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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Arab Anti-Americanism a Myth |
| 2005-10-01 |
| Dubbed President George W. Bushâs âimage queenâ, Karen Hughes is back in the US after embarking on a tour of Arab countries where conventional wisdom claims that anti-Americanism is second nature. The fact that Ms. Hughes, now in charge of something called public diplomacy at the State Department, chose the Arab region for her maiden voyage shows that she shares that analysis. But how true is that claim? Are Arabs the most anti-American peoples on earth? Let us start with the tangibles. The United States is by far the largest pole of attraction for Arab foreign investment at all levels, from public sector funds to small private savings accounts. The most conservative estimates put the value of Arab assets in the US at over $4.5 trillion, which means that the Arab countries are just behind Britain, Japan and Holland as the biggest investors in the US economy. The US is also one of the top three trading partners of virtually all Arab states. In fact, many US-made goods, cars for example, that do not sell anywhere else, still enjoy robust markets in Arab countries. There are other facts. The US has been the No. 1 foreign tourist destination for Arabs since the 1980s and, has remained so despite restrictions imposed on Arab visitors after 9/11. Arabs, from all walks of life and different political sensibilities, also love to send their children to study in the US. And when it comes to seeking medical treatment, no country competes with the US in attracting well-heeled Arabs. If she took time to stroll in Arab capitals, Ms. Hughes would have been struck by the ubiquitous presence of things American. It is not possible to spend a holiday in most Arab capitals without moving out of the orbit of American franchised hotels, restaurants, tourist services, and banks. A stroll in modern shopping malls would reveal a population wearing American-style clothing, including baseball caps, with Motorola mobile phones pressed to ears, as New Orleans jazz plays in the background. As for cinema 80 percent of films shown in Arab countries are made in Hollywood. And if Ms. Hughes watched television she would have seen that more than 70 percent of what Arab TV, including those regarded as âobsessively anti-Americanâ, broadcast is US-made footage. There are more than two dozen English dailies in the Arab world, all using the American version of the language. Go through them and you will see that much of the material comes from American agencies and syndication services. Even Arabic-language newspapers serve as outlets for American journalism. More than half of all major articles in the two main pan-Arab daily newspapers come from the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek and Time magazines, among other American publications. As a result, some American columnists have become household names in most Arab countries. A visitor is also bound to be struck by the number of Arab decision-makers with American educational or business backgrounds and/or connections. Only God and the Immigration and Naturalization service in the US would know how many Arabs hold the so-called âgreen cardâ or even dual Arab-US citizenship. With the possible exception of Libya, which has a weird regime, and Syria, whose leaders fear they may be targeted for âregime changeâ, almost all Arab countries are ruled by regimes well disposed toward the US. Sixteen of the 21 member states of the Arab League host some American military presence. The FBI maintains offices in at least 12 Arab capitals. So, where did the impression that the Arabs are seething with anti-Americanism come from? Isnât it possible that the Arabs may be sharing the anti-American craze produced in the West, including the United States? Arenât the Arabs, as is the case with other products, importing anti-Americanism? Go through Arab newspapers and you will see that the bulk of the material that could be classified as anti-Bush and/or anti-American is translated from American sources. Stroll in the streets where books and video and audio tapes are on sale at the curbsides and you will see that 90 percent of the items vilifying America come from American, French, and British authors. No Arab anti-American has produced anything like the conspiracy theories that American intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Scott Ritter, Seymour Hersh, and Edward Said, to name a few, have put on the markets everywhere, including the Arab world. At any given time one can find a horde of American activists visiting the region to urge the natives to hate America. ⢠Two years ago a group of Americans appeared in Arab capitals to stop people in the bazaars to âapologize for The Crusadesâ, although the US didnât even exist when those wars were fought between Europe and the Middle East. ⢠Before the liberation of Iraq scores of Americans came to Baghdad to offer themselves as âhuman shieldsâ for Saddam Hussein. No Arab was foolish enough to do that. ⢠This month a group of 30 American professors turned up in Tehran and Damascus to describe the US as âa rogue state on the rampageâ. ⢠A lady named Bianca Jagger, presented as ambassador for UNICEF and âa leading thinkerâ, has been in the region telling astonished audiences that the US was the source of all evil in the world. (Incidentally, I thought the UNICEF was not supposed to be political.) ⢠One American professor recently published an op-ed in the New York Times relating his trip to Iran where he was âdisappointedâ to see that students not only did not hate George W. Bush but, horror of horrors, also craved for an American-style democracy instead of an Islamist utopia. ⢠The anti-Bush demonstrations the Arabs watch on TV take place in Washington DC, San Francisco, and Seattle, not in any Arab city. ⢠A friend, who happens to be a minister in an Arab state, was saddened this summer when, spending holidays with his family in the US as he had always done since student days, he had to quarrel with an old American schoolmate. The point of the dispute was that the American insisted that the US was an âevil empireâ while the Arab believed that it could be a force for reform in the Middle East. ⢠Last month, an Iraqi journalist gave up his American scholarship and returned home because faculty members in the US university he attended made him feel âguilty for having been liberated from Saddam Hussein.â ⢠A Kuwaiti friend withdrew his son from an American university to âprotect him from (being) brainwashed into hating the United States.â ⢠(And did you know that the US is the only country where the late Khomeini who could hardly write a paragraph without making some grammatical error, is treated as a philosopher with a whole university course devoted to his âphilosophyâ? Not even in Iran where Khomeinism is in power anyone would dare make such a ridiculous offer to students.) Many polls have been conducted to show that the Arabs are anti-American. A more interesting poll would aim at finding out how many Americans are so afflicted by self-loathing as to devote their energies to a systematic vilification of their nation. The best that Ms. Hughes could do is to help make available to the Arabs the other side of the American debate; to show that not all Americans share Chomskyâs belief that the US planned to kill six million Afghans solely to build a pipeline from Central Asia. Her aim should be to help Arabs understand America in all its contradictions, not necessarily to adore it. There are many issues on which the Arabs disagree with the United States. But most Arabs donât see that as a sign of anti-Arabism on the part of the US. Ms. Hughes should not regard it as a sign of anti-Americanism on the part of Arabs. |
| Posted by:Ulenter Slack9684 |
| #4 their hate has more to do with self-contempt and victimhood (first the Jooos, then us) - both Arab pathologies, and only the first one legitimate |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-10-01 16:37 |
| #3 good points Jules, but I found the article interesting. I find it easy to believe that the source of anti-Americanism in the Arab world did not come from within the Arab world itself. Their villian, or Satan, if you will, has always been the Jews. It wasn't until recently that they actually began to hate us. Their beef with us today is really based on the idea that the good ol' Zionist Cabal is pulling our puppet strings. Until the Muslim world gets off their addiction of blaming the Jews for everything and learns to move beyond the milk-blood of revenge of humiliation, they will never succeed in the modern world. I think it's an interesting point to consider. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-10-01 15:08 |
| #2 A myth, eh? That's reassuring. I thought all the celebration in the streets whenever something even remotely bad happened to the US actually meant something. Same with all the fatwahs and talk of the Great Satan. Glad that's been cleared up. Nothing to see here. Just move along |
| Posted by: SteveS 2005-10-01 12:39 |
| #1 Nonsense. It is one thing to enjoy the imports and investments of America. It is quite another thing to stand behind America as it works to eliminate extremist Islam-which is arguably the biggest threat to our survival. I notice that America's foreign policies are not put in the spotlight in this attempt to whitewash Arab public opinion about Americans. Run your surveys on Arab public opinion on the War on Terror, on Iraq, on Israel's sovereignty. Unless we're prepared to turncoat on these issues, Arabs will continue to claim terror is a provocation by Americans that Arabs must challenge (translation: kill Americans for). That said, what the comments above say about American intellectuals and movie stars is true. And those American journals so widely appreciated in Arabia are the same ones Rantburgers regularly cite as conduits for anti-American drivel. There is no doubt a huge slice of self-loathing in America. But to claim that anti-Americanism by Arabs is a myth is to imitate the ostrich Europe. |
| Posted by: jules 2 2005-10-01 12:31 |