Globally Rational

Most Americans believe what they see on TV, and rightfully so. The following statements are true and the media loves to remind us that they’re true:

• Palestinian “freedom fighters” occasionally kill Israelis (they ignore the fact that Israelis kill Palestinian civilians more often than Palestinians kill Israeli civilians).
• Pakistanis often riot when the US’s favorite political party doesn’t come to power (they ignore the fact that Pakistanis just like to riot no matter what’s going on… just bc some people don’t like the incumbent doesn’t make him bad; Musharraf was seen in a very positive light until Benazir came back and used spin tactics to make him look bad).
• Egyptians occasionally burn US flags.
• Somebody in Tanzania destroyed the US embassy in 1998 (they ignore the fact that most people in Tanzania are more worried about poverty and AIDS than they are about US foreign policy).
• Some people in India are poor HIV-afflicted villagers, and the rest of them work in tech support (they ignore the fact that India has a growing middle class, but the rest of the population needs attention).
• China is the future and Beijing deserves the Olympics (until a couple of weeks ago, they ignored the atrocities in Tibet).
• Many women in the Middle East wear a burqa or abaya (they ignore the fact that most of them do it by choice).
• A Middle Eastern Muslim in the US once killed his daughter because of her actions; I don’t remember exactly what she did (it’s obvious that these sorts of things are rare and family violence is common in every country).
• Barack Obama’s pastor occasionally says that the US isn’t perfect (I think the problem here is obvious).

If you take these things out of context, it gives you a certain set of perceptions. It makes you believe that Obama’s pastor is a left-wing radical, that Palestinians are committing atrocities against Israelis, and that women are suppressed in the Middle East. But keep in mind that most of these issues are taken out of context. Here are some headlines that are seen daily somewhere in the US; imagine if these headlines were the only ones that were taken out of context and replayed on TV in, say, China:

• The city of Columbia, MO (where I live) recently authorized the US neo-Nazi party to march through the streets. The party received police protection during their march.
• Every day in the US, there are about 10-20 incidents of racially-motivated crimes. Imagine if an international news channel covered the details of each of these crimes every single day… what would people think of us?
• The US produces almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia, even though are reserves amount to less than 10% of theirs. Only 30% of our oil comes from Arab countries, but we complain that they have too big of an impact on our economy. Meanwhile, we tell the Saudis to produce more oil, even though Canada’s reserves are almost as big and they only produce 1/3 as much.
• We try to be at the forefront of world environmental concerns, but we consume far more oil per capita than “problematic” countries like China and India. In fact, the only nations that consume more oil per capita than the US/Canada are Saudi Arabia (understandable) and Singapore (which is tiny).
• And now, to avoid boring you, I’ll skip to the big one… “Operation Iraqi Freedom” has caused the death of almost 100,000 innocent civilians, including another 52 yesterday. Let me define “civilians” for you: this doesn’t cover soldiers and terrorists; it does, however, include 5-year old girls and their mothers. This, unlike most of the global incidents I mentioned earlier, is actually a typical daily phenomenon there.

How would you feel about the US if all you saw were these negative snippets? Let me give you a hint: it would be similar to how many Americans feel about Palestine and other Middle Eastern states.

The bottom line: misconceptions cause wars. We need to consider everything in context. Ever country has occasional problems, but that doesn’t mean that they’re all bad. We have plenty of our own problems, but other countries don’t hate our people because they consider the fact that we also do a lot of things right. In Kuwait (where I recently visited), for instance, you go to jail for 3 years if you even touch a woman in the wrong way. Pakistan has elected a female prime minister twice, while the US has yet to elect a female President. How can you say that those countries oppress women?

Take media stories for what they’re worth: a report of ONE specific incident.

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