had a large role in the conquest and the development of the rich Islamic culture of Southern Europe. So Arabs cannot take sole credit for that.
The fact is that Arabs derive their strength from Islam and its institutions. But the European colonizers, with the help of their local enablers, systematically dismantled and discredited these institutions. The Arabs, in the absence of a strong base in Islamic knowledge and wisdom, lost confidence and started to believe that their lost glory could only be regained by adopting Western models of progress.
The main victim of this complex was the generation born in the 1930s, and 1940s. Their children, who were born in the 1960's and 1970s were raised by parents of that mindset. It is only in the millennial generation that we are seeing real change, and growing confidence. So there is every reason to be hopeful.
As for the spread of Islam, yes, Arabs did spread Islam to non-Arab countries. Although, again, it was not just the Arabs who deserve credit. For example, while it is true that the Arabs were the first to reach erstwhile India, Islam really spread, and took root as a result of the invasions from the Northeast i.e. Central Asia.
The amount of credit that the Arabs deserve for spreading Islam is debatable. But that is not relevant. The fact is that many Arabs believe themselves to be superior to non-Arabs because Arabic is the language of the Qur'an, and because the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) and the first Muslims were Arabs, and because they take credit for bestowing the gift of Islam on the non-Arab people.
There is a general, often implicit, notion that a non-Arab can never be as good a Muslim as an Arab. This idea is based on two assumptions: first, that a non-Arab cannot truly master the Arabic language, which is a prerequisite to understanding the true essence of Islam; second, because Arabic culture
is Islamic culture, a non-Arab cannot truly embody the Islamic culture. Both of these assumptions are false.
I would advise you to be more objective in your efforts of understanding the reasons for our current state (yes, I do believe that we are one people under Islam), and refrain from giving knee-jerk reactions when you read something uncomfortable.
When I look at the Muslims of today (Arabs and non-Arabs), I am not depressed at all. We have come a long way, from a subjugated people, to where we stand now. The road has been hard, but we still have a great distance to cover. We must not pretend that we have arrived, and deny the challenges that lie ahead.
