America needs to know its enemies – and its friends

A lack of understanding by Americans of the Arab and Muslim world is partly the cause of the superpower's poor decisions when it comes to the Middle East, James Zogby writes.

Americans need to understand Muslims before they head off into another war based on half-baked notions about the people they will be fighting. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP)

With the US engaged in air strikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria and with voices calling for deeper engagement in both conflict zones, the American public is being bombarded with commentary and analysis about ISIL, Syria, Iraq – and Muslims. Unfortunately, too much of it is a stringing together of clichés. More disturbing is the extent to which this crisis has provoked another round of uninformed conversation about Arabs and Islam, fuelling fear and hatred of Arab and Muslim Americans.

While a few knowledgeable individuals have been invited to make media appearances, all too often the networks have dragged out a cast of “regulars” – former military officers, current or former elected officials and other paid “talking heads”. They may know a few choice Arabic words and can use them in a sentence, but they are not experts. I’m sorry to sound elitist, but some guy who made a fortune in real estate and happened to be elected to Congress is not, in my book, qualified to speak about countries he’s never visited or cultures he’s never studied.

Instead of elevating the discourse, these “experts” dumb it down. And instead of making people aware of the enormous complexities involved in these conflict zones, they reduce them to simple clichés.

America has been down this road before in the Middle East, with tragic results, and I fear it may be heading there again. In the past four decades, the US has been deeply involved across the Middle East. But, because Americans know so little about Middle Eastern people, culture and history, that involvement has too-often spelt disaster.

American popular culture has distorted perceptions of the Middle East and its peoples, reducing them to crude, one-dimensional, negative stereotypes. The political culture has exploited those stereotypes and elevated them to political truths.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, there was a flurry of commentary about Islam and the Arab world. Questions were asked: “Why do they hate us?” and “What’s wrong with the Arab world?” Instead of informing the American public, the media and politicians fell back on the stereotypes. The answers the commentators provided to the above questions paid no attention to history or were just plain uninformed.

To the first question, they responded: “They hate us because they hate our values and are envious of our success.” “They hate us because they have been taught to hate us.” And to the second: “They have failed because their religion is fundamentally backward.” Or: “They have failed because their culture is inherently flawed.” Instead of helping to create understanding, they reinforced stereotypes. And instead of shattering myths so Americans could bridge the chasm that separated the West from the Arab and Muslim peoples, they accented fears and contributed to deepening the divide. Fear and sensationalism might have been a convenient way to boost ratings or an easy way to scare up votes, but real damage was done.

America’s political leadership, with most media outlets cheering them on, committed hundreds of thousands of men and women to fight two failed wars. The Bush administration invaded Afghanistan and Iraq without any real understanding of their history or people.

Almost 10 years after September 11, Zogby International conducted a poll of US public opinion. What we found was frightening: 37 per cent of Americans still couldn’t find Iraq on a map; less than a quarter knew that Syria bordered Iraq; and two-thirds thought Iran was an Arab country. Almost half believed that “most Muslims are religious fanatics”, and almost three-quarters believed that “Arabs hated our values”.

I have spent my adult life attempting to build bridges between East and West, and I have worked with my brother, John, to measure Arab and American public opinion – and I found all of this terribly frustrating.

Our polling in the Arab world shows that the overwhelming majority of Arabs love American values, culture, people and products, as well as the advances Americans have made in science and technology. What they don’t like is those US policies that so negatively affect their lives. Far from being fanatics, Arabs tell us that what they value most are their families and their work. They watch television to be entertained, and their mosque attendance rates are roughly the same as church attendance rates in the US. But that’s not what comes through over the American airwaves or in political discourse.

When president Barack Obama travelled to Egypt in 2009, he was making an effort to change and elevate the discussion, both in the Middle East and the US. He began: “We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world – tensions rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate ... tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.”

He continued appealing to both sides not to let the relationship be defined by differences, to reject negative stereotypes, and to end “the cycle of suspicion and discord”.

I believe that Mr Obama’s Cairo speech remains relevant today. What is unfolding in Syria and Iraq is clearly a danger that must be addressed. But before more Americans head off into another war based on half-baked notions about the people they will be fighting, they need to know a great deal more about the challenges involved.

Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute

On Twitter: @aaiusa