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October 10, 2005

About “the nature of Anti-Americanism”

Anti-Americanism is but a part of the question of “perceptions of the U.S. in the world” that we are trying to tackle here. One of the most common views seems to be that people tend to make a distinction between the Administration, the country, the values, and the people.

A recent essay written by UC-Berkeley Professor Emeritus—Raymond K. Kent--, and published on a liberal Canadian website—Global Research-- takes a provocative position: anti-Americanism is shifting from targeting the Administration to targeting the American people, at least in the Islamic “street.”

In The Nature of Anti-Americanism is Changing, And it is Fifteen Minutes to Midnight, Prof. Kent seeks to address the two following questions:

"(a)Should the U.S. dominate the world, through a combination of Geo-politics, militarism and hard-ball diplomacy focusing, basically, on obedience to its will?

(b)Can it succeed, as the "Indispensable Nation," in shaping and re-shaping other societies and their governments to "make the world safe for Democracy?"

The conclusion, which should become clear in the ensuing pages, is that, so far, the answer to both questions has been " yes." The thesis presented in the text is that our Machiavellians, who promote (without admitting) the pseudo-science of "Geo-politics," and Imperialism of "free trade," "human rights" and spread of Democracy as "rule by the people,"(demos from Greek), are actually self-defeating and suicidal, for the nation as a whole, with or without "Home Security." The immortal words of Lee Hamilton, after the 9/11 Report, "we (just) did not get it," apply equally to both questions posed. Articulated by "the street" in countries with Islam as the state religion, a silent and sullen hate is mutating in the most dangerous sense. Instead of being directed primarily at one or another U.S. Administration or individual occupants of the White House, as used to be the case not long ago, its emerging target today is the American People."

This is not necessarily what appears in some of the surveys mentioned in this blog—see this entry about Europe and the German Marshall Fund—or that one about Latin America and the Chilean social-science institute FLACSO, but it certainly deserves a good debate.

What do you think?

Posted October 10, 2005 06:57 AM

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