An inkling of why the world is disillusioned with America.
First and foremost, there is much to be admired about America. That country has stood for more than 200 years for liberty, freedom and the possibility of improving one’s wealth, status and lot in life through hard work. In a world dominated by narrow ideologies, America has for much of its history used its military strength, wealth and intellectual capital to offer a broad, democratic political environment where self-expression is not only permissible, but actually encouraged.
The most important thing to realise about the current global backlash against American policies is that it has little to do with traditional American values. The backlash is rather aimed at emerging foreign and domestic policy of both Republican and Democrat administrations of recent years. In defending America, it is not sufficient to draw exclusively on its impressive liberal history since inception as a unified country, but rather to look at what dynamics are in play here and now. It is also important to note that America’s own success has come at a price that is often paid for outside its own borders.
Outright disdain for America in totality is as naïve as it is narrow-minded. However, genuine concern for the public policies, as well as the private actions of the American government, represents not only justifiable intellectual thought, but adequate cause for anti-American sentiment to manifest itself in mainstream discourse.
America’s pride in its democratic institutions whilst tenable must be tempered with an acknowledgement that America did not invent democracy and has no exclusive right to define democracy. We have the Greeks to thank for that delightful social development. When the founding fathers sought a basis for a new form of government they chose to model it on the Roman Republic, itself an extension and development of revolutionary Athenian principals. In a similar vain to the French Revolution of 1789 where the masses rose up in the name of Ancient Greek values, it was a revisiting the long-established concepts of Roman citizenship and republicanism by the well- educated Founder’s that lead to the US Constitution being designed the way it was. Without taking away from their decision to endorse such a form of government, Americans cannot claim democracy as exclusively their own and moreover certainly not their own idea.
When America seeks to spread democracy or defend democracy its foreign policy is often deeply contradictory. Successive administration’s unyielding support for the despotic monarchy of Saudi Arabia lies in direct conflict to its desire for regime change in Iraq. Similarly public support for the autocratic President Mushareff in Pakistan and criticism of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe smacks of political opportunism. Whilst the US preaches democracy as the only viable form of government, it regularly provides either tacit or active support to regimes globally that regularly deny their people even the most basic human rights. Let us not forget that it was the US abetted by the British who installed Saddam Hussein into power in the first place. Another tragic recent leader, Indonesia’s dictator Suharto, was an American puppet whose only positive trait was that he espoused democracy. It is this duplicity that makes the average person across the world increasingly sceptical about America’s aims when invading another country such as Iraq on the basis of “spreading democracy”.
America’s economic might is impressive and rightly stands as a beacon of the capitalist model of economic management. However, on closer inspection, America’s embrace of free trade with other countries, particularly poor ones, has at best a chequered history of implementation. Most trade with developing countries is limited to purchasing raw materials and returning expensive finished goods. Where developing countries aspire to be able to trade freely with higher value goods with the US the reality is that America’s free trade policies are more often “free for America to sell” but not the other way around. George W Bush in particular, although other US presidents have also been guilty of this, has been quick to provide state aid to American industries, such as the steel industry, facing foreign competition, rather than letting the market decide on its most cost effective source of products. This apparent contradiction is not lost on the citizens of poor countries who see America’s economic might as a stranglehold on their ability to escape the poverty trap their own corrupt governments perpetuate.
Few would deny that Hollywood has had a huge cultural impact around the world. The music and television that is consumed on radio and television daily can be more often than not traced to American studios. And yet, the intelligent commentator has a reasonable concern that so much of this content is produced by so few companies. Merely six enormous organisations account for nearly 90 percent of that output and the homogenising affect of that limited source of funding for new projects dismays those who believe that cultural diversity is fundamental to self-expression. America has undoubtedly learnt both the art and science of marketing better than any other country and that has lead to a near monopolisation of media promotion. Whilst one should always respect the individual to make their own choices which media they consume, if their choice in films, music and television is restricted to the offering of only six near-identical media powerhouses, one might call that censorship by any other name.
Hollywood has and still occasionally does produce seminal works of film that are worthy of the labels “art” or “cinema”. Most productions from Hollywood are not in that category though and are made purely as business enterprises. Again, there is nothing wrong with this particularly, except that this leads to funding being starved for other projects which may allow mankind to reflect on the nature of the human condition and our position within the world around us. It is this trend that dismays culturally aware foreigners.
America has an enviable philanthropic culture. This is amply evident with the enormous donations made annually by alumni back to their alma maters. This unbridled giving is welcome and should be emulated by similarly successful people around the world. This philanthropy usually takes the form of cash donations and in that sense is a very real commitment to those educational institutions. Americans may be under the illusion that when their government makes similar aid donations to poor countries or crisis hit regions that hard cash is going into local coffers. In most instances though, nothing could be further from the truth. While America has a very public aid policy, the workings of those aid packages are usually tied to the freedom of access to local markets, changes in social and economic policies and in some instances require prescriptive changes to people’s religious and cultural practises. Aid is seen by the American government as a foreign policy tool and is seldom practised in the humanitarian light in which it is portrayed. For example HIV aid funding in Africa by the George W Bush administration is often tied to required changes in local abortion policies. This social engineering is despised by people who do not share the Christian viewpoint on which that policy is based.
America has 5% of the world’s population and yet consumes 30% of the world’s resources. America uses 40% of world gasoline production yet it is surprised that the world thinks its enormous wealth would enable it to rise above environmental neglect in the pursuit of domestic comfort and even greater wealth. Few mainstream economists deny the need to exploit natural resources for economic growth. Yet, while 152 countries are prepared to sign an accord on limiting environmental destruction, the one country that has the capacity to make a bigger impact that all the others, chooses to favour its 5% of the world’s population over the rest of the world’s 95%. Kyoto may not have been a perfect treaty; in fact it has several flaws, but America’s contempt for environmental concerns is evident in the pathetic funding provided to study global climate change. The current American government pays lip service to the environmental lobby and provides extensive support to the fossil fuel industry that provides so much of its financial power.
The recent Republican Administration has recently engaged in the most hypocritical actions regarding human rights. Constitutional Amendment number VI ratified on 15 December 1791 states the following, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” It does not require a doctorate in law to understand that this Amendment is clearly contrary to holding people without charge, in humiliating conditions at Guantanamo Bay, in some instances for more than four years. This widely reported act of imprisonment without trial says to world that America will only follow its principals when it suits its political aims. This hypocrisy has lead to disbelief when America makes pronouncements on other countries’ civil rights abuses.
This brief article only touches on the surface level grievances which so many people have about the US at the moment. It is not meant to be a definitive argument for unbridled criticism of the US. However when one reads articles such as
