Hating America: A History by Barry Rubin

Author:Barry Rubin [Rubin, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Barry Rubin
Published: 2013-02-16T23:00:00+00:00

THE GREAT SATAN

To some extent, they succeeded far more than just hijacking four planes and crashing three of them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. It was also the greatest graphic demonstration of anti-Americanism and advertisement for that doctrine that had ever happened.

There were two types of anti-American responses. The first and more extreme was the idea, mainly in the Middle East and among Muslims, that bin Ladin was right, the attacks were justified, and there had to be more armed struggle against the United States and its influence. The other approach-more popular in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere-was to say that there was much truth in bin Ladin's claims and large legitimate grievances against the United States, though the attack itself was excessive and American influence should be fought with nonviolent means. While the first school of thought wanted to fight America, the second was content merely to blame America.

f at least one good thing might come out of September ii, 2001, the most terrible terrorist attack in modern history, surely it could have been expected to be heightened world sympathy for the United States in the Middle East. In fact, however, the opposite happened. Usama bin Ladin and his al-Qa'ida group organized the operation in the first place because they wanted to identify America as an evil country that was the source of the world's problems.

For almost a half-century before September ii, anti-Americanism had been a major force in the Middle East. But before that date, it had usually been part of a larger worldview, an accessory (albeit an important one). Now, anti-Americanism was placed at the very center of these ideologies.

The Middle East version of anti-Americanism possessed its own distinctive roots, course of development, and list of complaints. At the same time, though, it had, like counterparts elsewhere, the same dual concept of America, two mutually reinforcing ideas in building an anti-American vision.

On one hand, the United States was portrayed as a bad society, especially dangerous since its model might displace the Arab/Muslim culture and way of life. On the other hand, the United States had an evil foreign policy, antagonistic to Arab/Muslim interests because it sought to injure, conquer, and dominate the Middle East. The root of antiAmericanism in the Middle East, then, is not so much the substance of American words or deeds but the deliberate reinterpretation of American words or deeds to make them seem hostile and evil.

What were some of the causes that made Middle Eastern antiAmericanism so intense? First, and ironically, was the fact that antiAmericanism developed later in the Middle East than in Europe or Latin America, largely because that region's significant contacts with the United States only took place in relatively recent times. It came onto the stage at the time of that phenomenon's highest, most intense, phase. Middle Eastern views of America were formed at the time in which that country was a global power and seen mainly in that light.

Second, and perhaps even more significant, was that cultural distance made it far easier to distort the nature and motives of the United States.

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