"Christianity is the world's most tolerant religion." These words surprised me, not only because of the certainty with which they were uttered, but because they came from the mouth of an Egyptian, Muslim intellectual.
The problem, according to Ahmad (his name has been changed), is that the Arab and Muslim world is confused. America, a "very Christian country" by all accounts, invokes the highest human values in its rhetoric yet corrupts these values through its actions. He described how a chasm between word and deed had formed, and for this reason, America has earned the kind of wrath that not even Great Britain, the world's most successful colonizing power, could muster. "Britain dropped the 'human rights' rhetoric after the beginning," he said with a wry smile. Apparently, what the world hates more than racism, oppression or even war, is hypocrisy.
The important question is, of course, to what extent is American policy hypocritical? Everyone has a personal answer to this question, contingent on political and cultural loyalties. However, the sheer number of people who see hypocrisy in our country's actions - the millions who take to the streets condemning our president as the "world's biggest terrorist," the thousands of writers who flood the media translating our "freedom and democracy" and "suffering and injustice" and the countless number of people who greet the very mention of their country's name in a speech by an American government official with foreboding - should be a cause for grave concern. Why is America singled out for this condemnation? After all, nearly every nation's government is guilty of outrageous hypocrisies; all of politics runs with lies, pretensions and corruption. Yet America's blemishes are blown up to global proportions. Why?
If we look back to the second half of the 20th century, we can see that America was a self-made hero, a real character that stood for people's highest hopes and aspirations. Even as late as the 1990s, wherever I was in the world, I could count on the fact that introducing myself as American would help me. Now, however, things are changing. Even in Poland, a country that has especially loved the United States for generations, America's image is coming under fire. A Pew research poll released in June 2005 shows that, while America's approval rating higher in Poland than in any other European country, America's popularity has clearly fallen since 2002. Worse, even the traditionally idealistic Poles are becoming cynical with regards to their support for America. I notice these attitudes especially in casual conversation. One young man told me frankly over tea, "Sure we have troops in Iraq. But it's not because we believe in this war. We just need America on our side."
The problem lies in the fact that people are increasingly torn between their religious and moral values and their allegiance to the American global "project." Poland itself is a predominantly Catholic country that has endured great ravages during the 20th century; it therefore developed a history of opposition to war for religious and moral reasons. Yet the government sent troops to Iraq for the sake of political expediency.
And here we return to a perception of hypocrisy. Christianity, "the world's most tolerant religion," makes compromises - something difficult for many in the Muslim world to understand. In the Islamic political tradition, Muslim rulers historically based their legitimacy on their allegiance to the faith, and abandoning the Muslim religious tradition was the major catalyst for popular rebellion. Thus, rulers of many modern Muslim countries still have to prove to their people that their actions have a basis in the Koran and Muslim law, even if they break with Islamic tradition. In light of this historical approach to government, the Western political mind is a foreign object to many Muslims. Often, Muslims cannot decide if Westerners are bad Christians or simply atheists. Many simply do not understand the possibility of a bifurcation of consciousness into "religion" and "everything else." According to a vast corpus of Muslim philosophy, religion should inform all human decisions, political ones included.
Furthermore, if American foreign policy is Christian, as indeed President George W. Bush asserts, then it is a terrifying new form of Christianity, one the Muslim world may not yet be ready to understand. In fact, we may see a kind of hope in Muslim resistance - a rejection of this "new America," a desire to force the West back to its roots as a beacon of hope and not hegemonic power. Few people remember, for instance, that after the creation of Israel in 1948 it was Eisenhower, acting at what was perhaps the height of America's popularity in the Middle East, who sent aid to the Palestinian people without political strings attached. When Ahmad, a man whom I know to be bitterly realistic, called Christianity "the world's most tolerant religion," he was not being sarcastic. He was openly asking a question that has been cloaked by the angry rhetoric coming from the Muslim world: Have you Westerners truly strayed so far? How can you shatter all the hope we had for you, and because of you?
I concluded my conversation with Ahmad with my characteristic idealism. "You know," I said to him, "despite all these troubles, I really do think 'Westerners' and 'Muslims' can understand each other." I myself want to help work towards understanding, independent of governments or their policies."
I had expected Ahmad to shake his head at me, or perhaps issue a warning about expecting too much. But instead he hesitated. It was as if somewhere deep inside of the layers of discouragement and hopelessness which have fallen over much of the Arab world, he found a bit of idealism himself. He looked up at me with sudden determination. Then he said something I will always remember: "How can I help?"
Natalie Smolenski '07 needs a lot of help.
