The Middle East may be the region where anti-American feelings were most evident following Tuesday’s terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, with some celebrations seen in the streets. Many Arabs feel the United States has too often sided with Israel at their expense.
Anti-American sentiment also was observed Wednesday in Russia, Mexico and China, often with similar themes: the U.S. is too arrogant and meddling, using its wealth and military might to run roughshod over other nations while ignoring the traditions and history of other cultures.
Though icons such as Marlboro cigarettes, McDonalds and Hollywood movies permeate cultures around the globe, the fascination with America is a love-hate relationship.
“It’s natural that the United States earns the ill will of other nations. They have committed a lot of outrages,” 78-year-old Jose Schroeder told Mexico City’s Reforma newspaper in a man on the street interview.
Some in Moscow also lacked sympathy. “The Americans got what they deserve,” said a woman aboard a packed electric trolley that filled up Wednesday with discussion of the attacks. Several other riders agreed.
“The U.S. is to blame for this because they were never concerned about the anger they raised in other countries,” said Ana Paula Brasil, 28, a set-design student in the drama school in Rio de Janeiro. “They are responsible for deaths across the world and caused unwarranted pain in other countries with its economic policies. The terrorists chose the World Trade Center for the attack because it is the symbol of globalization and U.S. imperialism.”
In China, meanwhile, in Internet chat rooms monitored by the government and stripped of comments authorities considered inappropriate, anti-American sentiment was allowed to stand. “When the Americans attacked Iraq, Yugoslavia and the Chinese Embassy, don’t you think they were also terrorists at that time?” asked one Internet user.
In China: `America deserves it’
“America deserves it,” said another. “They did so many terrible things in the past. It’s good treatment for American hegemony.”
Such disdain is hard for many Americans to fathom. A common American self-perception is that the U.S. has been a force for good in global affairs, coming to the rescue in two world wars and checkmating Soviet communism. Most recently, it led the fight to defend minority Muslims in Kosovo.
To Sergio Sarmiento, a political commentator in Mexico, the United States’ unique stature in the modern world largely explained the attacks. “If you want to hit something big, it’s the only big thing you have left,” he said.
But it’s more of a mixed relationship, said Adeed Dawisha, a professor of political science at Miami University of Ohio who was born in Iraq and has lived in the United States for 15 years.
“The very people who are anti-American and probably even concerned about the intrusion of American culture, by the same token they are seduced by America. … Many copy America in their dress. American food institutions are all over the place,” Dawisha said.
The presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia has troubled some moderate Muslims while inflaming extremist Muslims. Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi suspected as the mastermind behind Tuesday’s terrorism, has in the past cited the large deployment of U.S. troops in his homeland since the Persian Gulf war as a motive for his anti-U.S. actions.
A pernicious influence
The U.S. also is seen as a pernicious influence on the morals and culture of Arab Muslims. “It’s not just young people but elders who are very upset,” said David Mack, vice president at the Middle East Institute in Washington. “They see that this American way of life is terribly attractive to their children.”
Add to that the perception among Arab communities in the Mideast that Washington supports repressive Arab regimes.
More Top Picks Best Wireless Charger
In addition, Arab critics say the Americans supply Israel with weapons and disregard the plight of Arabs such as the Iraqi people, who still suffer in part due to U.S.-led sanctions, and the Palestinians.
Sitting in an alley in the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem in the West Bank, Mahmoud Abdullah, an unemployed clothes peddler, said he was “sad for the people, both the Palestinian people and the American people.
“But they elected Bush to support Israel. The Americans see but they claim that they don’t see. They come here to Bethlehem for Christmas but they don’t want to see what is going on. All the Israelis’ assassinations were with [U.S.-made] weapons like F-16s. Yesterday Jenin [a West Bank city] was bombarded by Apaches [U.S.-made helicopters]. The bullets, the tear gas–it’s all American.”
This, said professor Paul Rogers, a terrorism expert at Bradford University in England, “has built up an image among radical elements in the Arab world that the U.S. is almost an evil empire. There is an undercurrent of deep suspicion of the U.S. It is analogous to the position of the British during the days of empire. The British saw themselves as a civilizing force, but unfortunately the people who were colonized did not agree.”