1 - 7 November 2001
Issue No.558
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 1 - 7 November 2001 Issue No.558 |
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If looks could kill
Gamil Mattar* comments on the US's image problems
In a meeting with a congressional committee, the US secretary of state spoke of the need to improve America's image abroad. So too did a former US ambassador to Cairo, who accused the Egyptian press of inciting anti- American feelings, but added that the US image abroad was indeed in trouble. It is amazing that officials of such seniority, whose work has brought some of them into close contact with this region, have only now realised the extent to which the US's image has deteriorated in this part of the world -- whether, as some claim, due to the deliberate efforts of the Arab media or due to foreign policies and behaviour that have struck many analysts as tailor-made for damaging the US image abroad.
Foreign policy decisions have betrayed an arrogance that has frequently verged on the offensive. Perhaps those adopted by Congress have been the most deliberately insulting, or at least the most calculated to prejudice the nations and peoples of the region. No US official can deny that for every Arab political commentator who has criticised US policy or even engaged in anti- American mudslinging, there is one who has warned Washington of the consequences of persistently alienating Arab opinion by refusing stubbornly to support Arab and Palestinian rights and by helping one Israeli government after another elude the punishment it merits at the hands of the international community for the crimes all of them have committed against the Palestinian people.
The commentators who have cautioned Washington of the extent to which its policies were antagonising pubic opinion here were not pretending that they knew how to defend the US's interests and reputation better than US policy-makers. Rather, they were acting out of a genuine concern for the consequences that popular Arab anger could have. Throughout the Arab world, as elsewhere, there is a great admiration for American technological prowess and the improvements to the quality of life it has brought. While many have levelled reproaches at the lifestyle and social mores of Americans, the majority look to the US as a model, not only for advances in economy and health care, but also for the respect of the rule of law and the constitution. Nevertheless, the US can hardly expect to ignore Arab rights and aspirations forever, and then ask the Arabs to rally behind the Americans in their time of need.
One wonders, too, whether those US officials who protest at what they would term tendentious articles in the Arab press have read the commentaries of William Safire or Thomas Friedman. The slander these writers have poured on Arab and Islamic culture does not necessarily represent US public opinion. Nor does the contention made by a prominent academic that Islam furnishes "a fertile breeding ground for terrorism" reflect official opinion in Washington. By the same token, Arab journalists who criticise US policy are not necessarily voicing the official opinions of their governments. However, it is also true that certain commentators in the US press are mouthpieces for official Israeli positions, a fact that is known in Washington and admitted by official US visitors to Cairo, Beirut and Riyadh.
Certainly, from capitals in the Arab world to Washington, London, Paris and Moscow, there are opinion pundits set upon distorting the image of the other, whether that other happens to be the US or Arabs and Muslims in the West and in the Middle East and Islamic world. Most commentators, however, are not as evil as some journalists would like to have us believe. An objective observer can easily perceive that most Arab leaders and commentators are sincere in their appeals to Washington to adopt more balanced policies towards the region; in making such appeals, moreover, they are not betraying some deep-seated anti-American hostility or a secret sympathy for terrorists, and it is pure bad faith to accuse them of doing so.
How does Washington expect Arab commentators writing for Arab audiences, or for that matter European commentators addressing European audiences, to react after learning that the US has used cluster bombs against civilians or even soldiers in Afghanistan? Certainly it cannot expect acclaim for using such weapons, for the bombing of a Red Cross warehouse containing medical and relief supplies for civilians and wounded soldiers, or for shelling residential neighbourhoods. What does Washington expect from Arab observers and political analysts who have repeatedly condemned terrorism and voiced their sympathy with the American people following the events of 11 September, but who are in the dark about the actual objectives of the current military campaign? Hopefully not a blank cheque of support simply on the grounds that Washington considers its cause just. For decades those commentators believed in the justice of the Palestinian and Arab cause, but the suffering of the Palestinians garnered little effective sympathy in official US circles or in the American press.
For many years I have sought to convince new generations of Arab readers that the US government, whether at war or in peace, would not breach legal and constitutional principles in its treatment of human beings inside the US and abroad. Sadly, we are seeing such breaches now, on a daily basis. They are hard to believe and even harder to defend, particularly in light of the US's vaunted advocacy of human rights and civil liberties. It is, therefore, all the more disturbing to hear statements from Washington to the effect that the war in Afghanistan will be a long one, that its objectives may change to suit the circumstances and that the goals make the anti-terrorist coalition, not the reverse. Such statements, together with the "exceptional" actions being taken every day in Afghanistan, tell us that the US must take all possible measures to ensure that the war does not drag on. The Americans must end the war at all costs, and find other means to retaliate. Then they should strive to rebuild an image more consistent with American ideals.
* The writer is director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
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