I made a very stupid mistake today.

[camwyn]

It'd have been just as stupid if I'd read Reuters Newswire, or the New York Times; it just happened to be the BBC News because I trust them to tell me the truth. The British tell it like it is - the news sources over here pander like two-dollar whores. So I thought I'd check out a few world news articles. Try to avoid unnecessary reading of stuff related to September 11th, because most of that would just be the same material over and over.

Big mistake.

Every news division I clicked on - Health, Technology, Asia-Pacific, South Asia, UK, you name it - carried one or more news stories to the same effect, namely:

People hate Americans.
People hate America.
America got hurt last year, but (pick one) they deserved it/they engineered it/they did it to themselves on purpose to justify themselves going to war/they're a bunch of powermongering snots anyway so why should we care about them.
All Americans are like their President and should not be trusted.
Americans are dishonest, self-absorbed, disgusting people who want nothing more than to spread their capitalistic, hedonistic, utterly amoral way of life over every corner of the globe at the cost of every other way of life in sight.

You get the idea. The link from Health was a story about the psychological impact of September 11th around the world, or something like that. From Technology it was a story about Iraqi hackers launching attacks at American systems in protest of the coming War of Dubya's Inadequacy. Asia-Pacific? China and/or North Korea, mad at us for their own reasons (China somewhat justified; North Korea I ignored because the North Korean government is institutionalised madness if ever I saw it). South Asia? That's the category that includes India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. UK? British Muslims. Between that and Iraq cheerfully announcing that we had deliberately crashed the planes into the Towers ourselves so that we could go out and stomp all over Iraq and how every Arab on the face of the planet ought to rise up and destroy us RIGHT NOW or at least in revenge for anything bad we might do to Iraq, well...

This is directed to the people these news stories reference. If somehow you're reading this, I would appreciate it if you'd listen, because:

I am SICK AND TIRED of you people hating me. Of ANY of you people hating me. Don't you DARE tell me that you don't hate me, you hate my country or my government or my way of life - you hate me. It is impossible to hate a group but not hate its members. Sit back and look injured all you want; smugly console yourself with the knowledge that you are somehow morally superior to the great festering morass you think this country is; whatever. When you do that, you are hating me, individually, a lone and solitary person who is one of two hundred and seventy million, just as much as you're hating that entire two hundred seventy million. And you know what?

I never hated you. I never hated any of you. I was angry when I heard about Iraq invading Kuwait and killing people, sure, but I had been raised to believe that civilized countries and civilized people had means of settling problems other than blowing heads off. So when the invasion of Kuwait happened, I was angry, because that wasn't the way things were supposed to be. I was sick to my stomach when I saw the Towers fall, but I didn't hate the ones who did it. I wanted to grab them by their collars and scream "why?". That's all. I wanted an answer. I wanted to know why they hated so many people so much that they killed them without so much as a warning, so much as a message. I wanted to slap Jerry Falwell and his minion whose name I have forgotten when they said that lesbipagahomoabortifeminism was responsible for America no longer being under divine protection, but I didn't hate them. I thought they were stupid. I thought they were mean. I thought they were cruel. I thought they were being hatefully inconsistent and allowing their own assessments of what was morally unacceptable to overrule what really was morally unacceptable. So God gets angrier over two women banging each other than over Africans by the hundreds of thousands being enslaved, beaten, tortured, raped, sold and killed? Abortion causes God to allow people to invade this country, but slavery and the Civil War weren't enough to make him mad? I don't think that's a God with his priorities straight, and I don't want anything to do with that god, and I don't want anything to do with people who have that kind of priority. But that's all; I didn't hate them for saying it, I just wanted to tell them how stupid they were, then walk away.

I am an American. I am a woman. I am an independent human being. I am a Christian. I believe that human beings ought to love one another and act on that love, live their lives as if they truly cared what happened to one another. I drive a seven-year-old, battered-up, American-made car. I give blood without caring who gets it. I give money because people in other countries - be it Argentina, Iraq, China, Angola, I don't care - need what I have and I cannot be there to give it to them myself. I have read a fifth of the English translation of the Koran and I admire any holy book that exhorts its readers to pursue greater understanding of the world around them. I admire the art of more nations than I can count, and I can make mujaddarah fit to please any Lebanese grandmother. I do not drink or take drugs; I do not smoke; I am celibate. I honor my mother and my father and my grandparents.

I have never - NEVER - done the horrible things the world seems inclined to accuse all Americans of doing. The next time you plan on opening your mouth to denounce the filthy scumwallowing prostitute Americans and say they deserve anything the Middle East wants to unleash on them, I want you to remember this:

I am one American who has nothing to do with your idea of how degenerate Americans are. I am one decent American, and all I want from you is an explanation of why you hate me so much.


And now that I've ranted, I'm going to be quiet. I've said about enough for today and I fully expect to hear from people telling me how wrongheaded I am, but for now I've got work to do, and then I have to leave to work at the memorial concert. I'll be back later.

Comments

[sdelmonte]

In part, we are hated because we are envied. We have money. We have democracy. We have power. We have influence. Many people in many place will never have a lifestyle like that of the average American, so they hate us. Some hate us enough to harm us, most don't but don't care so much when we are harmed.

The hate is also generated by the leaders of the downtrodden. You don't like your life? Blame America. You're poor and can't vote and can barely read? Why, it's America's fault. Dictators and demagogues need a scapegoat. The US is that scapegoat. It doesn't help that the media in the third world is either government-controlled or sensationalistic.

The radical Muslims? I think they hate everyone sometimes, including themselves. But we make an amazingly convenient target, far away and yet as close as the television.

But to a degree, we have brought this on ourselves. We have worked hard to isolate ourselves from the world, as we embark on a course of warmaking that will essentially be Us vs. the World. Far too many Americans are condescending to the rest of the world, even to the people of Europe. We are often arrogant. We dominate the world's media with our drivel. We are a giant with a long shadow, and while we more often than not don't mean to cast that shadow, we do. When we don't notice that shadow, those in the dark are a bit more likely to strike out.

I love this nation, regardless of who is president. I think that we have much to share with the world, and that we must find a way to share it or face increasing wrath and hatred and digust. But we must also take long looks at ourselves from time to time. In the past year, a lot of us have tried to do that. I fear, however, that the man in the White House has not. He just doesn't get it, and might never get it. I think that he has never asked "why do you hate us?" once in his life. And if you can't ask the question, you can't find an answer.

But that's just one man's thoughts.

Would that I had the ability to answer...

[quintus.livejournal.com]

... but I don't.

Nothing I can say doesn't sound trite, facile or plain offensive when distilled down to words on a page.

Best I've managed is to confront the statement "I hate (all) Americans because..." whenever I can, same as I try to do for any generalisation like that.

Damn it, we're meant to be better than this.

Welcome...

[mtr1966.livejournal.com]

...to the wonderful world of intense envy.

Living in China I get to see anti-American sentiments on almost a daily basis. And it can be very subtle at times. Like watching a cabbie act sullenly toward me in the car until he finally ventures the question "You're an American, right?" Then watching him brighten up and become positively chatty when I reply "No, I'm a Canadian." (Courtesy of Dr. Bethune, Canadians can do no wrong in most Chinese eyes.) Most of them are pretty mystified when I keep up the cold front after that. If I had enough Chinese, I'd tell them, "You hated me when you thought I was American. Now you like me because I'm Canadian. I haven't changed in that time, so please continue hating me." Since I don't, I'll let them think I'm just a cold bastard.

The cabbies who start friendly and then show enthusiasm for Canada when they ask where I come from (as opposed to if I'm American) find that I'm just as chatty and enthusiastic about China back.

But it isn't just the locals who piss me off with their anti-American sentiments. Other expats -- the British ones -- are actually even worse. Deriding, for example, the poor quality of American education because the American ESL teachers don't know about some obscure, worthless work of some obscure, worthless British author. (This is always done behind the Americans' backs, of course.) When I start asking pointed questions about American literature on the order of "Have you read Melville? Poe? Hemingway? Which works?" -- in short, just the biggest of the big names and without even going into obscure authors -- invariably they stare blankly or will mention the most trivial of the works of these authors. It seems that Americans being ignorant of obscure British literature shows their insularity and the worthlessness of their education, but Brits being completely ignorant of even the biggest names in American literature are still well-educated and broad-minded.

Then there's the money.

Everybody around me hates Americans. But they sure do love American dollars. I've ranted at my students a couple of times when they've expressed anti-American sentiments while they wear the products of American industry and wealth. "Make up your mind. Do you hate Americans? Then hate their dollars. Loving one but not the other is hypocrisy and makes the Chinese look like fools and like liars."

They're usually surprised when I come to America's defense because I also rant at them when they call me an American or when they ask "Are you American?" Then I have to patiently (or not, depending on my mood) explain to them that I'm not angry because I hate Americans but rather because I hate the mindset that assumes that all white men in China are Americans. That it would be just about as insulting for me to ask all the Chinese people I met if they're Japanese or not. (That last one REALLY gets them thinking. The Chinese, for very legitimate reasons IMO, despise the Japanese. Check my LJ entry for the Rape of Nanjing for details if you like.) That a smarter question that could not cause offense is "Where do you come from?"

So the primary reason for hating Americans, I think, is just envy. The world is envious of American wealth. Yes, Americans tend to blunder around on the world stage, but so did the Russians. So do the Chinese. So do the Brits. Why aren't they universally despised? Because they were laughable. The Russians were also-rans who were always a bit sad after Sputnik. The Chinese haven't run at all yet. And the Brits are a bunch of has-beens clinging to sad fantasies about their supposedly once-glorious empire. And they seeth with resentment at a nation which has taken its turn in the spotlight.

I am an American citizen...

[penguinzero.livejournal.com]

Does that mean that if I hate George Bush or his actions, I hate myself? If I think sending troops into Iraq on weak pretenses with no international support is a questionable idea, does that imply great self-loathing? If I think Enron's fall and the weak response to it indicate troubling problems in our politics and economy, does that mean I think I'm scum that deserved to be killed by terrorists? If I worry about the increasing restrictions Ashcroft and co. are putting on our civil liberties, does that mean I'm spitefully envious of my own freedoms?

People have a tendancy to speak carelessly, and to tar groups with too big a brush. I'm sure you can find people out there who think every single American is a filthy monster who could be bombed to death -- but you can find Americans who think the Middle East should be paved over and all Muslims put to the sword. There's idiotic bigots everywhere. Most people criticizing the U.S., though, are more reasonable about it, at least from what I've seen. I may not agree with all their points, but at least most of the ones I've seen have points beyond 'the U.S. sucks, just because.' If it doesn't always come across well, it's often because they're just not as eloquent as they think.

It's too easy to say that all criticism is just because the critics are envious ingrates, or spiteful, cruel beasts who want to drag us down to their level. But if we start thinking that all criticism stems from that source, that we don't need to think about whether the government's actions are in the right or not, that our country can do no wrong and anyone who says it can is evil... well, that's a path I really don't want to go down.

Just wanted to provide a counterpoint. Sorry if I offended in any way.