There are a few...Americans Should Inform Themselves About World...

There are a few...

Americans Should Inform Themselves About World Realities
Americans in Middle East have different view of world problems than those in USA.

Source: Omaha World-Herald
[Feb 25, 2003]



BY SCOTT SUTTON

The writer is a Nebraskan who teaches at Zayed University in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.

A lot of you who watched the news recently were probably gripped by anger at those old-fashioned Europeans. Crowds by the hundreds of thousands demonstrated against the war. Anti-American rhetoric is growing by unprecedented leaps and bounds, and you feel betrayed.

Why is the world against America, when all we want is to be secure? You'll say that it's not crucial that we're appreciated and loved, but please don't vilify us.

Like you, I'm an American from the Heartland. Omaha, in fact. Unlike you, I'm watching the world go a little berserk from the scene of the crime: the Middle East, the area probably least understood by Americans.

I have daily interaction with Arab students - those women garbed in black and sometimes veiled. I teach English with 50 other instructors from North America and Britain, and my close friends are Iranian, Syrian and other assorted evil characters. As for my politics, I'm slightly left of center, but not as liberal as a guy from Plattsmouth might think.

A lot of your attitudes - which I receive via CNN and BBC polls as well as personal e-mails and phone calls - perplex, and to a degree, frighten me. Not just me, but virtually every last American and Brit whom I know. Why is there such a divide between the views of Americans living here, and those of you?

Maybe I can get you to see what we over here see. Let's start at the beginning of all this: 9/11. The silver lining was an outpouring of grief from the global community. In Dubai, complete strangers, knowing I am American, offered genuine condolences. My students even apologized since the animals that perpetrated the deed were Muslim.

We had the world's sympathy and promise of help, the latter being crucial if we are to succeed in our war on terrorism. But within one year, George W. Bush - whom most of you seem to like - had squandered the accumulation stored in the good will bank through the arrogance of his administration. A growing number of citizens everywhere despise the Bush administration, and we are losing traditional allies. What on Earth has happened?

I've heard a lot of theories, mostly preposterous. They range from "they are all envious of us" to "they don't know what we know." In actuality, people outside the United States usually have a much firmer grasp of geopolitical realities, and I don't offer that as an insult.

Think about it. How much do you really know about life outside the Heartland of America? How in depth do you go when trying to understand what it's really like in the Middle East?

While I don't know every single one of my fellow Nebraskans, I guarantee you that 99 percent of the ones with whom I have contact admit to being close to clueless. Again, I don't point the finger. Americans have always been insular. We're a big and busy nation, and there's probably no reason, ordinarily, why you should understand how people in, say, Bulgaria or Nepal feel.

Another problem is the mainstream media, which is extraordinarily biased in the USA. Most of you may dismiss my claim, but ask any American here, and he will point out that BBC, Britain's Skynews and even al-Jazeera offer points of view - and hard news - that you never, ever see. It's not shown. I could ruminate as to the reasons, but that's for another discussion. Believe me, unless you search for information, you're not getting it all.

Here, we constantly see images of children being murdered, houses bulldozed, and a people with a legitimate claim to a homeland humiliated and threatened. The place: Palestine. You know it from "ABC World News Tonight" as the place where the young mean-looking boys throw rocks at Israelis.

During the occupation of Jenin, I talked to some friends in Nebraska who didn't even know what was happening. The rest of the world did know; the BBC sent in a single reporter who showed some pretty grisly stuff. It infuriated most of us over here. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is something I urge Midwesterners to bone up on. It's rather important.

My friends and I are also very miffed about the lack of credible evidence the Bush administration has supplied over Iraq. When prominent CIA and Mossad agents declare that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and Colin Powell cannot offer a shred of evidence, we begin to question what the real motives are.

Over here, we say: Our enemy is al-Qaida. Iraq has nothing to do with al-Qaida, and even if there were a link, isn't it far more crucial in our battle against terrorism that we have world opinion (which translates into "help"), especially our allies, with us? A friend in Omaha told me, "I trust my government."

I don't. In the past, we heard "trust us," and we were lied to. Our own revered forefathers, consistently quoted by those on the right, warned us to never stop questioning our leaders or their motives.

I think it's time my fellow Nebraskans asked harder questions, got better informed, and realized that even a superpower needs to cooperate as a team player in what looks to be the beginning of an unsettled century.