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The not so ugly
Americans
By Bill Guerin
JAKARTA - The characterization of the Ugly
American, from the 1958 international best-selling
novel of the same name, which has stuck to
Americans ever since the book's release, may be
put to rest in Indonesia's tsunami-devastated Aceh
province, from where Islam spread across the
archipelago.
More than 16,000 kilometers
from Washington, US military crews are flying more
than 100 helicopter sorties a day, ferrying food,
water and medicine to mostly Muslim victims in the
province from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham
Lincoln.
This is only one of many ironies
that have sprung up in the aftermath of the killer
waves that struck the island on December 26. The
command ship is anchored a 10-minute helicopter
flight away from Aceh, in the adjacent Malacca
Strait, the 900-kilometer waterway separating the
Malay Peninsula from Singapore and Indonesia that
carries half the world's oil.
Last April
the Pentagon was pressing Indonesia and Malaysia
to agree to allow US marines and Special Forces to
patrol the narrow but vital channel. The two
nations strenuously objected, with Malaysian
Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak claiming that US
counter-terrorism forces in the region would fuel
Islamic fanaticism. Indonesia's chief
foreign-affairs spokesman, Marty Natalegawa, then
warned, "You cannot arm yourselves to the teeth
and expect that will lead of itself to a sense of
security. You have to work with the region to
share in a sense of security."
But in
Aceh, Americans now have been welcomed with
unstinting gratitude, notwithstanding tacit
admissions by the United States that the aid is
part and parcel of its "war on terror". Last week
Natalegawa said, "The very prompt and substantial
US response ... has not only further confirmed
what we knew all along in terms of the robust and
the very close relationship between the two
countries, but has also further enhanced the
relationship."
The positive reaction to
the US aid program is even encouraging the idea
espoused by the United States' 34th president,
Dwight D Eisenhower, that America's foreign aid
could be just as important in fighting "wars" as
its military might. While communist imperialism
was the terror in Eisenhower's day, the
devastating September 11, 2001, attacks on the US
saw terrorism become the new enemy that shaped
America's foreign policy.
"Why do they
hate us?" President George W Bush asked in his
speech to Congress two weeks after September 11.
He was referring to the 19 men who hijacked four
US passenger jets and flew them into the World
Trade Center towers on suicide missions that left
nearly 3,000 dead. All the men were from the
Middle East and most were later identified as
Muslims.
The United States' ensuing
campaign against terrorism, its staunch support of
Israel, the offensive in Afghanistan and the
invasion and occupation of Iraq have been widely
interpreted elsewhere as anti-Islam. Days before
US B-52s dropped bombs in Afghanistan, Indonesian
sociologist and talk-show host Imam Budi Prasodjo
said, "Now America is ready with its airplanes to
bomb this poor nation, and most people here don't
like arrogance. You are a superpower, you are a
military superpower, and you can do whatever you
want. People don't like that, and this is
dangerous."
The Ugly American
encouraged Eisenhower to reconsider the success of
international aid efforts by the US, and in his
1958 State of the Union Address he warned
Congress, "We could make no more tragic mistake
than merely to concentrate on military strength.
For if we did only this, the future would hold
nothing for the world but an 'Age of Terror'."
A poll late last year showed that only 15%
of Indonesians had a good word to say about the
United States. But ironically, with 113,306 of its
people now dead, Indonesia, the most populous of
the world's 50 or so Muslim countries, is more
than happy to see the Stars and Stripes fluttering
on its sovereign territory. Images of a weeping
man in Aceh crying out "Where is America?" were
beamed around the world earlier, along with
gut-wrenching images of bloated bodies floating in
pools of debris.
Choppered in to see the
scale of the disaster for himself, Secretary of
State Colin Powell might also have appreciated the
irony: the difference between his flying visits to
Baghdad and this latest was that this time he was
meeting US serviceman on the ground who were
committed to helping save Muslim lives, not
directly or indirectly involved in the taking of
such lives.
Powell suggested that the
influx of US aid could help remove discontent that
has fueled terrorism in the region. "We believe it
[US aid] is in the best interests of 'those
countries' and its in our best interests and dries
up these pools of dissatisfaction which might give
rise to terrorist activity." His comments are
similar in many ways to a promise made by
Eisenhower 45 years before: "I say once more, to
all peoples, that we will always go the extra mile
with anyone on Earth if it will bring us nearer a
genuine peace."
More than 700 Muslims,
about 500 of whom were women and children, died in
Fallujah, the "city of mosques", after an all-out
assault by US forces in November. But in Aceh,
which also has an enormous Muslim presence, the
expeditionary US force is going the last mile in
the noble cause of immediate humanitarian
assistance and support.
Softening
America's go-it-alone image is an uphill task in a
world that is fast losing its respect for
Washington. But the aim is to persuade Muslims,
not difficult-to-convince Europeans. After all,
the majority of the victims of the tsunami were
Muslims. According to Powell, "We'd be doing it
[providing aid] regardless of religion, but I
think it does give the Muslim world and the rest
of the world an opportunity to see American
generosity, American values in action."
A
barrage of criticism over Bush's decision to
remain on his Texas ranch for three days after the
catastrophe prompted the president to say, "The
greatest source of America's generosity is not our
government. It's the heart of the American
people."
After realizing that the
opportunity for a spontaneous, instantaneous and
magnificent US response from Day 1 had escaped
him, Bush quickly press-ganged former presidents
Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr into the worthy
cause of persuading Americans to part with their
money to help the distressed souls on the other
side of the world.
Face-to-face with
radicals
Yet the three presidents may face
a harder sell to their people than to the global
Muslim community if the buildup of home-grown
Indonesian radicals outstrips the deployment of US
troops on the ground in Aceh. With exquisite ill
timing, CNN aired a photograph of an Indonesian
man receiving a US aid package - while proudly
sporting an Osama bin Laden T-shirt.
But
there are more ominous sources of anathema to
Americans than T-shirts. The obsessively
anti-American Laskar Mujahidin, who are equally
obsessed with turning Indonesia into an Islamic
state by implementing Islamic law, or Sharia,
throughout the country, have set up camp at the
Blang Bintang military airport in the Aceh
capital, Banda Aceh.
Laskar Mujahidin is
the paramilitary wing of the hardline Indonesian
Mujahidin Council (MMI), which has been linked
several times to the regional terrorist group
Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), itself linked to al-Qaeda
and listed by the United Nations and the US State
Department as a terrorist organization. Its
alleged spiritual leader is Abu Bakar Ba'asyir,
who is on trial in Jakarta on charges that he
sanctioned the suicide truck-bombing of the JW
Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003 as well as the
2002 bombing on the resort island of Bali.
More than 200 Laskar Mujahidin members
have joined other aid organizations at four posts,
all within spitting distance of scores of other
volunteers, both local and international.
"Mujahidin" literally translates from the
original Arabic as "struggler", someone who
engages in jihad or "struggle", although it is now
mainly translated as "holy warrior". But leader
Salman Alfarizi, sitting beneath a home-made sign
that reads "Islamic Law Enforcement", told an
interviewer: "We are not here to fight, we've come
to help. We've got no problem with the foreigners
as long as they have no hidden agenda."
The chief of the Indonesian military's
information task force in Aceh, Colonel Ahmad
Yani, apparently agrees, as does Coordinating
Minister for Welfare Alwi Shihab. "I am not
concerned at all," said Shihab. "These are people
who have traveled a great distance in order to
help their fellow citizens in Aceh."
Whether the radicals have a hidden agenda
is another question. Paramilitaries of the Pemuda
Panca Marga (PPM), a Jakarta-based youth group,
are reported to be driving around Banda Aceh
chanting nationalist slogans.
Meanwhile,
Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, a leader of the radical
Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), was quoted as
saying, "We are very close friends with the
military and they have been assisting our efforts
to help the Acehnese people by bringing us on
their airplanes. I expect we will be here for a
very long time." The hardline Hizbut Tahrir,
thought to be behind most demonstrations against
US foreign policy in Indonesia, has even set up a
camp next door to the governor's mansion. Abdulla
Puteh, the current governor, is in jail in Jakarta
on corruption charges.
Assistant US
secretary of state James Kelly had a message for
the radical Islamic groups, issuing a statement on
Saturday that the deployment of troops to
Indonesia is purely on humanitarian grounds, with
no ulterior motive. Indonesian military spokesman
Major-General Syafrie Syamsuddin called a weekend
press conference to issue a denial to rumors that
the Americans would exploit their humanitarian
role in the crisis to establish a long-term
military presence in Indonesia. "They are merely
dealing with a humanitarian operation, not a
military one," Syamsuddin said.
On the
same day, US Pacific Command officials reported
that the US military had 12,633 soldiers, sailors,
airmen, marines and coast guardsmen providing
relief support. This number includes nearly 11,000
servicemen afloat aboard 19 navy ships and a
coast-guard cutter, and nearly 1,800 on the ground
in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Collectively, they have delivered more
than 1.8 million tonnes of relief supplies, more
than 61,000 liters of water, nearly 200,000
kilograms of food, and 1.35 million tonnes of
non-medical supplies.
Still ugly to
some
But for others, Americans are still
ugly. Jordanian columnist Aida al-Najjar wrote in
the daily ad-Dustour that America was exploiting
"the suffering of people" to try to improve its
image. The Swiss daily Tribune de Geneve was quick
to point out that America's initial allocation of
$15 million was less than it spends every minute
in its war in Iraq.
That war in is now
costing $4 billion a month, and Washington has so
far pledged only $350 million to help the dozen
countries hit by the giant waves. Still, it has
scored over oil-rich Persian Gulf states,
particularly Saudi Arabia, which have been accused
of doing far too little for its Muslim brothers in
Southeast Asia. Despite huge windfalls from
soaring oil prices, Riyadh, which has funded
terrorist groups to the tune of hundreds of
millions, gave only an initial $10 million -
though this was later trebled to $30 million.
Media criticism of the US is one thing,
but when US Republicans started to describe their
government's "core countries" initiative for
coordinating the world's biggest recovery
operation through a US-led "core group", along
with Japan, Australia and India, as a "second
coalition of the willing", alarm bells went off in
European capitals.
Although Asian,
European and US leaders agreed in Jakarta last
Thursday that the United Nations should take
control, this was not before the US initiative had
been condemned as yet another effort to
marginalize the UN through an Iraqi invasion-style
coalition where the US would call all the shots.
A new wave of understanding?
So
will the remote war-torn province of Aceh go down
in history not only as the worst-hit region of the
most dramatic natural disaster of modern times,
but also as the turning point for a new wave of
understanding between Islam and the West? Even
Samuel Huntington in his "clash of civilizations"
hypothesis emphasized the hope that the West and
Islam could find ways to co-exist peacefully. As
he wrote in his book, "In the final analysis ...
all civilizations will have to learn to tolerate
each other."
The title The Ugly
American is deliberately ironic, yet the
phrase is often invoked to embody America's
incompetent, heavy-handed foreign policy. Will US
aid efforts in a devastated region the UN calls
Indonesia's "ground zero" bring to an end the
widespread perceptions that the United States is
becoming aggressively insular, xenophobic and
strident toward the rest of the world?
Yes, thinks Arizona Republican Jeff Flake.
"I don't know how it could not" help the
relationship, said Flake, one of seven US senators
who were in Banda Aceh on Saturday to see the aid
effort for themselves. "I saw Mormon missionaries
and Muslims side by side unloading relief
supplies. It's a sight to behold. These things
will have a lasting impact."
American
military men and women providing disaster relief
in the Indian Ocean "are showing the courage and
compassion of our nation to the world", just as
they do "in so many other places", Bush said on
Friday during his weekly radio address.
US
concerns that Saudi Arabia, Iran and radical
groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah would throw
money at Indonesia to gain a bigger foothold
there, thus making the war on terror vastly more
difficult, were singularly unfounded. But
deploying highly visible US troops risks making
them sitting ducks for al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah
and other jihadi terrorist organizations.
"The [Indonesian] military commander has
ordered a high alert because there may be
infiltration from people who don't like to see the
presence of foreigners here," Coordinating
Minister for Welfare Shihab warned on Saturday.
"We call on our countrymen who still have
prejudices towards foreigners to avoid prompting
things which will only hurt the Acehnese."
Bill Guerin, a weekly Jakarta
correspondent for Asia Times Online since 2000,
has worked in Indonesia for 19 years in journalism
and editorial positions. He has been published by
the BBC on East Timor and specializes in
business/economic and political analysis in
Indonesia.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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