A Love/Hate Relationship
I saw a documentary by Thomas Freidman yesterday about the roots of 9/11. He traveled Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia to ask people their impressions of the United States. Everywhere, the people were furious about the pretentiousness and arrogance of American foreign policy and their particular disdain toward our president. But interestingly enough, many of the people interviewed had either lived in the US for a substantial amount of time or would like to. Students everywhere said that their dream was to attend an American University. Businessmen wanted to work for an American corporation. Foreigners hate us, yet they want to be us. Is this a contradiction?
I’m starting to question whether all this anti-Americanism is really the result of a difference of philosophy or actually the result of jealousy. Ali Salem, an Arab intellectual who wrote an interesting piece a year after the Sept 11 attacks in Time (http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020909/asalem.html) claims that the people who want to see America fail are actually dwarves who search for towers in the world to destroy in order to make themselves feel important. In the same vein, I think much of the European anger toward the US over its war in Iraq (however much I agree with them philosophically), is because if we succeed, they will be effectively sidelined and irrelevant. They want to see us fail just so they can say “I told you so.”
As for the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and other countries that are strongly anti-American, I think that if people were satisfied with their own governments, the intensity of their anger toward the US would decrease. Anti-American protests, boycotting of American products, and foreign terrorism against us, would decline. Their dissatisfaction against their own governments inevitably leads their regime to pass the buck to us so that they don’t become the targets. People are always looking for someone else to blame and the easiest target is the guy who’s ahead of you on the social or political chain. Citizens blame their governments while their governments blame the world superpower. Their desire to come here to learn and work proves that they don’t hate us. They might hate our president (which many in the US do as well) but they don’t hate what we stand for. And if they do, it’s because they’re jealous of our towers.
I’m starting to question whether all this anti-Americanism is really the result of a difference of philosophy or actually the result of jealousy. Ali Salem, an Arab intellectual who wrote an interesting piece a year after the Sept 11 attacks in Time (http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020909/asalem.html) claims that the people who want to see America fail are actually dwarves who search for towers in the world to destroy in order to make themselves feel important. In the same vein, I think much of the European anger toward the US over its war in Iraq (however much I agree with them philosophically), is because if we succeed, they will be effectively sidelined and irrelevant. They want to see us fail just so they can say “I told you so.”
As for the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and other countries that are strongly anti-American, I think that if people were satisfied with their own governments, the intensity of their anger toward the US would decrease. Anti-American protests, boycotting of American products, and foreign terrorism against us, would decline. Their dissatisfaction against their own governments inevitably leads their regime to pass the buck to us so that they don’t become the targets. People are always looking for someone else to blame and the easiest target is the guy who’s ahead of you on the social or political chain. Citizens blame their governments while their governments blame the world superpower. Their desire to come here to learn and work proves that they don’t hate us. They might hate our president (which many in the US do as well) but they don’t hate what we stand for. And if they do, it’s because they’re jealous of our towers.
posted by -R at 11:05 AM
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