The Middle East - It's All About Us

          In the aftermath of the egregious murder of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, television screens were filled with images of burning US Consulates and violent protests across the Arab world. Many Americans remain surprised at the amount and intensity of anti-Western sentiment in the Middle East.

          Many people ask ,“Why don't they like us?” Didn't we just fight three wars to free Arab people? Aren’t we still fighting a war to free Arab people? Is all this destruction really the result of one offensive video? Consequently, many people conclude that Arab popular opinion is irrevocably and violently supportive of extremism, that Islam is at its core a religion of hate and violence, and that it may be in our best national interests to withdraw our support and efforts from that part of the world.....as long as we keep getting our oil.

          Isn't this the same why don't they like us question we asked after 9/11? Apparently many of us still don't understand why some extremist elements hated us enough to craft an extensive and elaborate plot to fly airplanes into buildings as a symbolic gesture. We still don't understand the level of popular discontent which is fomented populist revolutions across the Arab world. We still don't understand why the US and the West remains hot-button targets for hatred and blame in that region. We still don't get it.

 

It’s All About Us

          There is a myth that American power is more influential in shaping world events that it really is. There is also a myth, particularly during an election season, that US Presidents are much more influential in influencing international affairs than they really are.

          If only we had a different policy, we made a different speech, we sent a different tweet, the world would be very different. This seems to be the lens many Americans used to view international affairs. This introspective inflation of our importance misses the actual scope of our direct influence. Seeing the world exclusively from our cultural point of view also keeps us from understanding the true motives of other people around the world. After all, aren't all people really just like us?

          This myopic view is called provincialism. Since the early 1800s, Americans have been globally viewed as provincial. We focus on ourselves and assess the rest of the world through our own cultural lens. We’re not really interested in how other people think and feel. This is not an aspersion, simply an observation. A people who look at other cultures exclusively through the lens of their own culture are guaranteed to have a distorted view of others.

          Not only do we have distorted perspectives of why others do what they do, we have an over-inflated sense of importance, that we can make others do something else than what they do. The heart of the political narrative for the first decade of this century was that we can impose US perspectives and interests upon the rest of the world. We could create a world in our own image. Our foray into nation building turned out to be not as successful as we had hoped.

          Still, the old beliefs linger....that it's all about us. We don't like this globalization stuff. It takes our jobs away. Let's stop this globalization stuff. A President allowed globalization to take our jobs away. Our President should have allowed this Arab Spring business. It's causing trouble. Our President should stop this Arab Spring business. Sigh!

          US influence should not be confused with US leadership. We have changed the world through the inspiration of our values, aspirations and ideals. However, history has demonstrated that our ability to directly influence international affairs is quite limited. Authentic friends and authentic peace are unlikely to develop at the barrel of a gun. We have a lot of guns. Our two big levers of power are military and economic projection. Both of these are inadequate and insufficient to change international hearts and minds.

          So we squabble on about posture and policy, as though a tweak here and there, a good saber-rattling or exhibit of strength/weakness will greatly impact the international scene. As with all human beings, authentic understanding and friendship will emerge when we actually empathize and listen to those dang foreigners. We might have to care enough to stop our “busy” lives to listen and respect. It is unlikely that human relationships develop positively unless this occurs. This is true concerning the person down your block as well is across your oceans.