« BACK TO FORUM
 Author |
 Post
|
 |
|
Mike Cartier
Joined: Aug 7, 2002
Posts: 155 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Chatterbox
User is
Offline
Country: United States
Province/State: Colorado
City: Aspen
|
Why do Arabs hate the West?
August 13, 2003 - 10:33 AM
|
|
I subscribe to articles from many think tanks around the world. Today I received this article and was wondering what others thought of it. Clearly it is one person's opinion, but he substantiates his thoughts with historical references. Since this question has surfaced in many other debates, I thought it would produce an interesting discussion, especially due to its controversial nature. However, as we consider and debate his writing, let's try to keep our 'cool' and debate the pros and cons of his argument. -Michael Cartier
This article was translated and distributed by:
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
P.O. Box 27837, Washington, DC 20038-7837
Phone: (202) 955-9070
Fax: (202) 955-9077
E-Mail: memri@memri.org
www.memri.org
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles
and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.
MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with proper attribution.
*********************
Special Dispatch - Reform in the Arab & Muslim World
August 12, 2003
No. 551
To view this Special Dispatch in HTML format, please visit:
http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD55103
Liberal Arab Columnist:
'Why do Arabs Hate the West, Especially the U.S.?'
In an article titled "Why Do Arabs Hate the West, Especially the U.S.," Zuheir Abdallah, columnist for the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat, blames Arab fascism and Islamism for failing to achieve any accomplishments for the Arab world since 1948, leading to its backwardness today. The following are excerpts from the article(1)
Arabs Should Remember They Invaded and Occupied Europe Before The Crusades
"Most Arabs hate the West, especially the U.S., for many reasons; some date back to the Crusades and the Andalusia period, and more recently, because of Palestine and Iraq. I don't intend to delve into this historical turmoil, but for the sake of history, the Arabs should remember that they invaded and occupied important parts of Europe hundreds of years before the Crusades wars.
"The West and the U.S. in particular, as a result of their growing financial and moral power since the 1950s, and just like any human force, dominates and colonizes... just like them the Assyrians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, the Arabs, the Tatars, the Ottomans and others did before them... But since the 1950s, both the dominating and dominated initiated an attempt to build a new world, where competition (which is part of human nature) gradually moved from the battlefields to the realm of creation, economy and trade. Sciences and inventions developed as never before, especially in the fields of space, communications and medicine, which led to the invention of computers, the Internet and satellites, and many medicines and antibiotics were discovered, overcoming many diseases and increasing humans' life expectancy. In general, the world went on a stable path of progress, as trade prospered (with the elimination of tariffs and the speed in transportation)."
Since 1948 The Arab World Has Regressed
"But despite this, the Arab world failed to ride the same wagon (except for the consumption part), ever since the Palestinian Nakba in 1948. Since then, under the pretext of liberating Palestine and destroying the occupation's agents, most Arab countries were taken over by not so intelligent and more tyrannical people (mostly from the military). Thus, the economic and scientific growth regressed and reached the bottom level, in comparison to the rest of the countries in the world (according to the last report of the UN)."
Arab Fascism and Fundamentalist Islam Have Nothing to Offer People
"Since 1948, the primitive Arab fascism was given free reign, and boosted by the backwards soldiers, from the officers to reactionary parties (sometimes self-dubbed progressive), and other times allied with fundamentalist Islam. It has nothing to offer to its people except empty slogans revolving around the themes of resistance and struggle, for no voice can be louder than that of the fight, and consequently, corruption spread, and this Arab fascism was constantly being defeated in its Don-Quixote-like-battles with any foreign force (except its people, as it always vanquished them).
"All around the world, extremist slogans and concepts are falling one after the other; but in the Arab world, they have reached such a level that many simple-minded people and ignorant persons were unfortunately brainwashed and turned into the fuel of this extremism. When discussing with many Arab citizens, even those claiming to be educated, about the reason for our backwardness, you get a preset answer to the effect that the West with the U.S. in particular are stopping the Arabs from progressing. If this hypothesis is true, then why did certain Arab and Islamic countries, such as Malaysia and Dubai [sic], manage to achieve progress (even if partially)?"
Arabs Reject Western Inventions, Only to Embrace them Later
"The West and the U.S. in particular achieved major accomplishments over the past century. As for us, Arabs and Muslims, we became at most consumers of these accomplishments and inventions; we reject them at first claiming they are designed to control us, then consume them fast and even hide it most of the time. The examples are many:
* The invention of radio transmission, then television then satellite channels, then electronic communications devices. Most Arabs misused these means, and used them as channels for religious extremism, political provocation, and transmission of erroneous information. The young generation spends long hours on the Internet to view pornographic pictures, mainly in the highly conservative societies, which foster frustration. Before the modern communication means (visual and audio), we had enlightened religious scholars such as Mohamad Abdu and Jamaleddine Al Afghani. After the confusion resulting from these means, we have Sheikhs like bin Laden, Al Dhawahiri and many others we watch and hear on the Arab satellite channels.
* The weapons were highly and unusually developed during the last century. From 1948 to this day, arms purchases in the Middle East occupied the first place among the countries in the world and reached between 1995 and 1997, about 38% from world purchases in comparison to 3% in South America, according to the U.S. State Department's report: "Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1998." Most of these purchases were made under the pretext of liberating Palestine and fighting the enemies. They were either used against the people or during the civil wars or to attack neighboring countries. As for Israel, it remains the most powerful in terms of arms.
* In the medical field, penicillin and antibiotics were discovered, which saved millions and billions of human lives from fatal diseases as typhoid and many children diseases. As a result, there was a disorder in the demographic balance of many developing countries, especially in the Arab countries, as birth rates considerably grew (sometimes encouraged by ignorant rulers), combined with a decrease in death rates, especially infantile. As a result, the yearly demographic increase varied between 3 and 5%, which means that the census in some Arab countries doubled every 16 years. Social, political and environmental problems ensued and governments and people couldn't confront them.
"These are few of the examples on the inventions and discoveries of the last centuries and how they were misused in the Arab world. Let us stop for a minute and ask ourselves, Arabs and most Muslims, what did we offer for ourselves and the rest of the world, since the beginning of the industrial revolution to this day, from human sciences and inventions or any other added value to civilization? Unfortunately, the answer is: almost nothing!!"
Endnote:
(1) This article is a reprint of a translation into English by Dar al Hayat, http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/08-2003/Article-20030808-e1036326-c0a8-01ed-0054-c054dbe12836/story.html, August 8, 2003. The article originally appeared in Al-Hayat (London).
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
Helen
Joined: Aug 13, 2003
Posts: 15 (view all)
Poster Rank:
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Female, 26
Country: United Kingdom
|
Re: Why do Arabs hate the West?
August 13, 2003 - 01:45 AM
|
|
I agree with what youre saying, Jacob , about generalisations; and i believe that it is key to the whole issue, along was stereotyping, for want of a better word. In life we tend to see the negatives; take september 11th for example and the reaction to Muslims that followed that; I admit myself that my viewpoints were 'tinged' after that day until i visited Turkey and saw for myself that Islam is actually a very reasonable faith. Perhaps the Arabs see 'the wests' negative actions, and this, combined with a general sense of 'community' of arabs and media propoganda, has lead to a laregr problem of dislike.
hope that made sense!
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
Hussein Macarambon
Joined: Aug 11, 2003
Posts: 62 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Talkative
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 2
Country: Japan
Province/State: Kyoto
City: Kyoto
|
Wow. Great Discussion.
August 13, 2003 - 03:06 AM
|
|
Hello, everybody. This is officially my first post. I only joined yesterday and now I know how much I missed.
In regard to the question: "Why do Arabs hate the West?" I believe that one should go three hundred years back when early Orientalists were still writing books about the people of the Near East, the Arabs, the Turks, the Africans, the Jews and a multitude of other races, in order to understand the distrust or, as Abdallah would put it, the hatred of the Arabs toward the West. The year 1948 is not the beginning of this intricate aversion since there had been many mutinies against Western colonizers carried out by the ruled Arabs in the early 1900s (Edward Said on Orientalism).
There was an article in Foreign Affairs that discussed a similar issue on Arab extremism , good and/or bad, in their foreign policies. Abdallah was correct when he said that many Arab despots had gained power and had fueled the already-existing distrust of the people toward the West into a deep-seated hatred. This is because they wanted to divert the attention of the people to the political and economic machinations by the West in the region, which is not completely misconstrued, but the main point is that they wanted to save face from all the domestic failures of their governments.
In effect, the people were (and still are) made to believe that the Palestinian struggle, which the West had a massive role in bringing about, is the struggle of every Arab, more important than their socio-economic conditions. I beg to differ from the polemic argument of Abdallah that the whole root of the Arab disapproval of the Western culture and economic advancement lies in the Arab people themselves. They are but victims, as always, however this time by their own leaders.
I also believe that the Arab people do not need to "ride the same wagon" so that they would experience the same prosperity that many of the Western nations have. I agree with Raymond that the Arabs are very rich culturally, intellectually, and maybe, petroleum-wise as well; so there is no reason for them to be slaves of Arab tyrants and forever be victims of modern history.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
Raymond M. Kristiansen
Joined: Mar 1, 2002
Posts: 132 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Chatterbox
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 34
Country: Denmark
Province/State: Roskilde
City: Roskilde
|
Re: Why do Arabs hate the West?
August 13, 2003 - 11:34 AM
|
|
Firstly, thank you for sharing this with us Michael. I found the article most interesting, and I will surely be following the www.memri.org from now on.
Zuheir Abdallah points out some very central issues in his article. For those of us who know some about medieval history, we know the importance Arab scholars and scientists held in those times. We acknowledge how the Arabs actually helped "save" large portions of the European literature and philosophy (we would not have many Aristotle books if it were not for Arabic versions who were translated back to Greek and Latin in the late middle ages). Averroes, an Arab, is recognised as "the commentator" on Aristotle's Poetics.
Those of you who have read Idries Shah's "The Sufis" will further realise how Arab culture has influenced Europe and ultimately the rest of the world.
Now what happened? How come the Arab world today is seen as awkward, backward and out-dated by many? How come Arabs today are, wrongly I personally think, seen as extremists and religious fanatics?
Zuheir Abdallah points to 1948 as being a crucial year in the History of the Arabic Regression. Why this year (and the Palestinian Nakba) is so crucial I have yet to investigate, but I do agree to some extent that "Arabs Reject Western Inventions, Only to Embrace them Later".
However, we must not over-simplify the issue here. The cultural and intellectual life in the Arab world is still very much alive - but, and this is the point - very often living under strained conditions. Consider the theatre scene in Baghdad, which is now blooming again slowly after the ousting of Saddam Hussein and the Baath party. The amount of discussion and thinking going on in these countries is staggering - but, for different reasons, in many countries we have regimes who are able to suppress these voices.
It is absolutely crucial that Bush et al do not manage to alienate and radicalize the Arab population more. We need to talk more together, communicate, and together work for a better World.
Again, thank you for sharing this article with us! 
dltq / Raymond
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
Sunny Yeung
Joined: Aug 5, 2003
Posts: 36 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Talkative
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 25
Country: United States
Province/State: Texas
City: Sugar Land
|
Re: Why do Arabs hate the West?
August 13, 2003 - 12:14 PM
|
|
Thanks for sharing... the reasons listed in the article were similar to what I thought as to why the Arabs hated the West, only more in-depth.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
Raymond M. Kristiansen
Joined: Mar 1, 2002
Posts: 132 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Chatterbox
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 34
Country: Denmark
Province/State: Roskilde
City: Roskilde
|
actually
August 13, 2003 - 12:39 PM
|
|
Actually, upon further thinking about the issue, I think it less fruitful or constructive to focus on the hate involved in these issues. It is like asking ourselves: "How many more US citizens hate Muslims after 9/11?"
We must work towards a spirit of honest communication, we must rejoice in our differences of opinion ("I may not agree
with your ideas, but I will fight to the death for your right to express them" , and we must remember that our real enemy is
fear.
distrust.
oppression.
Btw, Michael Cartier, you mentioned receiving articles from think tanks around the world. If more of these articles are publicly available on the Net, could you please provide with some links to other online resources you personally find interesting or useful? Of course, this question goes to others on TIG as well
Myself, I often follow these online sources:
www.globalsecurity.org
www.warblogging.com - critical to US invasion of Iraq, but thoughtful and balanced and well researched in my opinion.
... will add more when I think of them.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
asdf
Joined: Apr 4, 2003
Posts: 222 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Chatterbox
User is
Offline
Country: Israel
Province/State: Yerushalayim
|
Re: Why do Arabs hate the West?
August 13, 2003 - 12:43 PM
|
|
I'm wary whenever I read anything which generalizes or appears to about an entire peoples. "Arabs" "hating" the "west". I honestly hope that readers don't take too much from this.
From my limited perspective, this "hatred" as we call it is better attributed to foreign intervention based upon obvious self-serving policy coupled with the distorted world view and perspective of certain leaders in power.
Arabs define a large group of people, and to attribute any discontent towards our western civilization based solely on personal or societal flaws alone, seems much less than satisfying, in my opinion.
There is certain truth to what's written, I believe, but there is greater truth revealed in approaching the issue from the fundamental standpoint that we are all peoples and none of us is inherently more sophisticated than any other, or over-simplifying the issue.
It would be amusing to see a reverse report presupposing why Christian westerners prejudge arab society. I belive our collective ignorance, both of arab society and our contributions to developing resentment towards our own society, would stand out like a sore thumb.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
manuel
Joined: Nov 24, 2003
Posts: 1 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Tongue-tied
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 40
Country: United States
Province/State: Virginia
City: Richmond
|
fear and loathing in America
November 24, 2003 - 08:20 AM
|
|
Yes of course there are many extremist arabs who hate Americans to the point where they would love to just drive a nice car straight into a mall or something. But you know what? there are also plenty of Americans who would love to take control of some nukes and just go atomic against anyone who even thinks bad thoughts against American Supremacy. My goodness.
The question one has to ask oneself is this: how represenative are they of the overall public attitude? And, how much of a harbinger are such ignorant folks indicative of overall trends in public opinions?
A nation should not be judged based on the most retarded amongst them.
....errrr..perhaps they should.
I once read in Harpers that perhaps America and Americans should be more willing to let go of their perceived and actual number 1 position militarily and economically. Damn, it's hard to be the king on the hill when so many is trying to take the place. I say, let's just step down, throw the crown away, and be more humble. Its less stressful and the world may love us more. Besides, that way, we can be the one complaining and not have to be the world's policeman/banker.
Yup.
-jedi
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
chinaman
Joined: Nov 24, 2003
Posts: 1 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Tongue-tied
User is
Offline
Country: China
|
america is the best
November 24, 2003 - 11:40 AM
|
|
This post was editted by Susheela. Racism will not be tolerated.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
Layusa Isa-Odidi
Joined: Nov 26, 2003
Posts: 10 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Soft-spoken
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Female, 25
Country: United States
Province/State: Massachusetts
City: Boston
|
Re: Why do Arabs hate the West?
November 28, 2003 - 11:26 AM
|
|
i'm not arabic, but what i have to say is of relevance
i don't hate the west...now when i say the west, i tend to mean the u.s., while i'm aware that canada isn't a saint or anything, most of what i've been exposed to is related to the u.s, as i was saying, i don't hate the west, i'm simply wary of any nation that has secretly invaded countries, and that has carried out open invasions against the wishes of the united nations, no matter how necessary they thought it was to find saddam hussein's "weapons of mass distruction"
now this opinion isn't completely unfounded. i'm not speaknig out of hatred. i recently watched a film in spanish class called "panama deception", don't check it out if you're not ready to have crystalline impressions of the u.s. army shattered. it basically documented the events leading to and following the american panama invasion. i have to say, i was disgusted the way that the americans stowed away in panama during the night and started bombing innocent people in order to clear a path to their president, noriega, whom the american government had actually been supporting fewer that ten years prior to the invasion. what made it even worse was the complete disregard of life and the fact that thousands of bodies of panama citizens were buried by american soldiers in huge holes outside of the cities in order to hide all the bloodshed. to this day, bodies are being uncovered, and many people are still missing relatives and friends.
well there's my angry rant. it may not be the reason why "arabs" supposedly hate "the west", but it's my reason for not trusting them
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
James Roberts
Joined: Jan 6, 2004
Posts: 1 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Tongue-tied
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 26
Country: United States
Province/State: Wisconsin
City: Stevens Point
|
Why the Arabs hate the West!
January 6, 2004 - 02:04 AM
|
|
Mostly because we help Israel, which we should always do! The second the USA stops supporting Israel, we are goners (because our own problems would sink us if we didn't benefit God's future plan in Israel, because of the Jews). The Arabs hate the Jews because the father of the Arab race, Ishmael (and his mother Hagar) were kicked out of Palestine when the half-brother was born, Isaac (who then received all the blessings of the 1st born, including perpetual ownership of Israel, land, by the Jews) This is a family fight, where Israel's friend is the Arab's enemy! Love in the Middle East is obviously absent in this fight between half-brothers, a fight over dead ancestors, robbing the life from the area's current inhabitants. Former Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, said that "as long as the Arabs hate the Jews more than they love their own children, there will never be peace in the Middle East". Since this is a "family crisis" over ALL these years, there must be a "family solution" to remedy the tragedy; as long as national, international, ethnic, social, religious, or cultural solutions are tried, the shallowness of the attempts will never reach down to the root of the problem...and as any good gardener will tell you, the roots must be healthy for any "health" above ground!
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
Luke Lieberman
Joined: Feb 13, 2003
Posts: 3007 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Blabbermouth
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 33
Country: United States
Province/State: California
|
Re: Why do Arabs hate the West?
January 6, 2004 - 10:31 AM
|
|
I think much of the angst is humiliation - this is a proud culture - formally the greatest in the world. Europeans used to be mindless babarians in the eyes of educated Islam. Then all of a sudden Europe went through artistic, political, and scientific revolutions.
The conservative theocracy of the muslim countries held them back during the 17th century - the present. Now the formally powerful culture has been occupied numerous times by western powers and at this point requires hand outs, cannot for the life of them outfight a Jewish state (formerly second class citizens - now ruling Jerusalem) and with the US just knocking over Baghdad and even the capture of Saddam Hussien - sure he was a hated leader - but he was their hated leader - it is humiliating for the US to come in a clean your house.
I think their glory days are in decline, and they resent the US for being the new world power.
that is perhapes on a subconscious level - on the surface there are numerous policies the west imposes on the area which benefit us more than they benefit the people living in those countries.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
majeedullah qarar
Joined: Nov 7, 2003
Posts: 28 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Talkative
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 30
Country: Afghanistan
Province/State: Ghazni
City: Andar
|
Re: Why do Arabs hate the West?
January 6, 2004 - 11:39 AM
|
|
Please my friend,
don't mix Islam with Arabic fascism, they are both in opposite of each other, Islam reject fascism and the real Muslim rulers were never fascists, but what about Islam, all we know that today’s Arabs are not loyal to the Islam and it’s orders, they have fascist governments and ruling systems, they have communist ruler, they have nationalist rulers, but they never had governments ruling with Islamic law, so no one can say that Islam did nothing for Arabs,
this is about now, but about the past, we all know that Arabs were simple and backward nomads living in drought desert, Islam made them the rulers of the quarter part world,
, Islam enlightened their minds and hearts and following the orders and principles of Islam they established the Arab civilization, and they gave samples for the humanity they gave simples of equality, morality, unity, brotherhood and peacefulness , and if the Arabs return to Islam, Islam still have the capacity to solve their problem, they don’t have to follow the west, because they have a rich culture and history, the problem is in Arabs, not in their religion, nor do their faith drag them to the past, the problem is that they follow only a part of Islam, while Islam is a complete system of live, Islam covers all parts of the life, the financial, the political, the cultural , the social , the moral, the family system, and relations, in short, it was not Islam that caused their backwardness nor do they implement the Islam in their life.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
Nick Moraitis
Joined: Nov 18, 2000
Posts: 34 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Talkative
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 29
Country: Australia
Province/State: New South Wales
City: Sydney
|
Re: Why do Arabs hate the West?
January 7, 2004 - 02:28 AM
|
|
Generalizing is not helpful here. To date, while I have met many people from the Arab region, I have never met an Arab person who 'hates' the west. But I don't want to generalize and say that means there are none that do!
In my view, hate rarely comes about simply because someone else has something you don't have. I don't hate my friend because he has a Mercedes and I can't afford a car at all. I don't hate . Hate is a very strong word. No, in my experience what is required for "hate", is not just inequity but also a feeling of it being unfair or criminal. I mean, I'd hate my friend if he stole MY Mercedes and didn't give it back and drove it around my house in circles, taunting me. Then you'd perhaps see hate!
In general, I think you'll find that much of the reason why many people in the Arab world have a negative impression of "the West" (and I would tend to agree with them) is because the West has consistently bullied them, bossed them around, carved them up into different arbitrary countries, stabbed them in the back, stolen their property, and generally acted as it if didn't even need to care about their wishes, almost as if they weren't people at all.
I just read an excellent book over New Year called "Paris 1919" by Margaret Macmillan, Provost of Trinity College and Professor of History at the University of Toronto. See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375760520/. The book tells the story of the Paris Peace Conference held at the immediate end of World War 1, when western powers France, Britain and the United States rearranged (or tried to rearrange) the world to both (officially) "make peace" and (unofficially) look after their own national interest, including in the breakup of the Ottoman Empire (today's Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Israel etc). It is quite extraordinary to read about their efforts to acquire Middle East oil, build puppet states, increase their empires, and make sure their trade routes and markets were open and protected. It's as if the people who LIVE in these countries don't even exist or their concerns count.
In general, we are only ever going to have less 'hate' if those with political and military power and wealth pay more attention to both the lessons of history & the concerns of those who will feel the impact of their actions.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
Haseeb
Joined: Apr 21, 2003
Posts: 159 (view all)
Poster Rank:
Chatterbox
User is
Offline
Gender & Age: Male, 33
Country: Afghanistan
Province/State: Kabol
City: Kabul
|
They are adding to it!
January 7, 2004 - 02:36 AM
|
|
I am very concerned by the growing sense of hatered against the west and the US in particullar in the middle-east and arab world.
I personaly believe that this hatred is growing because every time there is a reason for hating the West and US in the Arab world , the west and the US in particullar doesnt bother to eleminate that reason yet they add to it and fuel the furry.
Helping Israel in the conflict with the Palestianians was already a very big reason for the Arabs to hate US because of , yet the US invaded Iraq and gave them yet another reason for doing so.
Alarming it is that , every one is pointing fingers and highlighting the hatered against the US , yet there can be seen very less action to try and reduce this grwoing sense of hatered and almost no action to address it's reasons.
|
|
back to top |
link to this post
|
|
|
Display posts from:
|
|
Home
Community
