During a whirlwind tour of Asia in the fall of 2003, President George W. Bush met with Indonesian Muslim leaders on the island of Bali. Emerging from the three-hour session, Bush turned to his aides and expressed amazement that his hosts seemed to believe that Americans saw all Muslims as terrorists. “He was equally distressed,” The New York Times reported, “to hear that the United States was so pro-Israel that it was uninterested in the creation of a Palestinian state living alongside Israel, despite his frequent declarations calling for exactly that.”[i]

It was a moment reflecting the yawning gap in worldview, perception and communication that has fed the rise of anti-Americanism in the post-9/11 era. The encounter was revealing not so much for the fact that Indonesian Muslims felt that way, but that this came as a surprise to President of the United States. He genuinely believed his policies were fair and even-handed; the idea that others might see things differently did not appear to have entered his mind. Aboard Air Force One en route home, Bush told reporters that he tried to explain to the Indonesians that his Middle East policy wasn’t anti-Muslim, but “I didn't really have time to go in further than that.”

America had lost another battle in the war of ideas.

Lost Opportunities

There are two tragedies of Sept. 11, 2001: The deaths of more than 3,000 innocent human beings on the day itself and the squandering of a unique opportunity in the months and years that followed, which contributed to the loss of countless additional lives. Never in modern times had there been such sympathy for the U.S. in the Islamic world. Beyond the relatively isolated celebrations of America's pain, and a certain level of quiet satisfaction among mainstream Muslims that the U.S. had been proven vulnerable, the majority in the Islamic world condemned the attacks. There was also recognition among Muslim “moderates” that the forces of extremism posed a threat to them as well. “We unequivocally condemn acts of international terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including state terrorism, irrespective of motives, perpetrators and victims,” the Organization of the Islamic Conference declared in the wake of the bombings.[ii]

Within months of the disaster, America had lost the chance to build a new relationship with the Muslim world. Instead, the nation began marching down a path that would systematically alienate sympathetic Muslims and play into the hands of the extremists by setting up precisely the “clash of civilizations” that the bin Ladens of the world had long sought. What was, at heart, a war between the forces of moderation and the forces of extremism for the soul of Islam was soon transformed into a confrontation between the world’s Muslims and the U.S.

Beginning with his off-the-cuff comment about a “crusade” against terror, President Bush presided over a series of policy statements and actions perceived by many around the world as anti-Muslim, pro-Israeli and imperialistic. As a direct result, America’s favorability rating in the Muslim world is today essentially zero. We can’t even buy friends. Nowhere are Americans more unpopular than in Egypt, the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid. Emblematic of the alienation of would-be Muslim allies was the dramatic turnaround on the part of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed. One of America's most outspoken supporters in the Muslim world in the months after 9/11, by early 2003 Mahathir was accusing Washington of trying to “out-terrorize the terrorists.”[iii]

Another legacy of this alienation is the shift in attitudes toward Americans as individuals. Any U.S. citizen who has visited the Arab world in past decades has his/her own version of the ubiquitous story of the taxi driver, bellhop or waiter who says, “You’re American? I love Americans. But tell your president to go to Hell.” In the past, there was a clear distinction between U.S. policy and the American people. No longer. As recently as 2002 more than 50 percent of Jordanians said they had a favorable view of the American people, as distinct from the U.S. government. By 2004 that was down to 21 percent. Asked the best thing about the U.S., more than half of Saudis said “nothing.” The worst? America’s proclivity to “murder Arabs” was the most common response across the region.[iv] Goodwill toward the U.S. has disappeared like a desert mirage. And most Americans still don’t understand why. “How do I respond when I see that in some Islamic countries there is a vitriolic hatred of America?” Bush asked rhetorically in a primetime news conference shortly after 9/11. “I’ll tell you how I respond: I’m amazed. I’m amazed that there is such misunderstanding of what our country is about.” The world’s Muslims were amazed as well – amazed that Americans are, in their perception, so blind to the obvious.

Note that I have repeatedly used the word “perceive.” It is the key to understanding the relationship between America and the Muslim world. This book is not about policy per se. It will not examine the rights and wrongs of the invasion of Iraq, U.S. support for Israel or America’s relationship with the House of Saud. Rather, it is about how the perceptions of policy (which could easily have been the title of the book) have colored the relationship; for how a given policy is perceived can sometimes be as important as the policy itself.

Osama bin Laden instinctively knew that.

Urban Renewal in the Global Village

“How can a man in a cave out-communicate the world’s leading communications society?” former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke famously asked after 9/11.[v] The short answer was, “al-Jazeera.” Bin Laden was a charismatic figure who arrived on the world stage at a unique moment in history. Americans heard in his messages the rantings of a murderous maniac; for, from their perspective, the man responsible for 9/11 could hardly be anything but that. Yet, however horrified they may have been at his actions, many Arabs and Muslims heard someone who was finally speaking truth to power. Timing is everything. The controlled media of the Arab world had long quashed such dissenting ideas. With the launch of al-Jazeera, the first largely independent cross-border television station in the Middle East, the muzzle was removed and bin Laden had his bully pulpit.

Back in the 1960s, media prophet Marshall McLuhan described how the “new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.”[vi] By the early years of the new century, urban renewal had come to the Global Village. No longer was all the world gathered around the same electronic hearth. Instead, a series of media strip malls replaced the global public sphere, with international audiences naturally turning to those outlets that reinforced their own worldview, much as increasingly fragmented domestic American audiences were switching to sources – such as Fox News or The Daily Show – in step with their own ideological agendas.

Most critically, regional satellite television and the Internet meant the developing world could scrap the global narrative so long authored in the West and write its own script. In Arab countries, the chains of government information control were broken. All eyes turned to al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya and the newly risen constellation of Arab and Muslim satellite stations. Western channels like CNN, the BBC, MSNBC and Fox News were available to those with satellite dishes, some even in Arabic, but the percentage of Arabs who watched them as their primary source of news was tiny. Arabs could now see the world through an Arab lens, why would they turn anywhere else? The al-Jazeera effect was also felt beyond the Middle East, as TV stations rebroadcast footage from the Arab channels and, inspired by this new perspective on the world, print journalists exhibited an aggressive new sense of Muslim solidarity. American audiences were largely oblivious to this shift in Arab and Muslim perspective. Arab television channels were simply not available to those who did not speak Arabic. The Arab and Muslim viewpoint could be glimpsed by Americans who went to the effort of seeking out the English-language websites of news organizations in the Muslim world, but few bothered. After all, life was so much simpler in black and white.

The result was a set of information ghettos whose inhabitants – in the U.S. and the Muslim world – saw dramatically different versions of the same reality. “Surgical strikes” versus dead babies; the “oppressed” being “liberated” versus civilians under siege. Even when the words and pictures were they same, they carried completely different meanings depending on the audience. U.S. officials failed fully to recognize the implications; but bin Laden instinctively knew how to make this media revolution his own.

“Us” and “Them”

“Why do they hate us?” American acquaintances inevitably ask when they learn that I have spent much of my career living in Muslim-majority countries. Part of the answer can be found in the question itself: “Us” and “Them.” With its twin, “Self” and “Other,” it is the fundamental dichotomy of human existence; a concept embedded in psychology, anthropology, political science, communications and a host of other disciplines. Since 9/11, it has been the defining characteristic of global affairs; each side viewing the other through the prism of its own immutable worldview, amplified by the rhetoric of religion and ideology and further distorted by the bloodshot lens of their respective media.

For Americans, Islam has emerged as the quintessential “Other,” replacing the Soviet Union as the touchstone against which U.S. citizens measure their collective sense of Self. It has become a cliché to say that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 “changed everything.” On one level, that is true. The nation’s illusion of security was shattered; its relationship with terror as something that happened somewhere else was unalterably transformed. But on another level, 9/11 simply made overt a worldview that had long been present but little acknowledged. Since a keffiah-clad Rudolph Valentino first strode across the silent screen, Arabs and Muslims have been Othered in U.S. society, the subject of stereotype and differentiation. Blinded by their view of Self, most Americans knew – or cared – little about what the rest of the world thought of them. Meanwhile, Arabs and non-Arab Muslims harbored a host of clichés and preconceived notions that shaped their view of the U.S., set against the overarching perception that the U.S. is intrinsically linked to, and responsible for, the policies of Israel, the ultimate Other. The years since 9/11 have only confirmed the stereotypes on both sides.

This book sets out several intersecting arguments about the relationship between the U.S. and the world’s Muslims – particularly focusing on those living in Muslim-majority countries – in the post-9/11 era:

§         That the conflicting worldviews of Americans and Muslims led each to perceive events in fundamentally different ways;

§         That the polarizing rhetoric of leaders on each side was shaped by, and reinforced, those fundamentally different worldviews;

§         That the prevailing worldview in the Bush White House – and the country-at-large – produced a failure to understand the impact that U.S. policy statements and actions had among Arabs and non-Arab Muslims;

§         That the media on each side framed coverage in a manner that reinforced the dichotomy and inflamed opinion;

§         That this impact was dramatically enhanced by the growth of satellite television and non-traditional media outlets in the Muslim world; and,

§         That the above factors led to the enhancement of a global community of Muslims, or ummah, that is far more cohesive than ever before. 

Definitions

If you are confused when talking heads on TV start spouting jargon about Islam and terrorism, you are not alone. So polarizing is the entire topic of America’s relationship with the world’s Muslims that the many parties to the discussion cannot even agree on key terminologies. It is important to establish these definitions so that readers are all, as it were, on the same page.

The very process of defining – and labeling – terror is a political minefield. Of the many definitions used by the U.S. government, one of the more common describes terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.”[vii] The failure to leave space for the idea that some acts carried out by governments can be considered terrorism embodies the very essence of the difference in worldviews. To much of the globe, state-sponsored terrorism is a far greater threat than terrorism carried out by individuals or loose-knit organizations. As will be explored elsewhere, this difference in definition sparks a cascade of other questions: Who is a “terrorist” and who is a “martyr?” When does a “martyr” become a “terrorist?” Seeking middle ground, I have adopted the definition of terrorism offered by Bruce Hoffman of the Rand Corporation: “[T]he deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or the threat of violence in the pursuit of political change.”[viii]

Then there is the equally thorny definition of “political Islam.” This has become media shorthand for bin Laden and those who share his philosophy. In reality, militant groups “constitute only a small minority among political Islamists.”[ix] Using terms like political Islam, Islamists, Islamic revivalism, and Islamic activism interchangeably fails to acknowledge the vast range of attitudes and opinions among Muslims engaged in politics. It is also important to remember that the Prophet Muhammad was both a religious leader and the founder of the first Muslim state. As Khalid bin Sayeed points out:

A Muslim cannot treat his politics in [a] piecemeal fashion. His active political life does not cease after he has recorded his vote in an election. For him, politics represents a whole movement which follows an elaborate socio-political program.[x]

For the purposes of simplicity, this book will employ the following definitions:

§         An Islamist will be defined as a Muslim who shares the vision of Maulana Maududi (1903-1979), the revered founder of the South Asian Islamic revivalist organization Jamaat-E-Islami, for whom Islam was “a revolutionary concept and ideology which seeks to change and revolutionize the world social order and reshape it according to its own concept and ideals.”[xi] 

§         Islamic will refer to the religious and spiritual dimensions of the faith and Muslim to one who practices that faith or considers him/herself to be Muslim (for a Muslim may not necessarily actively pray five times a day or attend mosque).

§         The definition of political Islam will draw on Graham Fuller’s description of the broad movement that believes “Islam as a body of faith has something important to say about how politics and society should be ordered in the contemporary Muslim world and who seeks to implement this idea in some fashion.”[xii]

§         The term Islamic fundamentalist will also adhere to another of Fuller’s definitions, as Muslims “who follow the literal and narrow reading of the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet, who believe they have a monopoly on the sole correct understanding of Islam and demonstrate intolerance toward those who differ.”[xiii]

However, not all Islamists are fundamentalists, nor do all fundamentalists support violent action. Islamist militant, extremist and radical will be used interchangeably to define those Islamists who follow or endorse the path of violence as distinct from those Islamists who do not. The term Muslim world is borrowed from Eickelman and Piscatori to define the collection of countries stretching from Northwest Africa to Southeast Asia in which Muslims form the majority or a significant minority.[xiv] The Muslim world is not a monolith, it is neither a cohesive political unit nor home to all the world’s Muslims; but it is the focal point of any discussion of post-9/11 global affairs.

Beyond Labels

Definitions are important, but they also get in the way. There is no cookie cutter that produces an “Islamist militant;” no template for a terrorist. “Moderate” Muslims come in all shades and colors. In the decades I have wandered through the Muslim world, I have known Communists who have become nationalists then evolved into Islamists as the winds of change blew. I have seen subtle developments produce dramatic reversals in regional alliances. And I have watched friends who loved America lose hope. Not long ago, a Lebanese colleague from the American University of Beirut emailed me in despair. “Anti-American sentiment in the region is building up. America is even losing the modicum of sympathy it once garnered among moderate and liberal Arab thinkers,” wrote this former Ivy League professor. “I don't know what can be done to avert the collective mood of anger, heightened by feelings of impotence and indignity. Finding shelter in radical Islam seems the only venue.”

That growing anger and despair on both sides has been the hardest thing to witness from my sometimes strange and frustrating vantage point: Until recently, a visitor in my own country, one foot in the U.S., one foot in the Muslim world. No longer a full-time journalist but not quite an academic. Perhaps, in some twisted way, it was the only place from which to chronicle the disconnect that has characterized this era; trapped inside Alice’s Looking Glass, were no one can quite agree on what they see.

Lawrence Pintak

Cairo, Egypt

July 2005

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