Extremists Hatred of U.S. has Varied Roots:
Resentment builds over success, broad influence
by Ellen Hale and Vivienne Walt
USA Today, September 19, 2001
On the West Bank last week, some Palestinians danced in the streets upon hearing that Islamic
terrorists had attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and that thousands of
Americans likely died.
In Pakistan this week, thousands have demonstrated. Theyve burned American flags, raised
clenched fists and held aloft banners telling the world what they think of the USA. One, written
in English, asked a stunning question: Americans, think! Why does the whole world hate
you?
As Americans brace for war and try to come to grips with terrorist attacks that not only may have
claimed more than 5,000 lives but also a way of life, many also are struggling to understand
what could have provoked such anti-American virulence. Why, many Americans want to know,
do they hate us?
Americans take all this very personally, and they look upon this as an attack that had no
foundation, says Richard Falk, professor of international law at Princeton University. America
is the most admired and most loved country in the world, but it is also the most hated.
The hatred isnt universal, of course, and most Muslims abhor violence and condemn the
attacks. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness that should not be
associated with acts of violence against the innocent, the Council on American-Islamic
Relations notes on its website (www.cair-net.org). The extremists who appear to be behind the
attacks take a strict view of their religion that doesnt allow tolerance of Western values or other
religions.
But beyond that, say scholars, and other experts, the reason hatred, resentment, or deep dislike
exists in one degree or another among many Muslims in the Arab world, lies in a complicated
web of U.S. policy, repressive foreign regimes, poverty, religious fundamentalism and, even,
American naivete. Theres resentment over U.S. economic, military, and political power.
Theres disgust from many in the male-dominated Muslim world over the strong role women
play in America and the suggestive way they dress. The add on top of all that the way U.S.
culture dominates the world, often steamrolling religious ab d cultural institutions that have
existed for thousands of years, and there is fertile ground for anti-American fervor to take root.
Part of the fury is that the United States is the sole remaining superpower, and we are the
magnet for hatred, says Jessica Stern, a terrorism researcher at Harvard Universitys Kennedy
School of Government, in Cambridge, Mass. People fell deprived. They feel that their lives
have not got the way they should. We are a convenient symbol of the other.
To be sure, Muslims in the Middle East arent the only ones expressing hatred, outrage or
concern over American values and policies. At recent summits of world leaders, there have been
violent protests aimed at U.S. and Western policies on the environment, trade and foreign aid.
Pope John Paul II has spoken frequently about his concern for the spread of U.S.-style capitalism
and culture around the world.
And its also true that the leaders of most Muslim countries have condemned last weeks attacks
and that most the 1 billion Muslims in the world today believe those responsible are zealots who
have a misguided view of their religions tenets that they use to justify terrorism.
The Koran, many Islamic scholars say, forbids needless violence. They point to this passage as
allowing only self-defense: Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not
transgress limits; for Allah loves not transgressors.
You fight back. You go as far as it takes to stop the aggression but you do not go beyond that,
writes Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University, on the
multidenominational Web site www.beliefnet.com.
Suspected mastermind Osama bin Laden and the terrorist network he allegedly bankrolls do not
represent the majority of Muslims, experts say. Few Muslims agree with bin Laden that
terrorism is an appropriate tool for battling Western culture and politics.
The Koran does not in any fashion promote violence. Actually, in the Koran, you find the
opposite. It is very clear. God made lives sacred, and no one has the right to take them, Imam
Hendi says. Muslims deplore this kind of violence, and we do not want this to happen again to
America, our nation.
Pakistan symbolizes the complicated crosscurrents in the Muslim world. President Pervez
Musharraf, a Western-educated general who wants foreign investment for his poor nation, and
condemned the terrorist attacks and vowed to support the United States. But knowing such
support could push his nation into war with the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan (which had given
bin Laden safe haven) and knowing that many in his Muslim country harbor strong dislike for
the USA, he has tried to steer a middle course.
Pakistani diplomats spent the past 2 days in Afghanistan trying to convince the Taliban to avoid
war by giving up bin Laden. But while there are Muslim leaders such as Musharraf or President
Hosni Mubarak of Egypt who have offered assistance to the USA, there are clear issues, many
related to U.S. foreign policies considered by Muslim countries to be insensitive, unfair and
heavy handed. These issues have fueled resentment of the United States and led to anger, rage
and resentment in many Islamic countries.
Asks Sheik Abdullah Shami, leader of the militant Muslim group, Islamic Jihad, in Gaza: Is
America too stupid to understand that these attacks are coming upon it because we, as Muslims,
resent the way it conducts business? I pity its naivete.
Among the issues that have stirred resentment among many in the Muslim world and hatred
among some:
*Israel and the Palestinians. Despite many attempts to ne a mediator, the United States
still is perceived by Muslims to have unfairly provided years of unstinting support for
Israel, causing widespread grievances through the Muslim world, even in countries far
from the Mideast. The collapse of peace talks last year and the election of conservative
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon earlier this year have fed the agitation. There is a
real disaffection from the United States because its policies in Israel, says Terence
Taylor, Washington director of the London-based think tank International Institute of
Strategic Studies. This wonts be put right in the next few weeks.
*U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. Placed there just before the Gulf War with Saudi
Arabias blessing to protect the nation and to server as a staging point for taking back
Kuwait, the troops have never left. The U.S. Air Force has about 5,000 personnel in the
country. Their presence enrages some Muslims, who regard the country as holy ground
because it si the birthplace of Islam, and has given bin Laden a crucial rallying cry. For
bin Laden, it has been the critical thing, Taylor says. (In 1996, his followers bombed
the American military barracks there in Dhahran, killing 19 servicemen.)
*U.S. economic sanctions against Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Iran. Such sanctions,
aimed at states the United States says have sponsored or harbored terrorists, have
centered almost entirely on Muslim countries. For Americans, there is a tendency to
paint all Muslims with the same broad brush, experts say, but to Muslims, these countries
are different-and in some cases even enemies. To the average Muslim in the street, it
appears the U.S. is targeting them, says Said Aburish, author of several books on the
Middle East. Aburish lives in Nice, France.
*U.S. support of repressive Middle East regimes and feudal monarchies. For fear of
alienating strategic allies, the United States often ignores abuses of civil rights in
countries such as Saudi Arabia, experts say.
*U.S. military tactics. The long-distance missile strikes on Iraq, in particular, have
caused resentment. President Bush calls . . . attacks on the United States cowardly, but from
the Mideast viewpoint surgical long distance bombing is cowardly, says Mary Kaldor of the
London School of Economics. To many Iraqis, the death of civilians and the destruction of the
countrys infrastructure, from bombing during the 1991 Gulf War and attacks since then - as
well as from economic sanctions by Western countries - constitute terrorism.
Its not just that Muslims are offended. They are humiliated by American policy, Falk says.
Nourishing these grievances are extremist, fundamentalist groups such as bin Ladens. They
play off the growing disparity between wealthy and poor nations. They preach messages of hell
and damnation for the encroaching popular culture of the freewheeling West. To bin Laden and
others like him, the teachings in Islams holy Koran permit a holy war, or jihad, aimed at ridding
the world of non-Islamic influences. Anti-Americanism becomes a tool for strengthening their
power, experts say.
Bin Laden and leaders of such groups point to the way Americans live as reason enough for
hating the USA. In Afghanistan, under a strict interpretation of the Koran, women must reveal
nothing more than their eyes in public. Drinking alcohol is forbidden. Girls arent educated. It
is a mans world. The USA, where sex is used to sell everything from shampoo to cigarettes, is
portrays as a land of evil.
America is seen as this very glittery place, and its easy to portray it as a kind of Sodom and
Gomorrah, Falk says. Its a very powerful mobilizing message.
And one that plays well to a generation of Muslims growing up with few civil rights or comforts
and yet aware of the free sexuality and material wealth of the West. Frustrated by inept or
repressive leadership in their own countries and facing a hopeless future, many but into anti-
American sentiment, and some but into the extremist groups themselves.
The level of wealth (elsewhere) is so much more visible on poor countries now, through
television, movies, says Yahia Said, a lecturer on globalization at the London School of
Economics. An Iraqi, he lost a friend in the bombing of the World Trade Center. There is this
profound sense of being left out. These are people who dont have a hope of ever getting out of
this poverty, and so they are willing to so something desperate.
Says Falk: What were now witnessing is the terrible maturing, the terrible extremity of this
resentment by these people who have been unable to realize their goals for decades, who feel
entrapped and who are hunting for a way to inflict pain on their perceived enemies.