Following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the American media sought out public intellectual and presumed Middle East expert Edward Said for interviews, with the assumption that he would have insight into how this “terrorist” incident bore the hallmark of “Muslim extremists.” The assumption was this was an attack so barbarous it could only be attributed to Muslims and not to the complex range of social and individual factors which might lead people to kill themselves to draw attention to their unheard or less heard political claims.
