Business Week. 1 October 2001. The roots of resentment. Excerpts. The entire world seemed to pause in solidarity with American suffering in the hours and days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. With national flags flying at half-mast from Paris to Tokyo and the revulsion and horror expressed by millions around the globe, many Americans felt less alone in a suddenly uncertain world. It even seemed as if the U.S. had no enemies at all--apart from a shadowy band of Islamic radicals in distant lands. Tap the pulse of the streets in many world capitals, though, and it becomes clear the U.S. fan club is not as big as many American citizens and policymakers want to believe. In France, politicians from across the political spectrum rushed to support the U.S. in a way not seen since World War II. But there also has been a rash of angry calls to the popular Radio France Internationale. "What is so special about the American dead?" asked one caller. "Millions have died in Africa, but they never left messages on answering machines since they were too poor to have cell phones." Half a world away, Chinese Internet sites were jammed with anti-U.S. vitriol before censors clamped down. When he heard of the bombing, Beijing construction site supervisor Li Jiankun, 30, says he felt sympathy for the American people but none for the U.S. government. "They are constantly intervening in other countries' affairs," Li says. "This is an opinion shared by all my co-workers." And in the streets of Cairo, tour guide Abdel Hady Gaballah voices the sentiments of many: "Everyone knows that America's policies lack justice," he says. Varied voices, indeed. But they mirror an unpleasant truth: Beneath the surface of public promises of solidarity with the U.S. in this time of crisis lurks a deep and growing resentment of America and its policies. To be sure, anti-Americanism in most places is hardly the virulent variety exhibited by flag-burning mobs. And more often than not, it's mixed with admiration and even a desire to live in America. Canvas the global scene. Begin with the turbulent Middle East, where support for eventual U.S. actions will be vital. It is the one region where anti-Americanism is now metastasizing out of control. At its most extreme, groups such as bin Laden's Al Qaeda network or the underground al Gamma al-Islamiyya, responsible for the murder of 58 tourists in Egypt in 1997, view America as the infidel power that is spreading its permissive, secular culture, the Great Satan that pollutes the world with its pornographic cinema, its alcohol, and its equal treatment of women. America is also seen as the prop for corrupt, secular Arab regimes, and of course, Israel. To these radicals, it is imperative that Americans be violently driven out of Dar al-Islam, the lands of Islam. While only a tiny minority support terrorism, this stance strikes a chord among vast segments in the Middle East. The decade-old intifada among Palestinians has intensified smoldering resentment in moderate states such as Egypt over massive U.S. support for Israel. And while these nations backed the Persian Gulf War coalition against Saddam Hussein, they're angry at years of U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq. [N.B.] One sign: a Sept. 12 anti-U.S. demonstration in Kuwait itself. "The Arabs sense they have been not only scorned by the U.S., but considered somewhat less than human," says political scientist Dan Tschirgi of American University in Cairo. The failure of key Muslim nations to benefit from globalization has created a more fertile ground in which extreme ideas can grow. While the U.S. boomed in the 1990s, Arab economies grew by a mere 0.7% annually. Unchecked population growth has resulted in massive youth unemployment. This has been coupled with a breakdown in social services. Indeed, across huge swaths of Western and Northern Africa and all the way to Pakistan, Islamic institutions--schools, welfare groups, even hospitals--have been stepping in to fill the gaps. "You can see people switching loyalties to an Islamic belief system as secular, liberal models fail for them," says Mark Malloch Brown, head of the United Nations Development Program. The same trends are at work in the old Soviet republics of Central Asia. Since 1990, the economies of Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan have shrunk dramatically. "The social consequence is that you see an unhappy population that is moving toward Islamic fundamentalism," says Kathleen Collins, a University of Notre Dame researcher who has spent three years in Central Asia. Among the left in Western Europe, the march of U.S. free-market policies and the abrogation of the Kyoto global warming treaty have sparked a globalization backlash. Members of France's center-left coalition government also are starting to chime up. "The reality is that American policy could only result in the kind of terrorism we've just seen," says Green Party member Noël Mamère. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
