Bigotry is more present in the Islamic world, but bigotry is not the same thing as racism (if you'll allow these two words to stand in for a larger point). What I mean is that racism is a system where one has power, and uses bigotry as a means of exercsing and maintaining that power. Bigotry is ignorance and prejudice against others, defined as outsiders. Racism is the use of this bigotry in terms of maintaining and exercising power. And this is the difference.

As to your point about authoritarianism and religion, I think this relationship is being exploded right now. Not by the protests, but by the fact that democratic elections right now in the middle east favor more illiberal and more theocratic forces than the authoritarian/tyrannical forces which grew out of originally idealistic premises of anti-colonialism, third world autonomy, pan-Arabism, and socialism, which they are replacing. Mubarak, the successor to Nasser, being slowly replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood. The relatively (and originally quite) secular Fatah being replaced by Hamas. Saddam Hussein, legacy of the pan-Arabist Baath Party being replaced by Shi'ite (and now) Sunni Islamists. And so on. I don't think the dynamic will be and is any different in Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Finally, I think your assumption that somehow the Arab or even the broader Islamic World is destined to adopt western values or even enlightenment values, I'm not at all sure. Little in history suggests this inevitable. Its a conceit of a particular moment in history of a particular group of people. This isn't to say that they won't in some way adopt such values, but I don't think it is all clear they will either.

I don't really think China, or Russia, or Africa, or even Japan have really done so. They just don't have an immediate beef with us, or at least a beef that manifested itself so clearly. But they, I do, think represent this potential.

Finally, this means that I think it is foolish and counterproductive for us to expect or demand that they do adopt Western values. The kind of thinking many here are exhibiting making this assumption is what led us into the Iraqi train wreck.

 Of course, this means that they can't expect we will cater to what they want either, especially not within sovereign states. But its up to them what they want to do "at home," frankly. They have to sort their affairs out for themselves, which I'm sure, they can do over time.