Posted on 04/10/2007 6:38:39 AM PDT by Valin
Anti-Americanism comes in different varieties. Speak to Europeans who dislike the United States, and they point to what they see as the evils of conservative America: a shoot-first, ask-questions-later cowboy in the White House, Bible-toting fundamentalists walking around the corridors of power. Speak to Muslims who are hostile to America, however, and the typical complaint is very different. Many Muslims point to what they view as the horrors of liberal America: homosexual marriage, family breakdown, and a popular culture that is trivial, materialistic, vulgar, and in many cases morally repulsive. So while many secular Europeans abhor "red America," many religious Muslims dislike and fear "blue America."
Both the Europeans and the Muslims, of course, are only seeing one side of America. They are reacting not so much to "America" as to projections of American policy and American culture across the globe. We in the U.S. know that there is a difference between American popular culture and the way that Americans actually live. But foreigners cannot be expected to know this. The America that they see in the movies and on television is often the only America they know.
We have heard a great deal from critics of globalization about how the United States is corrupting the world with its multinational corporations and its trade practices. But world opinion surveys by the Pew Research Center and other groups show that non-Western peoples are generally pleased with American products. In fact, the people of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East want more American companies, more American technology, and more free trade. Their objection is not to McDonalds or Microsoft but to America's cultural values as transmitted through movies, television and music.
Huge majorities of more than 80 percent of people in Indonesia, Uganda, Kenya, Senegal, Egypt, and Turkey say they want to protect their values from foreign assault. The Pew study concludes that there is a "widespread sense" that American values, often presented as the values of modernity itself, "represent a major threat to people's traditional way of life." These sentiments are felt very keenly in the Muslim world. As an Iranian from Neishapour told journalist Afshin Molavi, "People say we want freedom. You know what these foreign-inspired people want? They want the freedom to gamble and drink and bring vice to our Muslim land. This is the kind of freedom they want."
Muslim critics of American culture are quick to concede its fascination and attraction, especially to the young. Some time ago I saw an interview with a Muslim sheikh on television. The interviewer told the sheikh, "I find it curious and hypocritical that you are so anti-American, considering that two of your sons are living and studying in America." The sheikh replied, "But this is not hypocritical at all. I concede that American culture is appealing. If you put a young man into a hotel room and give him dozens of pornography tapes, he is likely to find those appealing as well. What America appeals to is everything that is low and disgusting in human nature."
There seems to be a growing belief in traditional cultures that America is materially prosperous but culturally decadent. It is technologically sophisticated but morally depraved. As former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto puts it, "Within the Muslim world, there is a reaction against the sexual overtones that come across in American mass culture. America is viewed through this prism as an immoral society." In his book The Crisis of Islam, Bernard Lewis rehearses what he calls the "standard litany of American offenses recited in the lands of Islam" and ends with this one: "Yet the most powerful accusation of all is the degeneracy and debauchery of the American way of life."
As these observations suggest, the main source of Muslim rage is not American foreign policy but American popular culture as it is projected around the world.
One reason the Muslims focus their anger on America is that it is American culture—not Swedish culture or French culture—that is finding its way into every nook and cranny of Islamic society.
There is a cultural blowback against America that is coming from all the traditional cultures of Africa, South America, the Middle East, and Asia. This resistance is summed up in a slogan often used by Singapore's former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew: "Modernization without Westernization." What this means is that traditional cultures want prosperity and technology, but they don't want the values of American culture. The Islamic radicals are the most extreme and politically-mobilized segment of this global resistance, and they are recruiting innumerable ordinary Muslims to their proclaimed jihad against the values represented by America.
Islamic radicals have been remarkably successful in convincing traditional Muslims that America represents a serious threat to the Islamic religion. Bin Laden in one of his videos said that Islam faces the greatest threat it has faced since Muhammad. How could he possibly think this? Not because of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. Not even because of Israel. The threat Bin Laden is referring to is an infiltration of American values and mores into the life of Muslims, transforming their society and destroying their religious beliefs.
Even the term "Great Satan," so commonly used to denounce America in the Muslim world, is better understood when we recall that in the traditional understanding, shared by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Satan is not a conqueror; he is a tempter. In one of its best-known verses, the Koran describes Satan as "the insidious one who whispers into the hearts of men."
So what should America do about this? I'm not suggesting that we change our way of life to appease the mullahs. But I do think we should show Muslims, and traditional people around the world, the other America that they often don't see on TV and in the movies. The Bush administration must do more to highlight the presence, and values, of conservative and religious America. Moreover, we must do what we can to export this America to the rest of the world. This would undercut Bin Laden's accusation that the United States is an anti-religious, immoral society. While we can't change the minds of the Islamic radicals, we can diminish their appeal to traditional Muslims.
Dinesh D'Souza's new book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 has just been published by Doubleday. D’Souza is the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
bump for later
Sousa’s thesis is pure unadulterated baboonery. It’s not the culture, it’s the sociology, aka civilization.
I really dislike Rap Videos and I would like to see them disappear. But, if they did disappear, it would not diminish Islam's hatred for our society.
The Muslims do complain about our pornographic and violent movies and TV shows. But even here in the heart of darkness, I don’t have them in my house, and I don’t go see them. So far away in the pure Dar al-Islam, what are they complaining about? They don’t have to watch.
“So what? You don’t have to watch.” is an inadequate response here, where the rest of us do have to live in the cultural position, alongside people whose moral senses have been dulled - but the Muslims really should be able to keep it out.
Mrs VS
“cultural position” should be “cultural pollution”
Mrs VS
LOL! Yes, it's essentially a call to try to trick the barbarians into liking us.
No, he is spot on. Sociology is the study of how people interact with one another. A societies behavior is governed by culture and law. Society, culture and "civilization" cannot be divorced.
These fears the muslims have for their religion are well founded. American popular culture is depraved. It is depraved because secular humanists and sinners want it that way. It will continue to be depraved until the populus stops aiding and abetting it by consuming it.
The Muslims have been at war with every culture since its dawn. They have to spread their venom by the sword. Don't let the moderate Muslim fool you into believing that it's the American culture that's causing the Muslim blow-back. That's a handy excuse that just won't fly...not with me.
Let me also go on record and say that American popular culture is pure trash. There is not one redeeming value in it.
I think it's not as simple as that, and IMO the citation of the Singaporean example is apt --- Singapore is an example of a modern "sociological system" (to adopt your terminology) which is highly authoritarian and often described as "Puritian" in the public sphere without universally extending state control over the personal life.
This is an important distinction, and it's one the the government is explicitly aware of --- for example if both members of a marriage are Muslim, under Singapore's legal code they are assumed to have adopted Shira law as their "personal legal system", and are thus exempt from the body of "family law" applied to other citizens.
OK, so we should export "Little House on the Prairie" rather than "Baywatch." Got it.
D'Souza completely misses the point that our culture is what enabled modern civilization to develop. The whole idea of 'modernization without westernization' only means that the nation that adopts it will be forever living off of the leftovers from those that actually create things.
I doubt very seriously that "Baywatch" contributed anything to the advancement of western civilization.
I probably should have put up two posts - one sarcastic and one serious.
The “Little House” vs. “Baywatch” statement was a sarcastic commentary about what many foreigners see as ‘American culture’ and a response to D’Souza’s ‘What should we do about it?’
The second paragraph was intended as a more serious response, that the personal freedom that we enjoy as an integral part of our culture allows the degeneration we have seen but is also required for modern civilization to exist.
The author is mistaken to assume that we will jump through our own as$ h&^%# to accommodate them when THEY continue as always with their culture which systematically oppresses women and non-Muslims. Also, they initiate violence toward non-Muslims even in host countries which have been open and free enough to welcome them. They are trying in may places to expand territorially at the expense of their neighbors and disregard the territorial sovereignty of others in order to spread THEIR culture (such as it is). The US is NOT in a war for territory and will pack up and go home once the terrorist threat based in Iraq (where even though we are present, we try always to respect the indigenous culture) and elsewhere is put down. The terrorist fundamentalists will NEVER leave unless 'removed'. This author is not getting it!
D'Sousa is right on.
Radical Muslims see us as uncivilized, decadent, and immoral. We're morally unclean in their view. Bin Laden has said as much in his "Letter to America".
He even points to president Clinton's behavior in office as proof!
Now combine those feelings with the idea that Americans set foot in the Muslim holy land (Saudi Arabia) and you have 9/11.
Non-Muslims can be put to death simply for traveling through Mecca.
Interestingly, if people ‘over there’ did not WATCH Baywatch, then the stations would not show it. There MUST, therefore, be a market for it. hmmmmm.
I think its important to note that the reason many of us abhor current “western” culture isn’t necessarily because of what is portrayed (although it is often disgusting and offensive), but what constant exposure to those subjects does to influence ones actions.
For example, seeing women objectified in film over time may lead to treating women as objects. As disgusting as seeing it on film is, the possible translation to reality is the bigger worry.
The thing is, I’m not sure what possible change in actions could result in many muslim countries. Could they treat their women much worse, for example?
His point seems to be that America’s corrupt pop culture is not representative of all of American society. He is right on that point. Most Americans are solid citizens, have good morals and the majority are people of faith. The Islamic world is not made up of 1.2 billion terrorists. Only a fraction are terrorists, but that is what seems to be driving the Muslim world today. Our pop culture does seems to be pushing our culture off a cliff. There is a huge difference between depravity and terrorist, so I only make this point to indicate that perception is not always an accurate representation of the whole.
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