Interesting Q & A with a Lebanese editor:
Rami G. Khouri is executive editor of The Daily Star, a regional English-language newspaper published in Beirut, Lebanon, and other Arab cities.
Featured in the Discovery Channel program, Thomas L. Friedman Reporting: Searching for the Roots of 9/11, Khouri is a member of the Brookings Institution Task Force on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World.
A Palestinian-Jordanian with U.S. citizenship, Khouri answered questions.
Q: Obviously, there is much anti-American sentiment, for various reasons, in many countries around the world. Changing these perceptions seems to be a losing battle at times. I am not so ethnocentric that I believe the United States is perfect or our motives always pure, but what do you feel would be the best way to present our country and its people in a more realistic, positive light to the world?
A: The best thing for Americans to do is first of all to be themselves, and interact with the world on the basis of the fine values that we all know define ordinary Americans. Send us more tourists, students, and business people, and fewer soldiers. And most crucial of all, though, is for the United States to practice in this region what it practices at home, in terms of standards and values of governance and human rights. The biggest complaint against the United States is that it practices a double standard, promoting liberty, equality and justice at home but supporting autocracy, oligarchy, occupation and oppression in the Arab world. The U.S. government should implement a foreign policy based on a single, common standard of human rights for all people. If it did that, the U.S. would have more friends than it could even count.
Q: How much of the Muslim world has access to American media, and how much would you say that our own media has influenced the Muslim world's view of the American people?
A: Media access varies with income and living standards; but it's not the main issue and I believe that views of the United States in this region have been formed mainly by the nature and impact of U.S. policies, rather than by media.
Q: If a Palestinian state is created, one that is committed to peaceful coexistence with Israel, and if the United States is instrumental in the creation of the Palestinian state, will relations between Arab/Muslim states and the United States improve, even to the point of being friendly and productive?
A: Yes, the creation of a viable Palestinian state and a fair resolution of the Palestine refugee problem in the context of Israeli and Palestinian states living in peace and security would go a long way to improving U.S.-Arab relations. Palestine is a huge issue for Arabs and others in this region, but it is not the only determinant of attitudes to the United States.
Q: Unlike other nationalities in which individuals identify themselves as Canadians, Americans, British, Aussies, etc., the Arab world seems to identify individual citizens not as Egyptians, Libyans, Tunisians, Saudis, Yemenis, etc. but primarily as Arabs, as though that description crosses all national boundaries. Why is this?
A: The situation is not as you describe it totally. Many of us do identify as Arabs, but we also have identities of our individual countries (Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, etc.), and non-state identities are also very strong, including religion, tribe, and ethnicity. We have a veritable marketplace of identities that are very real and relevant, mainly because the modern states have not been able sufficiently to provide for the security and dignity and material needs of the citizens, so people hold on to religion, tribe, ethnicity and Arabism as other, non-state identities that are meaningful. This also happened in the United States and Europe in the pre-statehood days and is a normal trend around the world.
Q: One of the Arabs interviewed suggested that a good part of the animosity stemmed from our support of Arab dictators. Now that we are in the process of removing one, the anger seems to have grown. Why?
A: Because the anger against Western armies invading our lands is stronger and much older historically than the anger against our own homegrown dictators.
Q: Doesn't the rigid suppression of women, practiced in much of the Arab world, create an imbalance in the fabric of a society?
Paula Z.
A: Women's role and rights in this region are very different from the West, but 'rigid suppression' is too strong and too general a term to describe it. A few societies have rigid controls on women while in most Arab lands women are educated equally with men and enjoy virtually identical rights. But clearly this is an area where Arab and Western values differ in important ways. I'd suggest that some of our societies certainly must improve the conditions and rights of women. Most of these issues are social values and traditions, rather than formal laws that restrict women (I say 'most', because in some countries women are legally restricted.) Interestingly, perhaps perplexingly, this is not seen to be a pressing issue by most Arab societies. There are no widespread popular movements to address these issues, and the existing movements for women's rights are relatively small in number and limited in impact. This is one of the most intriguing paradoxes of the modern Arab world.
Q: If Muslims believe that the Western culture and foreign policy is so objectionable, why do so many parents send their children to Western schools to be educated?
A: "Muslims" are not a monolithic group with a single view any more than Christians are. People in this area (and most of the world, it seems these days) reject American foreign policy with vigor, as I do personally in this region. But we also admire many aspects of American culture, and send our children to be educated there, because the U.S. education system is terrific. Nobody is making blanket judgments of the United States or any other cultures. We reject and criticize U.S. foreign policy, but admire and seek American technology, education and other aspects of your society and values. You also do the same thing, by the way. For example, Americans now often criticize French policy, but they often like French wine and food. Also, remember that anti-American sentiments in our region are a relatively new phenomenon, dating mainly from around 1970 when American policy tilted greviously towards Israel and against the Palestinians, and Arab autocratic regimes were bolstered by oil income and in turn were supported by American policies. I remember in the 1960s seeing pictures of John Kennedy on the walls of shops in this region, and I hope one day soon we may again see American presidents as symbols of hope and justice.
Q: Dear Mr. Khouri: This is a simplistic question to a very complex situation: What would be considered a first, genuine step toward showing understanding and respect of the Muslim and Arab peoples?
A: Don't look at Arabs or Muslims as a monolithic group, and appreciate that the variety of views in this region is as diverse and real as the variety of views among the citizens of, say, New York State.
Q: I am a Social Studies teacher in the Midwest. In my Ancient World class I teach a section on Islam. My students always ask, "Why do they hate us?" and "What is life like for an average teenager in the Middle East?" Do the teenagers hate us? Can you answer these questions for my students? Sincerely,
Becky Herbst, Social Studies, Washington High School, Washington, Missouri.
A: The average Arab or Muslim in this region does not hate the United States or France or India or anyone else, but they object strongly to policies that have resulted in occupation and invasions of their countries or causing their people to live under authoritarian or dictatorial regimes. Fifty years ago people in this area were attacking the English and French and Italians, because those countries were using colonial policies against them. Today people are widely critical of the United States and Israel, because these are the countries that are widely seen to practice unacceptable policies against Arabs and Muslims. The problem is the foreign policy of the United States, not its values. Most teenagers here enjoy doing the same things their counterparts in the United States do, but with some important differences: Women do not have as much freedom to go out alone. Men and women don't mix in some conservative societies, while in others they mix routinely. There are many differences among Arab societies. They're not all the same. Beirut and Jeddah are very different places.
Q: If Hamas (and PFLP and IJ) considers its attacks to be acts of legitimate resistence, then how can Israel go about withdrawing forces from the West Bank and Gaza Strip without emboldening Hamas by creating the perception that Hamas's brand of resistence is effective? In other words, how does Israel "do the right thing" without seeming weak?
A: The right thing for Israel to do is end its occupation. That's not being weak, that's honoring international law and human decency (and smart policy, also). Israel should withdraw its occupation troops in the context of a negotiated peace that secures the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security. As long as occupation persists, resistance persists.
Q: Why aren't Muslims more vocal in their condemnation of Osama bin Laden and violence against innocent non-Muslim people?
A: You should not speak of "Muslims" any more than we should ask why "Christians" don't condemn abortion or "Jews" oppose Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian lands. Religions should not be confused with political ideologies. And not all Muslims, Christians or Jews share the same views on any single issue. Most Muslims I know and read or hear clearly do condemn Osama bin Laden and terror such as he committed, but you don't hear their condemnations very much because their ordinary lives are hurt much more by acts of violence committed against Muslims and Christians and Arabs by Israel and the United States and Arab regimes on a routine basis. The totality of the life of an average Arab person is defined by ravages committed by Arab society, Israel and the United States, directly and indirectly. Within this wider view of real life conditions for most Arabs, people will not be vocal in condemning just one facet of the criminality they see all around them, terrible as that criminality is in the form of terror.
Q: To what extent do you believe the United States held back from investigating potential terrorists pre-9/11 in order to "appease" Saudi interests?
A: I'm not really qualified to answer that but my hunch is that appeasment of Saudis was not a main issue in the matter you raise. I think the U.S. government did not expect a terror attack on U.S. soil, and this is partly because the U.S. government and society as a whole totally underappreciated the extent of anger and humiliation that define so much of the Middle East and its people.
Q: I am 28 years old and live in Des Moines, Iowa. As I watch and read the news, I wonder what the lives of those in the Middle East are really like and I also wonder what they believe about Americans' lives. Do you know of any programs that would allow me to exchange emails and/or letters with someone from the Middle East? I feel this kind of exchange could help break down stereotypes and increase understanding between two cultures.
Sincerely, Katie G.
A: Thank you for your question. I visited Des Moines last year and was delighted by the city and its people. I think that perhaps AMIDEAST in Washington, D.C. may be able to help you locate exchange mechanisms with people in the Arab World; they are an nongovernmental group in the United States with offices in the Arab World, concentrating one educational exchanges. You will find that in terms of personal aspirations and values, Arabs and Americans are very similar; they differ in terms of how they organize society (secular vs. religious; individual vs. collective), and their modern historical experiences are very different, which explains many of the political tensions between them now.
Q: As a first generation American of Lebanese descent, whose parents fled the oppression of its occupiers, I find it difficult to reconcile the differences between East and West in tolerance for religious freedom and ethnic diversity. America welcomed and nurtured my parents and many others into this pluralistic society. My question is: Why this seeming intolerance in the East, and does it play any role in the roots of 9/11?
Sincerely, Dr. Peter G.
A: There is some religious intolerance among some people in the Arab world just as there are racial and ethnic intolerances in the United States and other Western countries, but I would not blanket label an entire culture as intolerant. My own experience and sense is that pluralism and multicultural tolerance are defining features of the Arab World, as seen in Arab cities with Christian, Jewish, Armenian, Kurdish, Muslim and other quarters. The intolerance that does exist today is more a function of modern historical grievances and stresses, rather than something engrained in Arab values or culture.
Q: What would be the resulting effect on the Arab street if/when a free and democratic state is established in Palestine (or Iraq for that matter)? Will the citizens of neighboring Arab states, who comparatively have "a better time of it" today, stare across the border and suddenly realize that life could be better and thus rise up against their governments, bringing about the "destabilization" that these governments have constantly referred to in recent months? Or rather, would the establishment of democracy in the region usher in a smoother transition to freer societies?
Thank you. Jamie
A: Many Arabs for many years have been asking and working for more democratic rule, with little success. Any democratic country would certainly spark interest in neighboring countries, but an Arab "democracy" installed by the U.S. armed forces will lack much credibility and may not inspire others in this area, and may even delegitimize Arab democratic movements. The only lasting democracy is a homegrown one.
Q: Is there some way that we Americans who think that President Bush was wrong to invade Iraq without U.N. agreement can tell the world our views?
Diane J.,Connecticut
A: Many web sites offer material that corresponds with your views. The best way to make your views known is to write to newspapers in the Arab world and in your region, and to speak out honestly in all available fora, including churches, mosques, temples and synagogues, universities and schools, community groups, and other such institutions. The strength of the United States has always rested on the capacity of its decent, fair-minded citizenry to speak its mind and to oppose injustice and aggression.
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