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Barbados HeadlinesResults Page:WHY DO PEOPLE HATE AMERICA? - ARTICLES FOR THE BARBADOS "DAILY NATION"Date Added: Wednesday, March 26th, 2003Contributed by: RCN Administrator
As America marches headlong into war with Iraq, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on why America is so out of step with world public opinion. The pre-emptive strike on Iraq we are all anticipating as I write this article signals a sea of change in American foreign policy in the post cold war period, in that it is a war of choice rather than of necessity against an enemy that is not, at this time, in the opinion of the majority of world opinion, a clear and present danger to the United States and its allies.
I have recently finished reading a paperback entitled, Why Do People Hate America? written by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies and published in Britain by Icon Books. The proposition advanced in this book is that the United States is driven by the naïve patriotic myth that "America" is inherently good and virtuous and that patriotism is the sine qua non of American public life. This leads directly to simplistic dualist conclusions on matters of "good and evil", double standards in support of naked self-interest and political correctness raised to the level of a civic religion. The authors assert that the danger of this idea is compounded by a second myth, borne of its history, that violence is redemptive. It is suggested that these ideas have become the motivating force behind a more assertive United States foreign policy in the period following the terrorist attacks in September 2001. The book introduces the concept of "knowledgeable ignorance"; meaning ignorance on a grand scale masquerading as knowledge and they believe it applies to the United States. They suggest that Americans are encouraged in making simplistic jingoistic assertions such as those currently in vogue identifying all Muslims as sharing a hatred of all things American. The very notion of an "axis of evil", as used by President George W. Bush, is clearly indicative of this mindset. According to the author, the world is more complex than most Americans are repared to believe and so they quote T.S. Eliot: "Things ill done and done to others arm/Which once you took for exercise of virtue", and inform us that American history is littered with examples of unfortunate consequences arising from United States intervention. Iran is used as an example. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was implicated in the assassination of Prime Minister Mossadeq which led, through the Shah, to a undamentalist Muslim state which is now an implacable enemy of the United States The book contends that United States popular culture nurtures a tendency to simplistic stereotyping, cultural clich's and a siege mentality and they provide numerous examples. It argues that United States cultural hegemony and the ascendancy of the hamburger" culture is leading to the rapid eradication of indigenous cultures worldwide. TV and movies are cited as key avenues for this process. The authors quote Margaret Wertheim, a science writer, "Too few Americans seem to want to know about other cultural options; too few are prepared to engage with other people's choices, other ways of life". To illustrate hypocrisy in United States policy they cite the recently enacted "Patriot Act" which has abrogated the rights of thousands, while the United States establishment continues to hold up America as a paragon of virtue in respecting the legal rights of the individual. They also cite the case of the prisoners at Guantanamo who, according to the Bush administration, "don't deserve the same guarantees and safeguards that would be used for an American citizen". Perceived United States self-interest is a key theme of the book and many illustrations are provided, not least of which is that while the United States purports to be the great global benefactor, foreign aid in the lowest per capita of the 22 most developed countries, is tied to American contracts and 40 per cent of it is consumed by Israel. The United States vetos numerous United Nations resolutions that do not reflect American business interests. We are reminded that the three richest Americans have assets that exceed the combined GDP of the 48 least developed states.The authors argue that while we may dislike American double standards, it is only when it is fused to "hypa-imperialism" that the "Idea of America" is hated, even when we like individual Americans and admire many of their national traits. It is clear that we live in a period when the Monroe Doctrine is being extended and the United States now defines the whole world as its legitimate sphere of influence and no other power is considered as having a competing claim. The authors outline eight forms of economic manipulation employed by America to further its policy of self-interest. In the final chapter, the authors explore what they perceived as an American myth that violence is a redemptive act by which civilisation is secured and advanced. They contrast this with the experience of Europeans who, in the last century, fought two bloody world wars on their own soil and who, by way of example, find it incomprehensible how an 18th century pronouncement about gun control is a conundrum incapable of resolution in a nation beset by appalling levels of bloodletting at the point of a gun. They conclude that what people hate about America is the political entity based on authoritarian violence, double standards, self-obsessed self-interest, and an historical naivety that equates self with the world. We may not feel that the authors have always presented a balanced picture and we may feel some sympathy for the plight of America and, Americans, but this book gives us pause for thought and, as classical literature teaches us, hubris is invariably followed by nemesis. Rome, Hitler And Bush Facing Reality - Monday 24, March-2003 by David Comissiong The "will of power" and the "impulse to dominate" have been dominant trends in much of the European thought, behaviour and culture over the past 2 500 years. What we are witnessing with United States President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair and their assault on the nation and people of Iraq, is the spectacle of the international Anglo-Saxon ruling oligarchy's ove affair with force, power and domination. Make no mistake about it, the ultimate aim that the Bush and Blair regimes have embarked upon is nothing less than "universal or world domination". Iraq is merely a stepping stone along the way. And we must not fall into the fatal error of believing that these blood-thirsty policies are the personal creations of the two individual political leaders of the United States and Britain. On the contrary, it is important to grasp that Bush and Blair are the agents for powerful, deeply entrenched Anglo-American elites, who have etermined that the 21st century must be a new "age of empire", totally saturated with Anglo-American power. In fact, the fundamental policy-making of the Bush Administration is held captive by a cabal of powerful policy-makers who operate under the aegis of an entity called, "Project For The New American Century". Key leaders of the "Project" are United States Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and such strategically placed National Security and Pentagon advisers as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Abram Schulsky and Elliot Abrams. Any meaningful effort to analyse and understand this imperialist drive toward universal domination, and to develop effective strategies to counteract it, must examine the historical precedents upon which it is based. The two most important such precedents are the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler and the ancient Roman Empire. One philosopher/historian who examined the Roman and Hitlerian enterprises on detail, and who sought to pinpoint the common fundamental strategies that these two imperialisms used in order to construct their oppressive empires, was Simone Weil. In her 1939 essay entitled Reflections On The Origins Of Hitlerism, Weil identified common, fundamental characteristics of Roman and Hitlerian policy characteristics which are today unfolding before our very eyes with the Bush and Blair regimes. The first principle of both Roman and Nazi policy was to maintain the maximum degree of prestige in all circumstances and at any cost. There is indeed no other way by which a limited power can proceed to universal domination for no single nation can possess in reality, sufficient force to dominate many other peoples. This is why in the third Punic War, the Romans exhausted themselves in an interminable war against a relatively small city "Carthage" whose existence was no threat tothem. It was all a matter of maintaining the prestige and reputation of Roman power. Indeed, the parallels between Carthage and Iraq are startling. In 149 BC, Rome won a quick and complete victory over the North African city of Carthage, and the Carthaginians accepted all Roman demands and surrendered their arms. They were then ordered to abandon their city and permit it to be destroyed. Thereupon, the Carthaginians rescinded their surrender and defended themselves heroically for three years. After much effort by the Romans, the weak and harmless city was finally captured and razed to the ground. Rome, Nazi Germany and George Bush's America also exhibit a great concern to reserve the prestige of their power by investing it with the appearance of legality. As Weil noted "Pretexts, are not useless, even when they are transparent and cannot fool anyone, provided they are put forward by the strong." Hence, Bush's grossly contradictory and hypocritical contention that his assault in Iraq is legally justified by the United Nations Charter and Security Council Resolution 1441. And what will be the eventual outcome of an age of global United States domination? Well, once again, the record of Rome provides a clue: "The long and profound decadence that was caused for the subjugated peoples by a single, centralised domination cannot be denied. The mediterranean basin was reduced to spiritual sterility . The Roman peace was soon he peace of the desert, of a world from which had vanished together with political liberty and diversity, the creative inspiration that produces great art, great literature, science and philosophy." David Comissiong is president of the Clement Payne Movement and writes this column in that capacity. To God We Pray Best On Tuesday - Tuesday 25, March-2003 by Robert Best DEVELOPMENTS leading up to and even during the United States and its allies' war with Iraq will continue to raise a number of provocative issues and questions. One of these that will continue to be debated long after the bombing and whatever has ended, is why the prayers for peace went unanswered, and why a number of those who at first were prepared to make "a principled stand" against war, unless it was backed by the United Nations, are now prepared to abandon such principle and join the inevitable victors. President George W. Bush has already told his nation that nothing but victory will do, and those putting his case have seized more than an opportunity to let the world know that he is a Christian, "born again" at that, and is at peace with himself, even if though not with Saddam Hussein, over any decision he has made about pre-emptive strikes on Iraq. It could be confusing to other Christians who have been praying for peace that some Divine Intervention has not been evident that would have silenced the guns of war. It must be a testing time of the faith of many Christians whose knees are now scarred as they knelt to offer up prayers for peace. Is the God they serve a God of war? Is there truth in accepting that peace-makers are blessed as the children of God? These are questions that Christians, if they take their praying seriously and had hoped for peace, would and must ask. Bush, we have been told, is convinced that he is in a fight of good against evil, and has created a sense of anxiety on the part of those who now worry that his conviction will lead him on a crusade to root out evil wherever he thinks it exists. So they ask which country is next, notwithstanding that there is also evil in Washington, Baghdad, London, and wherever men exist. It is certain that there are enough countries around with enough evil to keep Bush going after it, if and when he gets a second term in the White House. All he has to do is tell his countrymen that such nations pose a threat to their homeland and they will be prepared to do a Seminole war dance. Christians are not supposed to "dance" about war but Christian soldiers are not above borrowing some aspects of a culture that their forebears dismissed once as "savage". The truth is that when it comes to killing, all cultures have their "rituals" which they calculate will ensure them victory against the enemy. Anthropologists tell us that war rituals were intended not only to boost the morale of those indulging in them, but were also an attempt to terrify their foes. Some Christian soldiers still prefer to pray, but it is doubtful if prayers by those about to wage war ever terrify the enemy these days. Christians kneeling at prayers in churches will not terrify Muslims in mosques prostrating in worship, especially when those on both sides are ready to die for their cause. The Americans know this. That is why they have been dropping millions of leaflets in Iraq telling the Iraqis not to die for Saddam Hussein in a lost cause. The Americans and allies' juggernaut will not be stopped however long the effort. What is significant is that those who still care to pray are no longer minded to go for peace, but now pray that not too many civilians will be killed and that their forces (if they are among the allies) will return home safely. The principle about wanting no war is quietly being abandoned. War was wrong before it started. Now that it has started it is all right. Bush and his advisers have never had any doubts about this. They were saying all along that once they were assured of victory there will be those who would join the victory wagon. It is coming to pass. Perhaps those who will find it hardest to understand are those young people who have been demonstrating, leaving their classrooms behind, to tell Bush and Blair that they do not back any war. The young people have been protesting even while the war has been raging. They do not understand why they are being told they must not criticise President Bush or Prime Minister Tony Blair because their country has more to gain by backing Bush than by telling them they are wrong in how they have chosen to go after Saddam. It is a school of thought that is prevailing even in our country. You must not see anything wrong with United States foreign policy and its bellicose nature once you are a friend of America. In fact, Bush made that clear from early, when before he set out on his war against Saddam by borrowing the words of Christ, he said, those who were not for him were against him. It might not have been an observation of divine inspiration, but it sent the message. We are now seeing how it is being played out. That is why although Barbados is a democracy, Bush is prepared to tell us how we must practise that democracy. To show we love the United States we should not go to any United Nations meeting that it regards as "inimical to its interests". That, we assume, is the type of "democracy" American style, that we will see emerge in Iraq, and which is to be the model for all the Middle East to embrace. |
