The tragedy of Arab-American relations

It is no longer just bin Laden versus the United States. Arab children are being indoctrinated to hate Americans, thus providing a fertile breeding ground for bin Laden's foot soldiers.

My own generation - people in their 30s and 40s - has also been socialized into an anti-American mindset, which is difficult to critique or deconstruct. America, it is often claimed, conspired to humiliate and dominate the proud Arabs by corrupting their local elite and empowering their hostile neighbors. Intelligent Arab men of letters advance conspiratorial theories to explain Washington's conduct and animosity toward the Arab and Muslim people.

Many Arabs no longer distinguish between their legitimate criticism of US foreign policies and almost everything that America stands for. They dismiss American democracy as being hijacked by the privileged few. Blinded by anti-Americanism, Arabs see little good in American society - and overwhelming cultural and moral decay.

In their commentaries about the indecisive results in last year's US presidential election, Arabs evinced wishful thinking that the American empire was beginning to crumble from within.

Unfortunately, Arab politicians and commentators invest more time and energy in denouncing the US than in understanding American institutions and civil society. The Arab world does not win respect in the West by being morally outraged at United States foreign policy.

Arab countries are not taken seriously by the West, particularly the US, because they have failed to develop, democratize, and normalize relations between state and society. Economically and politically, the Arab Middle East is one of the regions left out in the world race to democratize and globalize. Authoritarianism and patriarchy are highly consolidated on every level of society, from the public sphere to the dinner table.

These shortcomings, not US foreign policies, are largely responsible for the lack of Arab development and progress.

Far from forcing Americans to rethink their stand on the Middle East, this terrorist attack will most likely produce opposite results. It is high time for the Arabs to take charge of their political destiny and fully embrace modernity. This process requires structural reform from within and total engagement with the world, including the eradication of terrorism. It is then - and then only - that just Arab causes will be considered legitimate.

Fawaz A. Gerges is the Christian A. Johnson chair in Middle East and international affairs at Sarah Lawrence College. He is the author of 'The Islamists and the West' (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) and 'America and Political Islam' (Cambridge University Press, 2000).

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