Dr Silvia Carenzi | د. سيلفيا كارينتسي

At the risk of being redundant, neo-Orientalist and Islamophobic tropes dressed up as “progressive” are still neo-Orientalist and Islamophobic.

Whatever one’s views on events in northeast Syria &amp; the path ahead —a discussion that should center those who *live* Syria— it’s depressing to see European intellectual circles systematically fall prey to (neo-Orientalist) confirmation bias.

“Let’s retweet whatever outrageous content comes through the timeline,” without taking the time to determine what is genuine versus what isn’t —at a time when mis- &amp; disinformation are rampant— and with no regard for the consequences of spreading inflammatory, unverified reports.

But this, too, is revealing: the systematic rush by some intellectual circles to share unverified, viral, and inflammatory content targeting only “one side” unveils the unspoken — yet poorly camouflaged — biases at play.

The deployment of the “savage jihadist” trope is textbook neo-Orientalism. What baffles me is how several “progressive” circles that claim to be committed to “decolonizing knowledge” so casually continue to reproduce and amplify this narrative.

Dismissing multilayered dynamics of inclusion/exclusion, intercommunal strife, and/or political violence through the archetype of the (purported) “bad jihadist” is lazy, misleading, and deeply problematic on multiple levels.

Selective outrage, and the wholesale disregard of anything that doesn’t fit the romanticized narrative, is equally problematic.

Once again, whatever one’s leanings, the lived experiences of those who are in Syria need to be centered — not ivory-tower projections of romanticized utopias, nor the narcissistic need to keep one’s narrative intact.