My note: I'm not nearly as good as you guys in posting and commenting on something, but I think this is an excellent editorial that should be posted here. Maybe Fred can dissect and comment on it because I surely couldn't do as good a job as him.
By Vladimir Shlapentokh and Joshua Woods
Much of the debate over anti-Americanism abroad boils down to a single question: Who's responsible for it — them or us? The Pew Global Attitudes Project's recent gargantuan survey, which stretched its tentacles across 44 countries and included some 38,000 people, found that America's rating has slipped, but ''a reserve of goodwill toward the country still remains.'' That seems a windfall for America's image abroad compared to the decisively negative views we discovered in our own yearlong study of foreign elite opinion. While the Pew project focused on the masses, our study measured the reaction of foreign elites — that is, people who shape the foreign and domestic policies in their countries — to the events of 9/11, as reflected in the international press. We analyzed more than 4,000 articles from the 10 largest newspapers in China, Colombia, Egypt, Germany, India and Russia, most of them published Sept. 12-15, 2001. While many of these articles were written by pundits who are paid to be provocative, we also separated and measured the opinions of political, business, cultural and religious leaders. Our major finding: Elites in much of the world hate the USA. Even the so-called outpouring of sympathy for America following 9/11 never really materialized among most foreign elites.
| No surprises to regular Rantburg readers. I hope they didn't overpay these guys for their study... |
In India, for instance, a columnist called America ''a bully,'' while a religious leader said the USA was ''a hypocrite who bombs the people it feeds.'' In Egypt, a politician proclaimed that ''America's racist foreign policies are the main cause of Sept. 11.'' Although Egypt receives more financial aid from the USA than any other country in our project, the Egyptian elites in our study labeled the USA ''a terrorist'' 16 times more often than they called it ''generous or charitable.'' This hostility has a tremendously negative effect on the struggle against international terrorism. It creates an adversarial climate in which terrorists can find support among ordinary people; foreign intelligence agencies are less willing to share information with their U.S. counterparts, and U.S. military operations are impeded. It also generates political capital for the opposition in countries where the leader cooperates with America.
| Anti-Americanism is the stock in trade of the elites of most countries in the world, to include many of our own "elites." Read the New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly regularly, with occasional doses of The Nation if you don't believe that. But the question is why? |
The disparity between mass and elite views sheds light on the cause of anti-Americanism.
| And here they're actually on to something... |
When the masses abroad think of the United States, they may consider its military's brute force or the improprieties of its leaders — but they also see Hollywood, high technology and a chance for a better life.
| When non-communist Americans think of the inhabitants of other countries, they don't think of The Masses™. They don't even think of The People™. They think of people, lower case, each with his/her/its own goals and personality. Some of us may occasionally have difficulty telling the differences between Chinese ("Hu Jintao?"..."I dunno. Who?") or Africans, but that's a different matter. Most of the educational systems of the world have bought into some form of socialist, communist, or fascist ideology — socialism being the bridge between the two extremes. And those are the terms socialism (2nd International variety) thinks in. Our tradition is different, so even while the internationalist influence is growing in our educational system we still don't see people as masses, or as Workers and Peasants™. No one in the U.S. thinks of himself in those terms (except for committed commies, of course. I saw one on TV once, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. He wore a cloth cap and worked in a book store and described himself as a Worker.) |
The USA received high scores in the Pew study for culture, particularly science and technology. More importantly, immigration to the USA is the dream of the masses — but not the elites. Foreign elites already have their place in society. They see only America's power, authority and confidence — for the simple reason that America's power exceeds their own.
| Are we doing Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs here? The elites have their material needs satisfied, The Masses™ haven't. The elites think in zero-sum terms — another product of the socialist influence on their educations — and can't see themselves remaining all that elite if everybody else has individual liberty. Being just as aware of their own intellectual and moral shortcomings as anyone else, they have the sneaking feeling that within a certain number of Masses™ there will statistically be found a percentage of people who have more on the ball than they do. U.S. history shows a progression of power from group to group, from pale Episcopalians through hairy-knuckled Methodists to Mediterranean Catholics and East European Jews, and now with swarthy South Asians and even swarthier Africans knocking on the door, with hats full of drive and ability. Bad news for the landed gentry back home. If they can leave the Olde Countrie and make it, sometimes spectacularly, what'll happen if their cousins start to compete with the Maharanis and Muftis and Patrons? |
Power is the prism through which elites overseas view America. The ''superpower status'' of the USA is the leading characteristic in foreign elites' descriptions of America. The country's power is indeed the main cause of anti-Americanism in the world.
| And it's a power based in the natural evolution of society — groups competing, intermarrying, getting rich and sometimes being ruthless. Takes longer for the bloodlines to thin that way... |
As for ''American culture,'' the term hardly exists in the lexicon of foreign elites. When we ranked the images used among elites abroad for the USA, ''rich culture or strong educational institutions'' ranked 37th; ''technologically advanced'' was 14th. Even ''brave, courageous or bold'' ranked 31st. These and many other positive U.S. images were eclipsed by ''tries to impose its will on other countries'' (second place), ''cares only for its narrow interest'' (fifth), ''warlike'' (sixth), ''hypocritical'' (eighth), ''arrogant'' (10th) and ''terrorist'' (13th). ''In many ways, we are viewed as the rich guy living on the hill,'' said former secretary of State Madeleine Albright, chairwoman of the Pew global survey.
| American culture is big enough to absorb Euroculture, to suck in African masks and Indian saris, and still to remain American. It's also merciless and unselfconscious enough to mock them — see Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, riffing on the Barber of Seville. Kind of scary, if you're afraid your neighbor is going to wear an orange turban instead of a green one, and you're willing to kill him for doing it. What might Bugs and Elmer do to the Prophet? (See a certain Popeye and Olive Oyl epic — "Salami, salami, baloney!") |
Albright is almost right. America is the rich guy on the hill, loved by many in other countries but despised by the elites who control those countries' institutions. Given that, anti-Americanism will likely persist as long as the U.S. storehouse of military and economic power holds.
Vladimir Shlapentokh is a professor at Michigan State University; Joshua Woods is a graduate student in the MSU sociology department. |