A surprising majority of otherwise well-informed, socially and politically savvy Americans just can’t seem to fathom why many in the Islamic world appear to hate us. Last week we were given yet more horrible opportunity to plumb that grizzly existential hole.
With the release of a poorly made Internet movie that openly denigrates the Prophet Mohammed, many of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are again outraged at the “Great Satan of the West.”
Proof of their ire was seen in the murder of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other embassy staff in the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. The greatest irony of killing Ambassador Stevens was the man’s life-long love of the Arab world. Other than being a functionary of the United States government, Stevens had committed no crime against Islam.
The protests and violence spread across the globe: Attacks were launched against U.S. embassies in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. Many other demonstrations, replete with flag-burning, followed. From Morocco to Indonesia, the fire of righteous anti-American indignation burns as brightly as ever.
Perhaps the greater tragedy of this situation lies in the fact that it is predicated on a basic — and on some level benign — cross-cultural misunderstanding that many in the Islamic world have about the U.S. The misunderstanding from which so much flows has to do with a fundamental difference between our governments and freedoms afforded those who hate us.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Specifically, if one looks at the press in many Islamic countries (and elsewhere, for that matter) it is often state-run; and if not directly state-run, it is strongly reigned-in by the government. These nations do not have the media autonomy we enjoy in the U.S. Here, if one dissents, he or she is free to shout it from the rooftops. You can start an internet blog, post videos online, write books, editorials, form opposition parties and movements. In short, dissent is something we view as a God-given right to all those borne of democratic ideals.
Contrast this with a state-run media in a culturally homogeneous society. Add to this the veil of theocracy — rules and rulers are placed above us by divine will, not merely political machination. In such places, open dissent is not only legally proscribed, it is tantamount to apostasy. To criticize the government is to imperil all that one holds dear.
As such, the people of these places, many of whom have never been exposed to a free — let alone free-wheeling — press, simply cannot imagine that a production like the aforementioned film exists without express approval of the United States government. Because their experience is so alien to ours, they do not separate media and state in the way we do. If ugly, intolerant parody of Islam exists in the West, it must be because the state wills it. Herein lies the fundamental issue. Allowance and approval are separable matters here. If a media product exists, it has fetter only to those who directly created it. All the hate, filth, foulness and intolerance that spews through the airwaves of our nation exist as a referendum only on the misguided souls who birthed it. Washington may have a tangential role in that it acquiesces to gross horrors of word and image, but as Americans, we tend to indict the creators directly. This is largely due to the fact that we recognize our own right to say our piece is vested in a begrudged tolerance of the idiot next door.
Many in the Islamic world have no such luxury. So removed is their experience from ours, they cannot image wielding such a heavy and often untenable sword.
None of this excuses their violent reactions, their terror, or even their hate. It merely explains it, not that such explanations find much purchase in places predisposed to rebuke them.