Anti-Americanism has
emerged as a term that, like "fascism" and
"communism" in George Orwell's lexicon, has little
meaning beyond "something not desirable". However
it is defined, anti-Americanism has clearly
mushroomed over the past six years, as charted in
a number of polls. This phenomenon is, everyone
agrees, intimately tied to the exercise of US
power and
perceptions around the world
of US actions.
To counter this
anti-Americanism, the US government has embarked
on a largely clumsy effort at public diplomacy to
convince the world of the benignity of US aims and
the universality of US values. Structured like an
advertising campaign, this effort has failed to
sell the product. Even those who hitherto
expressed brand loyalty toward the United States,
such as the denizens of "old Europe". have had
second thoughts. Neither US global policy nor the
public diplomacy designed to mitigate its more
noxious effects has arrested the steady decline in
US popularity in the world.
It's not too
late to rescue public diplomacy. To do so,
however, requires a fundamentally different
approach. This new strategy must rely more on the
ear than the mouth, more on "second track" than on
official diplomacy, and more on civic engagement
than on the actions of government representatives.
Axis of anti-Americanism In
September, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Iran's Mahmud
Ahmadinejad, and Sudan's Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir
all earned headlines for their harsh and very
personal commentary at the United Nations about
all things American. El Presidente Bush became El
Diablo, head of the imperialist empire that
bullies sovereign states.
Chavez and
Ahmadinejad claim to represent the people's will
by calling out the ueber-sovereign George W
Bush who terrorizes in his declared war on terror.
The "axis of evil" of President Bush's 2002 State
of the Union address has been replaced by a more
expansive axis of anti-Americanism. This
anti-Americanism is the glue that holds together
all the Third World naysayers who have long
opposed what the United States represents
culturally, militarily and economically.
This new axis running through the global
South has gained legitimacy thanks to a steep
decline in US credibility in the world. The Pew
Global Attitudes Project, which has been tracking
global public opinion since 2001, indicates that
America's image in the world remains consistently
negative, particularly as a result of the war in
Iraq. The first widely publicized survey, released
in December 2002, showed that despite an
outpouring of global sympathy after September 11,
2001, the world's superpower fared poorly in image
and reputation.
The majority in most
countries viewed "US policies as contributing to
the growing gap between rich and poor nations and
believe the United States does not do the right
amount to solve global problems". Those problems
included the spread of AIDS and other infectious
diseases, followed by fear of religious and ethnic
violence, and nuclear-weapons proliferation. On
the precipice of the Iraq war, US leaders should
have paid attention to the finding that "the war
on terrorism is opposed by majorities in nearly
every predominantly Muslim country surveyed".
When asked whether he was concerned that
his message - that the "war on terrorism" was not
a war on Islam - suffered in translation, Bush
responded that he hadn't seen the Pew report but
that he remained "skeptical" about polls. "I don't
run my administration based upon polls and focus
groups," Bush said. "I understand the propaganda
machines are cranked up in the international
community that paints our country in a bad light.
We'll do everything we can to remind people that
we've never been a nation of conquerors; we're a
nation of liberators."
The most recent Pew
poll, from last June, indicates that while
anti-Americanism waned somewhat in 2005 because of
US aid relief efforts after the Asian tsunami, the
US-led "war on terror" remained a wedge issue not
only in the Muslim-majority countries but also
among US allies such as Japan. Majority support
for the "war on terror" exists in just two
countries: Russia and India. Majority publics in
10 of the 14 countries surveyed said that the Iraq
war was responsible for making the world a more
dangerous place. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have
received widespread public attention outside the
United States, particularly in Western Europe and
Japan. Both serve as indicators of America's
declining commitment to the rule of law and human
rights, making it all the more difficult for the
US to present itself as the great liberator in
Iraq against all those "propaganda machines".
When
the United States abdicates its responsibility to
uphold the rule of law, human rights and a free
press, then others stand ready to challenge and
take up the charge to lead. This is true even if
the new leadership, still in the mode of Third
World dictatorships, is just as oppressive and
violating of people's rights.
Defining anti-Americanism Barry and
Judith Colp Rubin, authors of Hating America: A
History, define anti-Americanism as systemic
antagonism, exaggeration of America's shortcomings
for political ends, or mischaracterizations of US
society, policies or goals as ridiculous
