Posted on 10/01/2003 4:10:10 PM PDT by TaxPayer2000
TWO years after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks, American pundits and policymakers are still grappling with the question: Why do they hate us?
But what was an area of almost total darkness has since been illuminated by a torrent of in-depth studies, opinion polls and, of late, bad news from Iraq.
Perhaps Americans should beseech God, as the old school prayer advises, to grant them the serenity to accept the things they cannot change.
True, this would be too fatalistic an attitude for most United States foreign-policy analysts. But do their own diagnoses and panaceas stand up to scrutiny?
In an article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Williams College professor Marc Lynch says: 'Arab public opinion is a more complex phenomenon than conventional notions of a cynical elite and a passionate, nationalistic 'Arab street' suggest.' Arabs and Muslims are 'angered at being treated like children' and 'feel the sting of contempt in being objects of manipulation'.
In a similar vein, the Independent Task Force on Public Diplomacy, sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, commented that 'at the root of the negative attitudes is Americans' perceived lack of empathy towards the pain, hardship and tragic plight of peoples throughout the developing world. Their pervasive sense of despair and hopelessness - in the face of America's unprecedented affluence - also leads to envy and a sense of victimhood, often accompanied by anger and mistrust'.
These exercises in introspection, though timely and admirable, suffer from at least three flaws. For one, they take no notice of moral relativism. Consider the Bosnia and Kosovo conflicts on the one hand and the birth of independent East Timor on the other.
Westerners regard their intervention in these crises as a triumph of morality over realpolitik. Religion played no part in triggering their responses, or else they wouldn't have gone to the aid of Muslims on two occasions and Christians on just one.
In the Middle East, however, the general impression is different: All three were essentially conflicts between civilisations in which Muslims came out losers because of the Western powers' religious bias.
In the Balkans, the transatlantic allies did not act quickly enough to stop the ethnic cleansing because the victims were mainly Muslims who, unlike Kuwaitis, did not sit atop fabulous oil riches.
By contrast, Indonesia's decision to hold a United Nations-organised referendum in predominantly Roman Catholic East Timor is cited by West Asian columnists as an example of a powerless Muslim country forced to obey the West's diktat.
Since the declaration of US President George W. Bush's war on terrorism in 2001, this perception gap has grown. So has the 'hatred' he famously referred to in his Sept 2001 speech to Congress.
A second blind spot of American foreign policy scholars concerns the media. The detention of Tayseer Alouni, Al-Jazeera's star correspondent facing charges in Spain of being an active member of Al-Qaeda, may be an extreme case, but it illustrates the problems of credibility facing the new Arab media.
In exhorting US administration officials to engage the region's powerful Fourth Estate, they assume the latter meets Western standards on fairness and accuracy. Yet a cursory comparison of the political terminologies and value systems of the Arab and Western media shows the two schools of journalism have evolved very differently.
Some fundamentals of journalism are: Never editorialise. Report the facts dispassionately. Use a range of sources so several viewpoints are balanced against each other.
These rules would sound unfamiliar in many Middle East newsrooms. Even if journalists wished to abide by them, the fact that they are discouraged from getting the 'other side' in any Arab-Israeli conflict-related story, diminishes the scope for fair reporting. Efforts by Arab satellite TV channels to get alternative viewpoints, especially of the American kind, amount to no more than token gestures.
None of this means growing anti-Americanism in the Middle East and the Islamic world is unrelated to the Bush administration's fondness for military interventions and coercive diplomacy. Prof Lynch says in his Foreign Affairs essay that 'a more honest and less overbearing diplomacy by the Bush administration might have produced greater international support for a campaign against Saddam Hussein, even in the Arab world'. Others suggest a more even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a less unilateralist method of handling Iraq would have done wonders for America's image in the Arab and Muslim world.
But past experience provides a useful reality check. Under president Bill Clinton, when Washington was unquestionably more internationalist and the 'war on terror' was not even a gleam in Mr Bush's eye, America's standing with the Arab publics was anything but high. Mr Clinton's decision to fire off a few cruise missiles at Afghanistan and Sudan in response to the August 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa was seen as a diversionary tactic of a politically embattled president.
At the same time, his all-out bid to break the Oslo deadlock by bringing together Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in a series of peace conferences, fairly or unfairly, earned him the label of 'the most pro-Israeli US president in living memory'.
In fact, Mr Clinton's reputation took such a beating among even Arab and Muslim Americans that it galvanised the two communities into voting en masse against his vice-president, Democratic Party candidate Al Gore, in the 2000 election. Moral for Mr Bush and his successors? Better safe than sorry.
Against this backdrop of deep-seated mistrust, the rift between the Arab 'street' and American public opinion is likely to remain, at least in the medium term, unbridgeable.
The religious and cultural divide is so huge, the political narratives are so divergent and the fundamentals of journalism as practised in the US and Middle East so dissimilar, to think robust public diplomacy and cross-cultural dialogue will enable Americans to win the war of ideas, is naive if not fanciful.
Beseeching God to grant one the serenity to accept the things that one cannot change does not seem so fatalistic after all.
Well, two years after the Sept 11 atrocities a lot of foreign commentators haven't caught onto the fact that (1) the vast majority of Americans both in and out of government have ceased to care, and (2) it really doesn't matter what the Arab street is shrieking about at the moment. "They'll hate us anyway" turns out to be not only NOT an oversimplification, but an accurate assessment that, as the author points out, cuts across both American political parties.
Foreign relations consists of considerably more that foreign public relations. Attitudes here are hardening, and it's high time, IMHO. The turbaned loudmouths have decided to opt for Chicago rules, and Chicago rules it will be.
I do care if we lose the war against the Wahabi Jihadis and their terror masters in Riyadh, Tehran, and Damascus.
It'll be hard for them to implement their ideas if they're all dead.
L
Islamism however, which wages jihad to impose sharia, or Islamic law on the infidel by force, is antithetical to Western civilization and is going to have to be crushed, whether anyone likes it or not.
Does anyone think we had any more chance to win the war of ideas in the Muslim world than they do in ours? They are two entirely different worldviews that are unlikely to ever be reconciled.
Don't care..Don't care..Don't care.
I just want them dead.
Now that's what I like: a guy who knows his facts. Well put.
I'm deeply saddened!
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!!
Sounds like they're really angry with their leaders...Saddam, included.
Sooner or later, if we stay the course, they'll realize we're the only ones who are on their side.
Baathist Syria; neighbor and Islamic monarchy Saudi Arabia; neighbor and Islamist republic Iran; Arab lodestar Egypt; or the U.S.
The most popular model by far was the U.S.
The U.S. was preferred as a model by 37% of Iraqis selecting from those five -- more than Syria, Iran and Egypt put together. Saudi Arabia was in second place at 28%. Again, there were important demographic splits.
Younger adults are especially favorable toward the U.S., and Shiites are more admiring than Sunnis. Interestingly, Iraqi Shiites, coreligionists with Iranians, do not admire Iran's Islamist government; the U.S. is six times as popular with them as a model for governance.
It was the Iraqi people. In a survey they chose the U.S. Govt as the model they would most like to their Govt to be like.
And they were given the choice of several Arab Govts..all lost out to the U.S. Govt.
A little studying, and you'll learn that I'm not. Thanks.
It is obvious that in the Muslim universe black can be white, killer can be victim and victim can be agressor.
It doesn't take rocket science to see that a war of ideas under those circumstancs defies all known physical laws of God and man.
Materialism is not the same thing as Capitalism and Muslim societies have nothing against materialism.
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Maybe if they had the maturity to give up worshiping the words of a madman from 1,400 years ago they might merit more respect.
The President told us they hated us because they are jealous of our freedoms. Could he have been mistaken?
I never really believed that. However, you are either for him or you are against him so what choice does one have but to except that meager explanation.
Are people actually ready to try to determine the truth?
Well, I am alive, but the rest of what you guess at? No.
So I guess maybe not.
I guess that obliges you to offer an alternate explanation.
Or, we will succumb to sharia.
Or, Islam, meaning Muslim peoplehood, will have to be destroyed.
My religion counsels the hope that God wants for us all, for either alternative does not exactly seem as within it.
The times we live in yet seem more biblical than quranic, to me.
The muslims have a saying: if you can't chop off a man's hand, kiss it.
We are in the "trying to chop off the hand" mode at the moment. When these Muslim sickos start being sycophantically sweet again is when we should really pay attention.
maybe that would change if they began to show some adult responsibility.
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There is a common enemy. It's us.
Whoever claims love of Allah and alliance (wilaya) with Allah but does not follow the Prophet (sas) is not one of the allies of Allah. No, whoever contradicts the Prophet is one of the enemies of Allah, one of the allies (awliyaa') of the devil (shaitaan)...
Some of the kuffar (disbelievers) claim to be allies (awliyaa') of Allah. They are not so, rather, they are enemies of Allah. Also, some of the hypocrites, who put on an outward display of Islam, acknowledging publicly the testimony of faith: that there is no deity other than Allah, and that Muhammad is His Prophet and messenger, and that he was sent to all of the people, no, to both humans and jinns, but they believe in their hearts things which invalidate that. Examples of beliefs which invalidate the testimony of faith: 1) One who does not truly believe that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, but believes that he was a great and respected ruler who, like other great kings, led his people based on his own intellectual efforts and opinions...
The point here is: that there are among those who accept the message of Muhammad generally externally, some who hold beliefs internally which invalidate their apparent acceptance of Islam, and as such are hypocrites. Such claim for themselves and for others like them that they are the allies (awliyaa') of Allah in spite of their hidden, internal kuf or rejection of that which the Prophet brought to us - either out of rebelliousness or ignorance, just as many of the Jews and Christians believe that they are the allies of Allah. They may also believe that Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah, but they say: "He was sent to other than the Jews and the Christians, and it is not obligatory upon us to follow him because we have already been sent prophets before him. All of these are disbelievers (kuffar), even though they believe that their group are allies of Allah...
Moreover, whatever level a person reaches in terms of asceticism, devotion, and knowledge, but without believing in the entire message brought by Muhammad (sas) can never make him a believer, nor an ally of Allah, as, for example the monks and ascetics among the scholars and worshippers of the Jews and the Christians. Also, those seeming to have knowledge and devotion among the associationists of Arabia, Turkey, or India, or others among the "sages" of India or Turkey who possess some knowledge, discipline and devotion in their religion, but are not believers in all of the message of Muhammad (sas), are all kafir (disbelievers) and enemies of Allah. This, even though many may believe them to be allies (awliyaa') of Allah. Thus, the sages of the Persian Zoroastrians are all kafir, as well as the sages of Greece such as Aristotle and those like him...
Because of these transgressions, the shayateen which have attached themselves to them come to them, so they have become the allies of the devil, and are not of the allies of Allah...
Fighting against the disbelievers is one of the greatest of works. In fact, it is the best thing which a person can volunteer...
The point we are making here is an issue of complete consensus of the allies of Allah ta'ala: It is obligatory upon the allies of Allah to hold tightly to the Qur'an and the Sunnah, and no one of them is ma'soom i.e. protected against falling into error, such that it is permissible to him or to his followers to follow that which comes into his heart without subjecting it to the test of the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Whoever does not accept this is in no way shape or form among the allies of Allah whom Allah has ordered us to emulate. Such a person is either a kafir (disbeliever) or is engaged in extreme and excessive foolishness and ignorance...
I.e. anyone who is not a bigoted Muslim literalist is an ally of the devil and fighting against them is the greatest of works.
Islamic religion - Al-Ghazali
What art thou in thyself, and from whence hast thou come? Whither art thou going, and for what purpose hast thou come to tarry here awhile, and in what does thy real happiness and misery consist?
"Does it not occur to man that there was a time when he was nothing?" Further, he knows that he was made out of a drop of water in which there was neither intellect, nor hearing, sight, head, hands, feet, etc. From this it is obvious that, whatever degree of perfection he may have arrived at, he did not make himself, nor can he now make a single hair.
When a man dies he has to do with God alone, and if we have to live with a person, our happiness entirely depends on the degree of affection we feel towards him. Love is the seed of happiness, and love to God is fostered and developed by worship.
"If any one asks you whether you love God, keep silent; for if you say, 'I do not love Him,' you are an infidel; and if you say, 'I do,' your deeds contradict you."
if his love is really strong, he will love all men, for all are God's servants, nay, his love will embrace the whole creation, for he who loves any one loves the works he composes and his handwriting.
"O Lord! who are Thy lovers?" and the answer came, "Those who cleave to Me as a child to its mother, take refuge in the remembrance of Me as a bird seeks the shelter of its nest, and are as angry at the sight of sin as an angry lion who fears nothing."
'On the day of the resurrection orders will be given to take the martyr to the Fire, and he will say, "O Lord, I was martyred fighting in Thy path", and God most high will say to him, "You wanted it to be said that so and so is brave; that has been said, and that is your reward".
I.e. Real inward piety toward a God believed to be a just judge and to know hearts, who condemns all hatred of others and all hypocrisy.
Both exist; not the same things. It matters which wins hearts and minds in the Islamic world. You can argue that Ibn Tayymia's literalist bigoted Islam is "real Islam" and al-Ghazali's Sufi moralist Islam is something else, if you like, but denying both exist is just incorrect.
No, it doesn't. However since you asked...
Try the fact that they do not allow interest to be charged on borrowed money. This allows for inherited wealth, which the Middle East has in abundance. The problem is there is no NEW wealth being produced.
Do not mix up wealth being aquired (already existent wealth changing hands) with wealth being produced (new wealth being created)
This is a very stripped down explanation. Read the book "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell or “Eat the Rich” by P.J. O’Rourk for a more complete explanation on the creating of wealth.
No, it doesn't. However since you asked...
Well, actually it does, unless your only purpose for posting is to say "you're wrong", while contributing nothing further to the discussion.
Try the fact that they do not allow interest to be charged on borrowed money. This allows for inherited wealth, which the Middle East has in abundance. The problem is there is no NEW wealth being produced.
I did a quick search on the subject, and came up with this: http://www.submission.org/islam/usury.html
It states that there is nothing in the Quran which forbids interest from being charged. Also, when Afghanistan was looking for foreign aid in the years prior to the Soviet invasion, Iran offered a very large loan - with interest. But, even if there were laws against charging interest, this would not have a cataclysmic impact upon Muslim economies. As long as money is being borrowed, investment can take place.
As far as the books you recommend, I've read O'Rourke's book...he used to be much more humorous. I guess I'll have to rely on my decade of experience as an accountant for the rest of my knowledge. ;)
Too bad we've gotten off to a rather argumentative start - if you've got a workable theory as to why they hate us, please post it. Is it based on economics? Religion? What are your thoughts on the matter?
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
Well, actually it does, unless your only purpose for posting is to say "you're wrong", while contributing nothing further to the discussion.
No. I said capitalism and materialism were not the same thing and that Islam did not have a problem with materialism. Think about it.
But putting that aside, it comes down to simply that we will not do things their way.
There are several factors that play into this such as religion (House of War and House of Peace), Cultural (the idea of Fate) and Racial (the idea that they are the chosen people.)
Also the fact that while the West has risen the Middle East has slid down hill.
They also have a problem (not sure what it springs from) that focuses on the tribe or family as being the center of everything rather then the individual. This is not a thing that is unique to the Middle East but it does cause the same problem wherever it is.
You have strong social pressure not to "disgrace the family" which means that striking out with new ideas that might make waves is not considered "correct behavior".
This causes lovely little thing like honor killings (male and female) and long standing grudges that grow into family feuds and tribal warfare, it also squashes advancement, which leads to poverty.
Take your pick.
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