Thread: Surveys show that worldwide dislike for America has grown

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinio ... -headlines

Pushing back at U.S.
Surveys show that worldwide dislike for America has grown in recent years. And now, it's not just our government they can't stand -- it's us.

By Andrew Kohut and Bruce Stokes
Special to the Sun

May 14, 2006

(Excerpted from America Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked, Times Books, 2006)

In 1842, Charles Dickens found Americans rude, addicted to sharp business practices, hypocritical about liberty in light of their treatment of blacks, and careless about where they spit tobacco. Excepting the last complaint, many foreigners still see Americans in the same negative light.

But, while anti-Americanism is not a new phenomenon, today's anti-Americanism is an amalgam of discontents. Some of it is a reaction to the impact on foreign societies of American popular culture, with commercial television programs and music and a uniform McDonald's and Starbucks diet that threatens other countries' indigenous cultures. A second source of disgruntlement is resentment that American-style business practices are forcing changes in industrial and societal practices - longer work days and the opening of shops on Sunday - and that such accelerations in the pace of modernization threaten to overwhelm traditional ways of life. ...

A third category of anti-Americanism is the world's reaction to U.S. foreign policies. It is also not new. For centuries, Latin Americans have struggled under the overbearing power and influence of the colossus to the north, manifested in such events as the mob that attacked Vice President Richard M. Nixon's motorcade during his visit to Caracas in 1958 and the anti-American riots that greeted President Bush on his visit to Argentina last fall.

Elsewhere, however, the rise in anti-Americanism in reaction to U.S. foreign policy is relatively recent and, like other anti-American backlash, it extends to all parts of the globe. For two decades after World War II, most of the world acknowledged a debt to American power for defeating the Axis powers. In particular, Western Europeans, though at times critical, were largely grateful for the Marshall Plan aid that had revived their societies, and appreciated the U.S. military umbrella that protected them against Soviet ambitions. In the late 1960s, as European disillusionment with the Vietnam War grew, these pro-American attitudes began to unravel. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration's hard-line approach to Moscow, which resulted in the NATO decision to station Pershing intermediate-range missiles in Western Europe to counter the Soviets, spurred huge anti-American demonstrations.

The 1983 Gallup European Poll documented broad discontent with President Ronald Reagan's policies at that time. It also found widespread distrust of American power. ... Washington tended to brush off such findings of discontent, citing its own polls by the U.S. Information Agency. Since the mid-1950s, the USIA had found that attitudes toward the United States depended heavily on the news of the day, suggesting that anti-Americanism was a transitory phenomenon.

Moreover, despite European opposition to the U.S. government policies, the 1983 Gallup Poll found little dislike of the American people and substantial approval of the American way of life in every country except France. Even the French disapproved by a mere 4 percent margin (40 to 36 percent). A Newsweek cover story that year summed up the poll results as showing that "Americans are seen as a good and productive people with an erratic or even dangerous government. ... "

But that was then. Today's anti-Americanism runs broader and deeper. Not only is U.S. foreign policy more strongly opposed, but now the influence of the American lifestyle is also rejected even as American products are still widely accepted. And, for the first time, the American people are also less liked. Judging by trends in international surveys, the negative image of many things American seems unlikely to change anytime soon. Whatever global good will the United States had in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks seems to have quickly dissipated as U.S. policymakers broadened the focus of the war against terrorism.

In 2002, a Pew survey of 38,000 people in 44 countries found that the U.S. global image had slipped when contrasted with the results of comparable prior polls conducted by the U.S. State Department. Favorable attitudes toward America had declined most sharply in majority-Muslim countries, but slippage was also observed among longtime NATO allies, in Eastern Europe, and in most regions of the world. By the following spring, after the March 2003 launch of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, a follow-up Pew survey of 16,000 people in 20 countries found that favorable opinions had more than slipped. They had plummeted.

The most striking feature was how broadly anti-Americanism had spread geographically by 2003. It was no longer limited to Western Europe or to the Muslim world. In Brazil, for example, where 52 percent of the public expressed a favorable opinion of the United States in 2002, the pro-American portion of the population had dropped to 34 percent. In Russia, there was a 25-percentage-point decline in the U.S. favorability rating, from 61 percent to 36 percent, in the course of less than a year. ...

A Eurobarometer survey conducted in 15 European Union countries in October 2003 found that people saw the United States and Iran to be equal threats to world peace. And in four countries - Greece, Spain, Finland and Sweden - the United States was viewed as the greatest threat to stability, more menacing than Iran or North Korea. Even in the United Kingdom, America's most trusted ally, 55 percent considered the United States to be a danger. ...

In the face of entrenched anti-Americanism and the United States' perceived global domination, China appeared to gain friends and influence. Strikingly, China had a better image than the United States in most of the European nations, as well as in the Arab countries and most of Asia surveyed by Pew in 2005. But given the decline of America's reputation, other major nations also now outpoll the United States in popularity. Japan, France and Germany are now all more highly regarded in Europe than is the United States. Even Americans' cultural cousins - the British and Canadians - share this relatively dim view of the United States. ...

In the past, foreigners' distaste for U.S. policies, be they in regard to Vietnam or the Middle East, did not lead to antipathy toward the American people. The first few Pew Global Attitudes Project surveys, beginning in 2002, continued to find that the rest of the world held Americans in higher esteem than America. This held true until 2005, although the gap narrowed in several countries. ...

The decline in favorable views of Americans all around the world suggests that people are now increasingly equating the U.S. people with the U.S. government. The drop in favorable opinions has been most precipitous in the Muslim world, but heightened dislike for Americans is widespread. Between 2002 and 2005, the favorability ratings of the American people declined in nine of the 12 countries for which trend data exist. These include the ancestral homes of many current U.S. citizens - Great Britain, Poland, Germany, France and Russia; our cultural and geographic neighbor, Canada; Jordan and Turkey, both Washington allies in the Middle East; and Indonesia. Only in Pakistan, India and Lebanon did estimation of the American people improve. ...

With its military might, its economic power, and its culturally pervasive movies, music and television, America is "the inescapable country" for most of the world. And much of the world resents the impact of American pop culture on their traditional values. More telling perhaps, Europeans and others are also dubious about the two pillars of the American system: U.S.-style democracy and U.S.-style business practices.

American society has become discredited in the eyes of the world, according to University of Toronto professor in human rights Michael Ignatieff.

"Once a model to emulate," he wrote last summer, it "has become the exception to avoid." Ignatieff cited the world's judgment of America's lack of health care for the poor; its retention of capital punishment; the curious "constitutional right" of every citizen to have guns: the religiosity of American conservatives; the arguably unjust outcome of the presidential election of 2000; and "the phenomenal influence of money on American elections."

More than a million legal and illegal immigrants enter the United States every year, but when presented with a choice, people around the world say they no longer see America as the prime land of opportunity. Asked where a young person should go to lead a good life, no more than 10 percent of respondents to a 2005 Pew survey in 13 of 16 countries recommended the United States. Australia, Canada, Great Britain and even Germany were all preferred destinations. ...

The data from Europe, in particular, raise the question: Is widespread antipathy toward the United States the symptom of a generalized anger at America and Americans, or is it merely a more specific hostility toward President Bush and his policies? To find out more about why people around the world have lost faith in the United States, Pew asked those who expressed a negative view of America to be more specific.

Majorities in most countries blamed the president, not his country. Bush was personally unpopular internationally from the first days of his first term, owing to his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol to curb global warming and his perceived tendency to adopt a unilateral approach to many international issues. With the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, his ratings went from bad to worse. In 2005, of Europeans who had an unfavorable view of the United States, two out of three Germans, French and Dutch, and more than half of the Britons, said their problem was mostly with Bush. ...

Yet such sentiments do not tell the whole story. Undoubtedly Bush has been the lightning rod for anti-American feelings. But although the Bush administration brought these anxieties to the surface and intensified distrust of America, the roots of anti-Americanism run deeper. American power itself, as well as U.S. policies, fuel resentment toward the United States throughout the world. Global publics believe the United States does too little to solve world problems and supports, if not advances, policies that increase the gap between rich countries and poor countries.

Similarly, opposition to strong American support for Israel long predates the Bush administration. For Muslims, it has become an article of faith that the United States unfairly supports Israel in its conflict with Palestinians. ...

The broad-ranging indictments transcend the current administration and will likely remain. Short-lived jumps in favorability produced by transitory events such as tsunami relief aid cannot sustain a long-term shift in the world's view of America. Resentment of American power, as much as its policies or leadership, drives anti-American sentiments. People around the world ... are anxious about the consequences of America's exercise of its unrivaled military might, not only in Iraq but also in the amorphously defined war on terrorism.

By 2004, growing numbers of Europeans believed that the United States overreacted after Sept. 11. Only in Britain and Russia did large majorities continue to feel that the United States was right to be so concerned about the threat of terrorism. ...

Moreover, Europeans expressed considerable skepticism about U.S. motives in its global struggled with al-Qaida and other Islamic extremists. When asked why they thought U.S. action was insincere, large percentages in France and Germany expressed the belief that the United States was conducting the war on terrorism in order to control Middle Eastern oil and to dominate the world. ...

Americans are somewhat defensive about how their policy positions and attitudes interweave with anti-Americanism. ... [T]hey recognize that the world is becoming more anti-American, but to this point they seem disinclined to change their behavior.

Still, anti-Americanism is a pervasive problem, one of the principal challenges facing the United States in the years ahead. Dealing with it will require that Americans distinguish among the differing sources of this antagonism and address them appropriately. ... The positive reaction to U.S. tsunami relief efforts demonstrates the potential positive impact of American cooperation and generosity.

But more difficult cases emerge when relatively permanent and intractable differences in opinions and behaviors provoke discord in global decisions. Perhaps most prevalent, however, and most amendable to amelioration are those antagonisms that arise out of misunderstood beliefs about America and the American character that have no solid basis in reality.

Chief among such misapprehensions are the prevailing fears about the use of American military might for imperialistic or self-serving ends. Foreigners hear the rhetoric of particular U.S. leaders and assume such sentiments reflect broad public attitudes.

But do they? Do Americans seek to save, reform or convert the world into their own image, as many people around the world fear? Do they wish to export or impose their culture and their values? Do Americans wish to save the world for democracy, adopting President Woodrow Wilson's ideals and President Bush's rhetoric? Do they hope to convert others to their particular faith? Are there crusades that motivate the agenda of the American people?

To address these fears, Americans - and the world - must understand the essence of the American character. ... [J]udging from the data, the answer to all these questions is most often no, but this message has not reached the larger world - or Americans' own depictions of their interests.

Andrew Kohut is the director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, the leading nonpartisan polling organization in America. Bruce Stokes is the international economics columnist for the National Journal and a consultant to the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

They hate us, but they can't stay away from us either!

Yep they hate the country that gives them a helping hand and a Hand out. They hate the fact that Our country has stood for and continues to stand for something more then Thier corruption and thier corrupt societies. They flock here Illegally and in some cases Legally and strive for thier own piece of the pie (even if they have to rip us off to get it). Then they spout thier political c^*p, all the while they continue to suck Our nation and People dry. Just my quick impression of the current situation .

Gee, they're not the only ones tired of 'American Culture' as shown on tv...I am too....sheesh....

MJ

It's quite astonishing how all of this information is gathered and analyzed, seems all so scientific. They really don't come here to make friends anyway. I have yet to be asked how I liked people of other nations.

"Majorities in most countries blamed the president, not his country. Bush was personally unpopular internationally from the first days of his first term, owing to his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol to curb global warming and his perceived tendency to adopt a unilateral approach to many international issues. With the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, his ratings went from bad to worse. In 2005, of Europeans who had an unfavorable view of the United States, two out of three Germans, French and Dutch, and more than half of the Britons, said their problem was mostly with Bush. ...
"

Gee and I thought It was only me.....

Thank you president Bush.

They hate us because we stood as a symbol of hope! Even if they choose to remain in their own countries we were the beacon of hope that maybe one day their own countries problems could be fixed. We are now are corrupt as their countries are. We have fallen and no longer shine as that beacon nation. That our country is hypocritacal and has turned its back on the ideals that created it. That business and money have long been it's god. They hate us for being liers. Since they are aware of our policial makeup for establishing our government threw voting, it is easy for them to assume that our government and the Americans wishes are one in the same. They see our nation as lieing, self rightious, bulleying, money greedy morons. Because we do not look before we act, at what the effect of such action will be on our future.

With Bush at the helm we are the biggest threat to the world. The Iraq war wasn't started because of false intellegence it was for oil. Now he picks a fight with Iran in the middle of all of this. As much as it hurts to hear, our government is the worlds biggest threat of all. As big a threat as Hitler was.

but loves our money.

Actually the only way many foreigners will ever know us or anything about us is via Hollywood...and you know that Hollywood seldom if ever truly protrays American life.

When I lived in Arabia in the late 60's Hollywood wasn't so bad...we had quite a few good movies....but even so, being in a theater full of Arabs there were many hisses and boos when the protagonists of the story would kiss...much of what they saw was considered excessive....and it was for their culture.

If we had an ambassador to foreign countries it surely shouldn't be American 'entertainment'...much of which I won't watch myself...I'd say about 95% of it I won't watch....nonetheless...that's the only way they have to judge us. A very bad deal for America...

MJ