Hate Your Policies, Love Your Institutions
Article Summary and Author Biography
Although U.S. foreign policies are often deeply unpopular in the Arab world, American educational institutions in the region enjoy widespread respect. Not only do they encourage open debate and the cultivation of a skeptical attitude toward received wisdom, they also train leaders in all walks of life. These schools present an underexploited way of dealing with the current crisis.
John Waterbury is President of the American University of Beirut.
"WHY DO THEY HATE US?"
Two groups have come under examination in the "why do they hate us?" debate that has unfolded since September 11, 2001. One comprises the perpetrators of violence and terrorism -- the Osama bin Ladens, the Mohammad Attas, and some suicide bombers. They are fanatics in every sense of the word. Their interpretations of politics and Islam are so extreme that they disparage the great majority of Muslim Middle Easterners as "unbelievers." They are not going to be deterred by debate, compromise, sanctions, or even the threat of death. The challenge they pose to the United States is a security issue, a matter to be dealt with through careful police work and military action. America's resources are adequate for dealing with this threat.
The vastly larger group of Muslim Middle Easterners who express anger toward the United States and evince some sympathy for bin Laden pose a far more serious challenge. This group's members are aFFLicted by middle-class frustrations, governed by political systems that give them no voice, and burdened by economies that offer them few opportunities. They are witnessing a conflict over land and sacred places in which they perceive the United States as applying two standards of equity and two standards of measuring violence, each in favor of Israel. That resulting frustration and anger leads to expressions of sympathy for those who resort to violence against the United States.
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