Foreign Media AnalysisArab And American Perspectives on the US' Political Actions.
...overwhelmingly supportive nor trusting. And why should it be? The United States continually imposes regulations on countries in the Arab world that it sees fit and criticizes many of it’s people for being zealots of the anti-American viewpoint. If a country attacks a close ally of ours, say the United Kingdom whom the majority of the United State’s citizens revere as our closest mutual relative, we feel compelled to take their side and stand up for their rights. Saudi’s may not be supportive of the terrorist cause, but is it not logical that they may also feel attacked by America in it’s war on terror against Saudi Arabia’s neighboring middle eastern brothers? I think so. To say the least, the Saudi Arabian world seems to be quite questioning of the motives of the United States and of the actions it takes to pursue these motives. Recently Americans have become painfully aware of the rest of the world’s general contempt for our government and what they believe it stands for. We say it stands for peace, cooperation, logic and reformation of broken societies. The Saudi view of our country is neither optimistic nor supportive. One of the articled I read on the Arab View is actually entitled “The Fading American Conscience”. If you can not already tell what this article advocates then you are hard in the head. “And when conscience begins to fade, immorality waits impatiently at the corner, eager to usurp its place.” In this quotation, author Tarik Al Maeena contests that the United States has disregarded its allies’ non-supportive standpoints and led its people into a degrading and unjustified moral slump. The basic idea of Maeena’s article is summed up in the following quote. “His [President Bush] alarm rang in a chorus of similar threatening notes, from Dick Cheney to Colin Powell, from Condoleeza Rice to Paul Wolfowitz, all nodding in agreement, and all actively engaging the American public in a doomsday scenario. Meanwhile, his man of war, Donald Rumsfeld, was busily oiling the machinery that would deliver Mr. Bush’s “democratic” message.” By reading such articles, it becomes clear that Saudi Arabians do not seem advocate the intents of the United States. Rather, the media blasts it’s actions and attempts to call various pieces of information to attention in order to make citizens question it’s morality. The viewpoint of their society regarding the US is not a product of false information or negative propaganda. It is a direct result of how the US’s actions sit with the sociology and the political science of the Arab population. Maeena bases his article on America’s oppressive actions and depicts it as a power hungry nation whose disregard for “morality” represents it’s political views in general. Repeated themes and motifs from the Arab View are generally the same in various other articles I read while studying America’s image in Saudi Arabia. It seems to be fairly a unanimous consensus that America’s path has veered of off the noble course and onto the immoral one. In an article called “The World Vote For Bush”, author Khaled Batarfi addresses the choice between Bush an d Kerry, carefully specifying the likely outcomes of our country if either were elected. Despite Batarfi’s view that Kerry is the best choice for American voters, he does not stutter when he says “Four more years of bullying will harden the formulation of anti-American imperialism enough to resist future schemes, no matter how sophisticated and smart.” In this quote he assumes that not only is the US currently regarded poorly by Saudi Arabia and other nations, but also that the problem will get worse until anti-American sentiments reach unheard of heights. The general Arab view of the actions taken by the United States certainly do not coincide with the way the majority of Americans view our current place in international politics regarding the middle east. Sure, some citizens in our country speak out against our government’s “oppressive” nature and forceful interaction, but general satisfaction with the actions of our government and the morals that lie behind them definitely prevail. I find this idea completely logical. Everything is well and good in the jolly world of America. Your average citizen here will never have to evacuate because of another country's excessive bombing. Your average citizen here will never be able to tell you the last time they felt oppressed by any foreign government. In turn, your average citizen sees no urgent importance to change the way things work or to qu...