by Saskia Glas and Niels Spierings
In reaction to the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11, public debates droned an ongoing refrain of ‘why do they hate us?’. Consequently, although obviously not every Arab person who dislikes America commits or even supports terrorist attacks, September 11 brought about a surge in scholarly attention to the causes of anti-Americanism.
Generally, it is argued that we should look for the cause in American interventionism. American foreign policies would (be perceived to) harm Arab countries and their citizens, engendering a widespread dislike of not only particular American policies but also the United States more generally. At the same time, it is said that Arab people direct their hate solely towards America, the country and its policy, not towards Americans, the ordinary citizens. Yet, few works have empirically investigated the degree and causes of such societal anti-Americanism, as the focus generally is on a dislike of the United States as a political entity.
They Hate Americans Too
In our recently published Political Studies paper, we study the causes of both political and societal anti-Americanism, using survey data of over 58,000 Arab citizens in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) from the PEW Global Attitudes Project (GAP) and the Arab Barometer (AB). First of all, and contrary to scholarly consensus, we find that both political and societal anti-Americanism are quite widespread in the Arab region (see Figure 1 below). Although Arab people in general have an unfavourable position towards America, they are pretty wary of American people too. What is more, political and societal anti-Americanism seem to be strongly related – too strongly to consider them disconnected opinions that have completely separate causes.
Driving Away Potential Allies
Our analyses also show that unfavourable attitudes towards America and Americans have similar causes. American interventions – be they troop deployment, military aid, or economic investments – help to explain why publics are not only more politically but also more societally anti-American. This paints a two-sided picture. Anti-Americanism is partly caused by the actions undertaken by the US government. However, it is not just ‘the United States’ that is held responsible for the interventions; ordinary Americans are blamed for these actions as well. This suggests that there is an understanding of the democratic responsibility the American populace holds for their government’s actions.
Of course, not all Arab citizens hold the same views or react similarly to American interventions. This brings us to an especially bitter conclusion from the results – American interventionism most strongly squelches pockets of good will. When the US intervenes, it spawns anti-Americanism particularly among those groups poised to be more favourable to America(ns). For instance, we found that non-Muslims are on average rather favourable towards America(ns) compared to Muslim citizens. But, as illustrated in Figure 2 below, the more the US intervenes in a country the smaller this ‘Muslim gap’ in anti-Americanism becomes.
In other words, ‘they’ do not hate us. This example once more stresses that citizens across the Arab region are neither all the same, nor united in their hatred of America(ns). Pockets of good will can be found across the region. However, when the US intervenes, it not only strengthens the resolve of its enemies; it actually drives potential allies away.
Reconsidering Foreign Policy
The simple conclusion of our study could be that Arab citizens detest America, and there is nothing the US can do about that. But that conclusion simplifies the complexities that those designing and assessing foreign policies would be wise to consider: the interrelatedness of societal and political anti-Americanism and their causes. For instance, thinking that interventions only fuel political anti-Americanism is dangerously naïve. US interventions decrease empathy with US citizens, while this empathy with Americans might be an important barrier against (not judging) terrorist attacks. To keep pockets of good will, and perhaps even strengthen alliances, the US should think twice about repeating the same interventionist policies in the region.
These comments are old but I just got done watching one day in amarica about what happened on 9/11 it’s disgusting!! Why are these people even allowed over here we all know they are here to exploit amarica take our money then send it to whatever country they are from where our money is worth more then use that money to fund stuff like 9/11. I say send them all back!! If you hate us so much then leave and don’t come back!
Religion, as a motive for hatred and violence, is not mentioned in this article. Sunni and Shiite muslims hate & kill for religious reasons.Jews and Muslims hate each others for religious reasons. If this is true, how can WE resolve this issue without issues of religion being addressed? Can “religion” be the sole purpose of hatred and killing?
Hi! As a Shi’ite Muslim(well, Shi’ite father, Sunni mother) living in the Middle East, I can say that most of the anti-American sentiment (which I admit I share) I’ve encountered is completely irreligious in its foundations. While my experiences are certainly anecdotal, Robert Pape’s of the University of Chicago published a book on suicide terrorism, which states, and I quote, “little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions… Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland.” I invite you to first read Pape’s book on the topic, and secondly toconsider that the reason religion isn’t mentioned here is because it is only a minor factor in the anti-Americanism you see today. While many of the perpetrators of violence are religious, their goals and intentions are often secular and strictly political in nature. I certainly know more people who dislike America because of their backing of Israel and their invasions of Iraq than any religious reason.
On the topic, I should also note that, theologically speaking, Muslims and Jews agree on quite a lot. Certainly more than Christians and Jews or Christians and Muslims do. To categorize the conflict as “Muslims vs. Jews” and not “Israelis vs Palestinians” is misleading, as there isn’t really any inherent religious tension between the two, at least, not more than between any other two religious sects in the world- to the contrary in fact, much of what applies in Judaism also applies in Islam, and vice versa. Consider, for instance, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on The Influence of Islamic Thought on Maimonides.
Steven is correct. Stop waving the flag and look at it in third person for a moment. What the US govt is doing is an act of terrorism on a very large scale, they don’t declare war they simply send in “goons” to push around the locals because they can. If say some other country sent troops to your house, kicked in your door and held your family at gunpoint while searching for suspects based on “you’re the same religion and colour as them, you might be hiding something”. I think you’d be anti whoever that group was.
I speak from experience in a way. I shared a house with an immigrant from an African nation and one day I was in their bedroom and noticed a photograph on their dresser and asked about it. The response was that is my father and uncle at our family home, with them was Ronald Reagan the then US president. He was there to promise the family if they would lead a rebellion the americans would back them, so they did. The americans backed out, my housemate was the only survivor of the family. There are a lot of reasons many of us hate american terrorists in uniform.
You had the cold war, it gave your govt reason to have a huge army which actually kept the economy afloat. Then that ended rather suddenly and you got “the war on drugs” but face it, that didn’t require much budget and the economy needed the boost from military spending so suddenly you had 9/11 and decades now of this demand for a huge military but with no reason behind it other then a few locals getting upset at intruders and trying to drive them out by whatever means necessary. Yes we hate your country for reasons but ones some like samantha refuse to see anything but the red white and blue blindfold they were given at birth.
Hello,
Reagan was once in NA, and was to support a rebellion in some region out there !! I am afraid you might have taken the NA immigrant’s story, could be the ME. Lebanon in particular and the Israeli invasion to Lebanon and his backing to and pushing the Kurd to initiate a mutiny against Iraq of tyrant autocratic Saddam whom the west, America of Reagan in particular, supported and used to provide with high tech weaponry and ammo during his war with Islamic Iran at its early years. Ironically Reagan was enough keen on his loyalty to his culture and foundation to give gases to his chum ! later the gases were used to revolting Kurd who had innocently bought promises of back from the dweller of the WH then.
Reagan got no time to make preemptive wars in person on ground, nor did, out of blue, prop any fair or moral cause as he flew up with his fertile imagination to braze for what was known as Star Wars, the guy then was recycling his infantile era.
Really I am a american and you guys think that we hate other people well guess what. We don´t in fact we love other people stop saying how bad we are and what about you come over here and see how we really are before you say something.
Samantha, you don’t even know basic English grammar rules and the message that you say is not helpful, in fact, it is somewhat threatening. As an American myself, I am honestly concerned on how you don’t see why many Middle-Eastern countries hate us, I mean, come on. Americans have done countless preemptive strikes on the Middle-East that go unreported unless it is with the local media. It’s not that they hate us, but it is that we give them reasoning to fear us. It doesn’t help anyone that our country is so paranoid, just like it doesn’t help anyone that we are making these countries paranoid as well. If we help each other out, then we get relations with places like Israel. We have been allies with Israel since the early 1990’s and have done almost nothing that gives them reason to fear us. Hope this helps, and remember, as much as we try to ignore it, every government tries to hide information and feeds their citizens propaganda, even our own.
If America just behaves like any other American country. Just yesterday it was the only country that supported discrimination and apartheid policies in SA. It has been supporting the occupation of the holy lands for ages now. The golden era of America, I think, may be in future when it relegates down for other powers such as China to go up to be number 1. This number one seemingly is always correlated with hegemony seeking and control-craving.