A few days after the tragic events of 9/11 were seared permanently
into our nation's collective memory, President Bush presented
a formal response, standing before the joint houses of Congress,
rows of dignitaries and banks of television cameras. With impressive
confidence he spoke of the resolve needed in the forceful campaign
the United States would undertake against those who were responsible
or were abetting this numbing violence. He summoned world leaders
to join in an unprecedented global alliance that would uncover,
incapacitate and apprehend the agents of such murderous devastation.
Then, alluding to the motives underlying this brutality, he asked,
"Why do they hate us?"
This ringing question gave voice to the bewilderment of many
Americans listening to their president. The Christian Science
Monitor echoed this phrase in a front-page banner headline,
printed in red, above the lead article in a special edition devoted
to the ominous storm then gathering over Afghanistan. In his speech,
President Bush did not pursue an answer to his question, assuming,
evidently, that none, or none that would suffice, could be found.
The newspaper, however, answered with a concise jolt of an opening
sentence that illuminates a gap in perception almost as disturbing
as the emptiness now visible where Manhattan's two tallest buildings
once stood. "Most Arabs," begins the article, "knew the answer
even before they considered who was responsible."
This blunt journalistic riposte to President Bush's agonized
exclamation illustrates the chasm in the fractured rapport between
Islam and the West, and America in particular. Not only does this
expose a barrier between two worlds -- one in which the motives
behind such violence are inexplicable and another in which they
are self-evident -- but it also portrays the American view as
recognizing "hate" as the defining link between an homogenized
"us" and "them."
It is hardly surprising, then, that a wave of suspicion and
occasional aggression toward Arabs and Muslims followed in a number
of American cities, causing many people considerable anxiety.
Meanwhile, legions of imams, muftis, sheiks and scholars condemned
the attacks and emphasized that such indiscriminate violence is
entirely incompatible with the ethical teachings of Islam.
This tense divide between America and a vaguely construed Islamic
Middle East, characterized by hostility, frustration and resentment,
can be traced over several decades. Its early stirrings were evident
in the years after World War II, when the United States sought
to destabilize various regimes it considered hostile and to maintain
in power others it considered friendly. At times heavy-handed
schemes designed to undermine essentially local or regional political
developments burst into public view.
In July 1958, for instance, several thousand U.S. Marines invaded
the beaches of Lebanon, supposedly in response to potential repercussions
from a coup d'état in Iraq. They met no resistance, only
amazement, and stayed for several weeks before departing without
firing a shot. In his memoirs, Waging Peace, Eisenhower
explains the curious episode as a misreading of the internal dynamics
of the Arab world, which were scarcely even considered, since
"behind everything was our deep-seated conviction that Communists
were principally responsible for the trouble."
The United States also left its fingerprints on various cases
where nationalist uprisings threatened the established order,
especially where petroleum was involved. In 1953, clandestine
American intervention in Iran proved decisive in bringing down
the leader of a newly declared republic and reinstating the deposed
Shah. Of course, few Americans even recall such events or they
see them in the distance through the telescope of the now-defunct
superpower rivalry.
In the Middle East, memory tends to look ahead rather than behind.
Against an exaggerated backdrop of victimization, conspiracy theories
typically involving American or, by extension, Israeli undercover
operations sprout frequently, spread quickly and survive for decades,
sometimes centuries.
Since the end of the cold war, and especially with the failure
of America's celebrated efforts to create a more equitable "new
world order" after the expulsion of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait,
this dichotomy has become more explicit. Harvard Professor Samuel
Huntington famously depicted today's world as rent by a "clash
of civilizations" in which Islam stands out for the "bloody borders"
that surrounded it. Making the same point no less cogently, Professor
Benjamin Barber of Duke University contributed a streamlined version
of this global vision in a mid-1990s book, Jihad vs. McWorld,
that went into multiple printings and became a favorite touchstone
for conservative security experts, aggressive talk-show hosts
and like-minded journalists and pundits.
This reaction, for all its appealing simplicity, is not only
short-sighted and superficial, it is also dangerous. It easily
adds to the confusion it pretends to clarify. An undifferentiated
contrast between an orderly "us" and a disruptive "them" quickly
flattens and obscures vital distinctions. It rids the discussion
of the complexity inherent in contradictory attitudes, situated
experiences and historical particulars that have evolved at various
levels among disparate populations, steeped in different cultural
traditions, during changing times.
In fact, as some insightful analysts of contemporary terrorism
point out, suicide bombings and similar draconian assaults typically
arise from a desperate effort to win acknowledgment, to gain respect
and to recover a semblance of human engagement. Such acts are
often carried out where the basis for significant human contact
has disappeared due to the extreme polarization dividing the strong
from the weak, substituting only a rhetoric of demonization where
dialogue has disappeared.
From this perspective, it is not hatred that drives people to
such catastrophic extremes but a crazed, despairing desire on
the part of powerless, marginalized and demoralized victims to
force a measure of moral accountability upon an oppressor who
refuses to recognize any normal form of humane mutuality.
Many, especially those who have lost confidence in leaders'
ability to bring about improvement, have found relief for their
discontent, if only partially, in a form of Islamic messianism.
While this utopian vision has deeper roots, the enthusiasm it
now enjoys was largely forged on the front lines in such places
as Algeria, Lebanon, Bosnia, Chechnya, Somalia and Afghanistan.
Here, too, militancy has been cultivated with increasing technical
expertise, not only on the fringe of a shattered Islamic world
but also in its heartlands.
Animosity toward America, seen through this lens as the chief
source of the corrosive influence of a godless modernity, does
not arise from a fossilized remnant of medieval thinking. The
doctrines invoked by Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network
have a more recent origin, and, more importantly, they borrow
opportunely for their dubious support from the anger and sympathy
generated from conflicts that have little or no discernible religious
basis. Thus bin Laden's celebrated "declaration of jihad" against
America cited three specific justifications: the basing of American
troops in Saudi Arabia; the continuation of international sanctions
against Iraq; and America's virtually unbounded support for Israel
in its refusal to concede to Palestinians the right to establish
a state of their own in the occupied territories.
