c. 2003 Religion News Service

(Professor Akbar S. Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies and professor of international relations at American University in Washington, D.C. His most recent book is “Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society,” published by Routledge.

(UNDATED) The National Press Club recently invited me to appear on a panel with the title “Why They Hate Us: The Rise of Anti-Americanism Around the World.”

The subject intrigued me and I began to research it. I was alarmed at what I found. After all, I am actively involved in promoting understanding between the United States and the Muslim world.

I believe the time has come for American writers, commentators and media people to follow the lead given by the NPC and to tackle the subject seriously. So I share here extracts from three articles by three very different but widely known people: Harold Pinter, the playwright; John Le Carre, the novelist; and Anjum Niaz, the journalist.

As it happens, the first is Jewish, the second Christian, and the third Muslim. The first two are male.

From Pinter’s honorary doctorate speech given at Turin University, Nov. 27, 2002:

“… to enter an infinitely more pervasive public nightmare _ the nightmare of American hysteria, ignorance, arrogance, stupidity and belligerence; the most powerful nation the world has ever known effectively waging war against the rest of the world. `If you are not with us, you are against us,’ President Bush has said. He has also said, `We will not allow the world’s worst weapons to remain in the hands of the world’s worst leaders.’ Quite right. Look in the mirror, chum. That’s you.

“The United States believes that the 3,000 in New York are the only deaths that count, the only deaths that matter. They are American deaths. Other deaths are unreal, abstract, of no consequence.

“The desperate plight of the Palestinian people, the central factor in world unrest, is hardly referred to. But what a misjudgment of the present and what a misreading of history this is _ the U.S. administration is now a bloodthirsty wild animal. Bombs are its only vocabulary. Many Americans, we know, are horrified by the posture of their government but seem to be helpless.”

From “The United States of America Has Gone Mad,” by le Carre in The (London) Times, Jan. 15, 2003:

“America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.

“The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant U.S. media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.

“To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won’t tell us is the truth about why we’re going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil, but oil, money and people’s lives. Saddam’s misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world.

“Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn’t, won’t. If Saddam didn’t have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart’s content. Other leaders do it every day _ think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt.

“What is at stake is America’s need to demonstrate its military power to all of us _ to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy.”

From “Lonely in America” by Niaz in Dawn Magazine, Karachi, Pakistan, Jan. 12, 2003:

“Darn, you’re a Pakistani! To top it, you’re a man, 40, without a green card. The combo can’t get any deadlier than this in today’s jingoistic climate. Who cares if you hold a valid work permit that makes you `legal.’ None will hear your cries when the neo-Nazi U.S. secret service _ a Gestapo clone _ come to get you.

“Gone gung-ho, the Bush bullies, under the USA Patriot Act, hunger for a free passage to haul in as many Muslims as they savagely can to swell up their concentration-like camps. And then to lead them, handcuffed and in monkey suits (jail garb) not to be gassed but to be kicked out of America.

“Heartbreaking stories of Pakistani immigrants continue to pour in. All would make for the great American novel. Except their reality gets lodged in the sternum and crushes it real bad. Welcome to the land of segregation, racial profiling and Muslim bashing!”

None of the above writers lives in Tora Bora. Indeed, the first two are known and respected in the United States and the third actually lives in New Jersey. These are natural allies. The question of anti-Americanism in the world, therefore, on the eve of a possible war with Iraq, is no longer an academic one. Americans and non-Americans alike need to discuss the issues around it so we can begin the process of global understanding and global healing.

DEA END AHMED