Culture clash… or propaganda?
By 
Shan-ul-Hai •
March 28, 2008
There’s a fact that I’ve always taken for granted; recently, I learned that it’s not common knowledge. It was always so obvious to me that I started to wonder why most people don’t know this.
Did you know that the Middle East is generally impressed with Western culture? People often think that the anti-American sentiment we always hear about implies an imminent culture clash in rapidly developing emirates like Dubai. In fact, a lot of the people in the developed part of the Middle East love the concept of our clothes, movies, and even cars (eek!). I can’t think of any logical reason why people in an oil-rich Sultanate would choose to drive a Ford/Shelby Mustang GT instead of the far-superior Nissan Skyline GT-R (or BMW M3 or Audi RS4) but for some reason, “American” is synonymous with “classy” there. Why don’t most Americans know this?
Don’t get confused… they hate our foreign policy and our Americocentrism. But Kuwait’s beachfront also has a popular restaurant called Big Al’s Steakhouse, right between the Applebee’s and the Ruby Tuesday (keep in mind that beachfront property is not cheap… there are much better Arab restaurants down the street, but they’re not nearly as popular). If you have an American passport or an American degree, you are a first-class citizen; my Pakistani passport, on the other hand, isn’t even good enough to get me a full-access visa despite the fact that I have connections there. How can they hate American foreign policy but like our culture?
Well, the answer is simple: most of the world is, unlike us, capable of distinguishing a country’s political policies from their individual people. In my birth country of Pakistan, for instance, most of the people resent the past British rule and India’s firmness with regard to Kashmir. Meanwhile, they have no problem moving to England or making friends with Indians. The reason is because we understand that our friends in India and England are not the ones who make those policies… and that those policies don’t directly affect us anyway.
So why is there growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the US? I have no qualms about hating Al-Qaeda or even Ahmadinejad. But why does the average American maintain a personal feud with the average Palestinian who wants nothing more than the right to go back home? Most Muslims are peaceful and don’t share the radical right-wing views. Most Arabs understand the difference between Bush’s failed policies and the average American’s blissful ignorance… why can’t most Americans understand the difference between Osama bin Laden’s belligerence and the average Arab’s benevolent neutrality?
Enter propaganda. If you can be convinced that all Arabs hate all Americans, it’s much easier to convince you to endorse a campaign against them.
Popularity: 6% [?]
| 2.5 |
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
I think time is probably a factor here. If you go back 1 or 2 generations, I think the majority of Indians and Pakistanis really despise each other, whereas now it’s not case necessarily. Many of the people alive today were not around or very young during the Indo-Pak wars or freedom from Britain. Assuming there are no major terrorist attacks on US soil in the interval, I think in 50 years there will be less Anti-Islam sentiment in the U.S than today.
Well, my experience has been otherwise, but that might just be because my experience is restricted. Most of the first-generation Pakistani immigrants who I know (i.e. my grandparents) understand that most Indians are fairly neutral when it comes to these sorts of issues. Of course, that also depends on where you go… there is much more Hindu-Muslim tension in Gujarat, for example, than in Hyderabad.
In any case, my main point was about the Middle East today. They seem to be able to distinguish American policy from American culture; why can’t we do the same for them?
From my experience, if you were to poll 60-70 year olds and 20-30 year olds in both Pakistan and India, the younger generations would have significantly less enmity towards the other country.
I can see why the Middle East, and for that matter, most of the rest of the world, have adopted many aspects of American culture. Who doesn’t want TVs, fast cars, the internet, spas, Coke, ipods, etc? These are all part of American/western materialistic culture and people across the world would adopt these things even if Hitler was in charge of the US. However, when Americans look at the middle east, even prior to 9/11, whether valid or not, they probably think of barren desert, totalitarian leaders, lack of freedom of speech, lack of human rights and womens’ rights, and sparse intellectual or economic(aside from oil) discourse or productivity of late.
I’m sure that the 20-30 year olds have less hostility towards India, but in my experience, it doesn’t seem to be enough to call it “enmity”… but that’s a separate point.
TVs, fast cars, the Internet, spas, Coke, and MP3 players aren’t “western” or “American”, they’re “novel.” In fact, many of those things (TVs, fast cars, spas, personal electronics) are more Japanese than anything else; they aren’t restricted to the West in any way. Materialistic culture can be found anywhere from Manchuria to the Falklands. Ford Mustangs and US passports, on the other hand, are uniquely American.
When most Americans think of the Middle East, they don’t know enough to think about intellectual/economic productivity. They think of a lack of human/women’s rights, which is, as I am trying to establish, overblown by the media. If you go to an Arab country, you’ll see that it’s really a non-issue. The totalitarian leadership is only a problem because we assume that democracy is the best… in fact, any political scientist will tell you that a benevolent monarchy (like what is found in most Arab countries) is a much better political system on a daily basis (as long as it stays benevolent).
My main point with this post was that the American public has been convinced to believe that the Middle East is full of a bunch of women-hating oil barons who want nothing more than to bring down American society. You occasionally see a clip of somebody burning an American flag and you occasionally hear about a woman who was murdered by her parents for getting pregnant before marriage. But you don’t think about the fact that you can find anarchism and hate crimes in the US if you look hard enough… the point is that it’s not a part of daily life. In Kuwait (where I went last week), for instance, you go to prison for 3 years if you even touch a woman in a way that she doesn’t like.
By the way, this is an interesting conversation. I would love to take it to IM if you want to contact me… my AIM ID is shan80185 and my email address is shan564@yahoo.com .
Aren’t enmity and hostility synonyms?
Yes, the 20-30 year olds wouldn’t call it enmity, but my point was that plenty of the 60-70 year olds would. There were many atrocities committed by all sides and by the British. Those memories have somewhat faded in our generation, but are still alive for many in the earlier generations.
Just about everything I mentioned was invented /marketed in the U.S or by American companies (the car, the internet, the ipod, soda, etc.), or at least partially developed by an American. My point was that American ingenuity is behind a lot of the technological, intellectual, and cultural mainstays of life in developed nations. It’s kind of ridiculous to buy an ipod, use a microwave, learn English, and wear Nikes and then denigrate America. In the U.S., the Middle East is pretty much known for their oil and maybe rugs and falafel. The advancements in education, literacy, quality of life, etc. made in some Middle Eastern countries is pretty much due to pure luck–sitting on tons of oil.
People the world over may be materialistic, but where is materialism as pervasive as in America?
I agree, the Middle East is almost always portrayed only for its negative aspects or attitudes. But when was the last time a Middle East national did something positive that merits worldwide attention? Pretty rare occurrence if you ask me.
You could be in Bangkok, Bogota, Berlin, or Brisbane and read something about recent advancements in fields such as science or entertainment from the U.S., which will shed a positive light on the country. The US has more Nobel Prize winners than the next 4 nations combined. But I have read and seen very little about intellectual or economic discourse or advancements coming from the Middle East unless you include Israel. Certainly, a lot of Middle Easterners have moved to other nations (brain drain) and made major contributions to many fields; only the negative aspects of many of the Middle East nations are portrayed and there is little positive light to shed. If more residents/governments in the Middle East, for example, went and formed a unified theory involving gravity, joined in nuclear non-proliferation, fostered an environment where high art and literature thrives, etc., I think there would be less hostility towards the Middle East. Almost all of those huge skyscrapers being built in Dubai were designed by foreign firms, for instance. Aren’t there Middle Eastern architecture firms?
Portrayal of America/Americans abroad: Generally positive except for sometimes politics
Portrayal of Middle East abroad:
Strongly negative; few individuals/companies/leaders that have a major positive impact
Theoretically, benevolent monarchy sounds great. But many govt’s in the Middle east are not in this class. Is it in the best interests of the people for leadership to be determined by familial succession such as in Saudi Arabia?
It is one thing for hate crimes or human rights violations to be performed by individuals, but another for them to be enforced and condoned by the gov’t (Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.) regardless of religious conservatism.
Sorry for the rambling. Interesting topics indeed.
I think I can agree with the fact that, overall, American society has made more positive contributions to the world than Middle Eastern society.
You asked for an example of a positive contribution made by Middle Easterners… how about our modern number system? And Algebra? Granted, those are old ideas; I just wanted to mention that we can use algebra without having to give credit to its inventors… why can’t we do the same thing with cars?
But all that aside, my point isn’t to say that Middle Eastern society is better (or as good) as Western society. Every society has problems, but that doesn’t mean that you can invade Iraq and kill 100,000 civilians… or give funds to Israel, which kills countless Palestinian civilians every year. The best way to justify such murder is by making the victims seem like bad people.
I wasn’t trying to justify the actions or policy of the US in the Middle East, just pondering your original question about attitudes.
There is a fairly constant stream of productivity from the U.S. and other developed countries that spreads around the world. In contrast, the global contributions from the Middle East in recent history have been few and far between, therefore there is little positive sentiment to counter the negative sentiments felt by Americans toward the Middle East.
On an individual basis, it could be like, what have you done for me lately? Some Chinese person probably made my clothes, a Jap probably made my car, a Russian distilled my vodka, a Brit created the TV show I’m watching, an Indian fixed my computer…what has the Middle East done for America lately (other than maintain our economy due to our own stupid economic mistakes, but that is tangential)?
stieff bear