« President George W. Bush -- Giant or Devil? | Main | CalPatriots versus L'Anti-Americain »
February 06, 2005
Measuring Anti-Americanism in the World
In the process of tracking, understanding, and discussing anti-Americanism in this group blog, we can learn a lot from the comprehensive international survey conducted by BBC in the summer of 2003. The survey was carried out in 11 countries asking 11,000 people different questions about their views and opinions towards America to be used in the television program What The World Thinks of America. The countries included in the survey were the UK, France, Russia, Indonesia, South Korea, Jordan, Australia, Canada, Israel, Brazil and the US.
The results show that there is a huge difference in people’s attitudes towards America and towards George W. Bush (please click here to watch the graphs). This clearly indicates that the policies of the present US administration matters a great deal to the world, and might even contribute to the level of anti-Americanism. Therefore, I think we need to dig into the question of which policy issues turn people on - and off.
The survey shows that people from the 11 countries to a fair extent agree with US policies on the spread of HIV/AIDS, and to a lesser degree on the fight against terrorism. The world, on the other hand, disagrees with US policies on the issues of world poverty, global warming, nuclear proliferation, and especially on the Israeli/Palestinian question. The general skepticism regarding the latter might explain the very positive reaction, in at least the Danish media, to Bush’s state of the union announcement this Wednesday of a $350 million contribution to the Palestinian cause. The survey shows that all but the Americans are unsatisfied with the US policy towards Israel and Palestine, including Israel.
But how does the world perceive Americans? The respondents think that Americans can best be described as free, arrogant, united, and religious. But the picture here is not very clear. This point towards that identifying values and labels for a whole population is a complicated endeavor.
On the question of the big dangers in the world, an average of 46 percent think that America is more dangerous than Iran. Among the respondents 48 percent think that the superior military power of the US makes the world a more dangerous place, whereas only 12 percent of Americans think the same.
In sum, there seems to be a great divide in the world perception of the US, most often with the US on one side of the table and the rest of the world on the other. Not a very fortunate situation for the world’s greatest power. The world seems to be more frustrated with US policies than with Americans as such. This indicates that the roots of anti-Americanism aren’t to be found in American values, but rather in the actual conduct of US foreign policy regarding the global issues of poverty, environment, and conflict solving.
Posted February 6, 2005 11:25 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)