Why Do We Hate Them Now?

Inter-religious dialogue would be a testament to the best that America represents

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Why Do We Hate Them Now?
by Roger Friedland
13-Sep-2010
 

Why is there so much anti-Muslim sentiment just now, nine years after September 11?

(I was asked this by a Brazilian journalist, Manuela Franceschini, who writes for Veja, a Brazilian magazine. I have been working on politicized religion for many years. This is how I answered her.)

I cannot know for sure because I have not seen any survey data, but I suspect there are a number of reasons. Most importantly, I think there is a perception that large numbers of Muslims hate America and wish to do us harm. We perceive ourselves as a country that has sought to liberate Muslims from brutal dictatorship in Iraq, to counter and undermine a repressive theocracy in Iran, to broker peace between Israel and Palestine, to save the Albanian Muslims of Kosovo and feed them in Somalia, to liberate Afghanistan from the radical Islamism of the Taliban. The endless attacks abroad, and more recently the two attacks by Muslims on Americans in Times Square and at Fort Hood have made many Americans hateful, condemning an entire religion based on the actions of its jihadist and radical stream.

We are just now drawing down our troops from Iraq. In Iraq we expected that the Iraqis would receive us as the Europeans did with the defeat of the Nazis. That so many Iraqis treat America as an occupying force after so many American soldiers have given their lives for their country is deeply offensive. In Pakistan, that we have poured resources into the state hoping to help build democracy and protect it against radical Islam and they for so long refused to vigorously pursue Talibani and Qaeda forces, and indeed publicly could not acknowledge our contribution, has been deeply offensive to Americans. There are hundreds of thousands of American troops who have returned from these military theaters with their stories, their frustrations, their angers, their sense of, "What was it all for in the end?"

American foreign policy is in part built around the universal mission of bringing liberty to the world. Crippled and distorted as that mission has been by corporate and geo-political interests, particularly regarding oil, this has been a critical vector. That our efforts are failing, that the people themselves we are seeking to help have not risen to the challenge with American backing, is understood as a repudiation of our mission, of ungratefulness and of an incapacity and unwillingness to reach for freedom. Americans look for a reason, and many of them conclude that Islam must be the explanation. They do not want us there, so why should we welcome them here? And why should we allow them to build a mosque so close to the site of our collective wound, the place where we learned that a few of their angry men infused with a sense of divine mission could attack the very centers of our land? I can understand the rage, but from my point of view, the building of a mosque dedicated to liberal Islam and inter-religious dialogue would be a testament to the best that America represents, a defiant realization of what al-Qaeda and the Islamist movements around the world are fighting against.

Is there a problem in how the U.S. government is conducting itself?

Yes, there is a problem, and that is our sense that we can most effectively counter these movements with massive military force. Much of the Islamic world understands these interventions as humiliations in which they see us as killing large numbers of Muslims. Remember that Saudia Arabia expelled Americans from bases on their soil in the lead up to the Gulf War. We have allowed a theater of terrorism to become a theater of war with disastrous results. We must operate with arms and aid, intelligence and targeted undercover operations. We must learn the lessons of Afghanistan when the mujahadeen pushed the Soviet forces from their land. Only people willing to die for their land, for their principles, for their lives, can realize political change. Clearly many of our allies are willing to die for their people, but not for our principles.

And then there is the question of Israel and Palestine, in which the United States is not understood in the Islamic world as an honest broker. The relentless attacks by the Hamas regime in Gaza finally lured Israel into a disastrous and brutal war, which has undercut the legitimacy of Israel in the world, and, by implication, our legitimacy. The enemies of peace -- radical religious Muslim among the Palestinians and radical religious Jews among the Israeli settlers -- have been allowed to win. But rather than put the pressure on both parties, particularly Israel, the United States backed away under President Bush. Our government allowed Israel to continue to expand its settlement of the West Bank. If the United States does not intervene more forcefully, the West Bank may become another Gaza. Both Israel and Palestine, and importantly America, will be tested in these coming months.

What is your sense of the future of this intolerance?

If Islamist radicals continue to attack America on its own soil, I am very worried about our capacity to withstand the forces of exclusion and hatred. But I also think you need to put the hostility to Islam in context. This is the same year in which we elected a Muslim woman as Miss America, in which there are two Muslims sitting in Congress. There are pockets of hate and intolerance. They are real and dangerous, but there are also millions of cordial, generous and intimate encounters that go on all the time. Hopefully we will be able to build on those. It is a very dangerous time, in part because we are living through the eclipse of American hegemony, when Americans feel the limits of our power, our wealth, the capacity of our vision to animate the world. There is a way in which Osama bin-Laden has won, weakening our country more than military battalions ever could. We have been drawn into his war on his terms. And we cannot even find him. That sense of helplessness is crippling a giant who is capable of great things in this post-Cold-War period.

First published in HuffingtonPost.com.

AUTHOR
Roger Friedland  Professor of Religion and Cultural Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Balatarin
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Kooshan

Spike

by Kooshan on Thu Sep 16, 2010 12:12 AM PDT

I surely agree with your logic. Unfortunately, this kind of logic is pretty much relative to it's pivotal owner. You can easily interchange US with Muslims in that logic and will see the same words come out of Muslim's mouth. Unfortunately, a selfish mind will only look for self interest. If you just focus on the article heading " WHY WE HATE MUSLIMS", you will see that the writer assumes and is in the camp of the haters who want to generalize their feelings upon the whole US population.

My point is, somehow, we (as an individuals) need to sway away from hate-harboring, war-mongering and human-killing attitudes and contribute to Peaceful-coexistence camp in human history. The fact of the matter is that we can find crazy, insane, prejudice, bigot, arrogant people on both sides as well as humane, kind-hearted, freedom-lover and peaceful people on either side. If we want to promote Peace and prosperity in the world, we need to keep up the JUSTICE. 

Mid-east conflict is a multi-faceted one and the root-cause (in my opinion) can not be isolated to a single one. The problem is that even freedom lovers and peaceful souls are beating on the drums of war and feeding the flames of hatred and prejudice. 

There is a reason why everyone (even God!) loves Mother Theresa. Imagine how the world be if 10% of the world population tried to be 10% of what Mother Theresa was for a week! 


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Spike

Kooshan

by Spike on Wed Sep 15, 2010 07:26 AM PDT

Amergin makes many good points in his post, especially about the bogus claims of stock trades etc.  I would like to make a different point.  Americans don't really care about Muslims.  Before your head pops, let me explain.  Americans believe that everyone should take care of their own business.  Don't bother with others and don't allow others to bother you.  If you don't like your govt, change it.  We did.  It was hard and scary, but we did it and it worked out pretty well.  Iranians can do it too.  Israelis aren't running the US.  You gotta get over the Israeli conspiracy stuff.  It ain't happening.  People in the US are upset with Muslims, because some Muslims declared war on us and have been killing Americans all over the world for the last 20 years, with the big one coming on Sept 11, 2001.  We didn't have much love for the Japanese after Pearl Harbor either.  The Muslim terrorists may be a minority, but they claim to speak for the majority, and the majority is remarkably passive and silent.


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Kooshan

the article starts

by Kooshan on Tue Sep 14, 2010 07:38 PM PDT

the article starts with:

" Why is there so much anti-Muslim sentiment just now"

 

Hehe......I have no idea how some want to brush off the influence (or rather power) of Israel in mid-east policy of US.

 

A regular educated (internationally-concious)people in US knows that Israel is running show. That is why more and more we hear that "US interest in mid-east is not inline with Israeli interest".

 

I'm sure they way situation is evolving in the world, soon there will be some radical changes in mid-east policies. The 1st victim will definitely be Israel. I see Israel to be more volatile and the reason can be summarized in the words of an 11 year old palestinian: "We have nothing to loose". 

 

So, Islam is same as it was for 1400 years...it has encountered violent reactions in the course of history when it wanted become a challenging power. Muslim countries are going thru the same era that is more analogous to Renaissance  of Europe mostly due to the rising education level of people. The only card that I see in the hands of Israeli and they have already played it is the secular Muslim population in mid-east. It is a formidable force but not a major challenge based on lack of their commitment to principles and popularity level.

 

So, Simply put, there is a major effort by Israel lobby to demonize Muslims at media level. However, in the streets, people who intermingle with Muslims experience an opposing feeling. I think what Iranians has gone thru the hostage-era was far harsher than what Muslims are going thru now.

 


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Amergin

Spike it is just more complicated

by Amergin on Tue Sep 14, 2010 03:57 PM PDT

I think anti-Muslim sentiment is on the rise in the US for a number of reasons:

 

  1. Islam is a very decentralized faith which is continually exploited by centrally organized extremists and states which continually claim Islam as justification for non-Islamic secular activities.  This confuses people in the US.  particularly when many Americans think they are sending their sons to die to protect Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  2. Bush stood up and defended Islam immediately and continually after 911.  The current US president is not so strident in his statesmanship on the issue.  I believe it is because Obama has always avoided being mistaken for a Muslim.
  3. The mainstream media, which is imploding and has done so at an exponential pace since 911, has done an increasingly poor job at describing who Muslims are to people in the US.  The media has really failed in its reporting upon the condemnation of extremist activities by mainstream Muslim organizations.  The media, in desperate financial straights, gets better ratings giving a platform to preachers in Florida with congregations of 20.
  4. The aforementioned is exacerbated by right wing fundamentalist Christians who are organized and centrally led.  Their loud message about Islam which is based upon the trinity of ignorance, fear and political gain is on the rise.  Don't blame the Republicans.  20% of the people in the US view themselves as Republicans while 40% view themselves as conservative.  These Christian fundamentalists are not finding what they want in the Republican party either.
  5. Islam was adopted by militant and criminal elements in the name of the civil rights movement in the 1960's.  For many older Americans this was their first impression of Muslims.  Before he was murdered Malcolm X re-evaluated this interpretation of Islam and decried it.   Still, the image of Muslims as urban terrorists was created and persists today in US culture.  It is not a reason for rise in the negative sentiment but it does represent a bad baseline memory for many Americans.

 


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Amergin

Rogering Roger

by Amergin on Tue Sep 14, 2010 03:15 PM PDT

Ok Roger so let me get this straight.  "The WTC owner" and "many in America sold 3,000,000+ shares of stock 2 days before 9/11"?

So these trades occurred Sunday when the market was closed?  9/11 was a Tuesday morning so maybe you mean a full trading day so that would be Saturday when the market is also closed.  Ah Roger, what is normal trading day volume for this stock?   Delta alone traded 13,000,000+ shares just today.  So is your point that the Israeli secret police, Bush and Cheney opened the market Sunday (or Saturday) and fooled everyone by trading lightly on these stocks? Or are you saying that because the trades today were much higher we need to brace ourselves again?  

And if Bush wanted the war so badly and knew what was going on why was he at a kindergarten class looking completely bewildered instead of strapping it on in the situation room looking like Churchhill and boosting his ratings?  Was it because he is just a really sneaky fellow with a penchant for acting?


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Spike

HHH

by Spike on Tue Sep 14, 2010 02:41 PM PDT

You know why Muslims are getting a bad name?  Because of ignorant conspiracy freaks like you who refuse to accept the fact that 9/11 was carried out by a bunch of maniacs in the name of Islam.  BL even proudly claimed credit for it.


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HHH

Roger

by HHH on Mon Sep 13, 2010 07:56 PM PDT

Muslims didn't attack America on 9/11. Mossad, Cheney and Bush did.

Their defense/oil corporation buddies pocketed 100's of billion dollars and over 1.3 million muslims got killed for Israel & Saddam removed.

The WTC owner was in it and many in America sold 3,000,000+ shares of their Delta/American airlines in the 2 days before 9/11 !

I'm sure you know what that means. It wasn't Osama. Or, they knew it's going to happen but let it happen so they can start the wars they wanted so desperately.


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AMIR1973

Grandest prize of them all?

by AMIR1973 on Mon Sep 13, 2010 04:13 PM PDT

Compared to the crimes of Mao, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin et al. the dropping of the atomic bombs to end World War II (condemnable though it may be) claimed exponentially fewer lives. 


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Niloufar Parsi

so u r

by Niloufar Parsi on Mon Sep 13, 2010 12:21 PM PDT

playing catch up and it's all cool?! btw, well done for the grandest prize of them all in japan.


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AMIR1973

American atrocities would

by AMIR1973 on Mon Sep 13, 2010 07:04 AM PDT

American atrocities would pale in comparison besides those of other powerful states like China, Russia, France, Japan, etc. 


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Niloufar Parsi

great ending

by Niloufar Parsi on Mon Sep 13, 2010 05:47 AM PDT

but a bit soft on american atrocities throughout the past 6 or 7 decades. can't blame american fanaticism and violence on bin laden alone. that's too easy. forgot about the 'communist threat' that led to so many unnecessary wars already?


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