'Why Do They Hate Us?'

[MsMagnificent]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/20/AR2007072001806.html

By Mohsin Hamid
Sunday, July 22, 2007; Page B01

LONDON Recently, I found myself in Dallas, a place I'd never been before. As a Muslim writer, I felt about going there pretty much the way an American writer might have felt about heading to the tribal areas of Pakistan: nervous, with the distinct suspicion that the locals carried guns and weren't too fond of folks who look like me.

So I was surprised by the extraordinary hospitality I encountered on my trip. And I still remember the politeness with which one elderly gentleman addressed me in a bookshop. He held a copy of my latest novel, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist," and examined the face on its cover, comparing it to mine. Then he said, nodding once as if to dip the brim of an imaginary hat: "So tell me, sir. Why do they hate us?"

That stopped me cold. I've spent almost half my life in the United States, arriving from Lahore, Pakistan, with my parents in 1974 when I was 3 after my father was accepted to a PhD program at Stanford. I learned to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" years before I could sing the Pakistani national anthem, played baseball before I could play cricket and wrote in English before I could write in Urdu. My earliest memories are of watching "Star Trek" and "MASH" while my parents barbecued chicken in the back yard. I was an American kid, through and through. Part of me still is.

<snip>

But there is another major reason for anti-Americanism: the accreted residue of many years of U.S. foreign policies. These policies are unknown to most Americans. They form only minor footnotes in U.S. history. But they are the chapter titles of the histories of other countries, where they have had enormous consequences. America's strength has made it a sort of Gulliver in world affairs: By wiggling its toes it can, often inadvertently, break the arm of a Lilliputian.



***Fantastic piece, informative, MUCH more there worth reading.
...and it doesn't even mention Israel or Palestine!

One thing, if I may, I must mention:
If racist, bigoted, downright-evil comments turn you off; I'd avoid reading the comments
at least within these first 2 pages ( this must have just been put up, and there are less than 2 pages of comments on it so far)
3/4's or more of the comments are as bad as the ones on AOL.

And if you're not one of those who have been so unfortunate to read AOL comments, lemme tell ya -- they are outstandingly offensive! :puke:


On the positive side, if you can stomach that kind of crap, it would be a very good thing for us to post some comments there that show that not all Americans (who at least read this editorial) are brown-shirted, intolerant a$$holes!

[tom_paine]

1. K & R

[some guy]

2. Very good essay.

I will admit that I do, often, overlook the things which are good about the US. Some times those things seem more myth than reality to me; but it does often show up in day-to-day personal interactions with other people.