Dear All,
May I bring to your attention a very interesting text by Ron Kraybill has lived in South Africa and India, and served as advisor and trainer in peace processes throughout the world. He lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and teaches in the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University

My global nomad life has brought to me any of the observations that Ron is describing in his text. A large gap of mutual misperceptions seems to characterize the atmosphere in our global village. I believe, it is essential that we become aware of this gap and start doing something constructive with it.

Warmly!

Evelin

From Disinformation and Mistrust towards Sustainable Security

From Mistrust towards Sustainable Security
How many Americans are aware that the most sophisticated tools of modern communication are being used on a daily basis in a vast program of disinformation about this country and its people that is beamed into almost every country on earth?

Each time I travel abroad I see this program at work and witness its results. “I am so grateful for this opportunity to get to know you and your family,” said a Muslim woman in India in 2000. “We thought that Americans have no values, that they are materialistic, and care only about themselves. We thought there is no commitment to children and families, that everyone lives in immorality. It is so wonderful to see that these things are not true!”

Where does this image of America come from? If someone had set out to create a powerful propaganda strategy to completely discredit America, they could have come up with nothing more effective than the garbage made in Hollywood, marketed abroad and shown daily to billions of global citizens.

Our soaps show on a daily basis in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, Nairobi, Bangkok, and thousands of other cities globally. Re-selling these shows is apparently a huge source of profit for Hollywood. As Americans, we are ourselves are cheapened by the presence of these shows in our homes. But at least most of us know that neither we nor our neighbors live in glistening mansions filled with sexy people looking for their next liason.

Unfortunately people abroad do not know this about us. I was stunned when this realization first began to dawn on me living abroad many years ago. Do others really think that what they see on their TVs is in fact real life in America? Today, I am sad to report, there is no question in my mind. Over and over again, after they have had enough chance to get to know me that they feel free to speak honestly, I have had the experience of people in Africa and Asia saying, “I didn’t realize there are ordinary, decent people living in the US. I thought everyone was…..”

Hollywood’s profiteering means that to the world we are Sin City. We create and peddle, people believe, cheap and immoral sensations designed purely to arouse unseemly hungers. We are unprincipled; we indulge ourselves without thought, they believe, in our lusts.

This false picture means that whenever Americans point to high standards or claim to seek the welfare of others, we are eyed with suspicion. People have pictures before their very eyes that, they believe, show who we are and how we live. Why should they trust nice words? Our inclination to lecture others on right and wrong makes us look especially hypocritical. And our vast military network – bases in over 60 countries – and our history of violence against those who differ with us – we have dropped bombs on 23 countries since the end of World War II. – makes us look like not only an immoral but also a ruthless giant.

Can we blame Muslims, for whom sexual modesty and purity is an extremely important value, for finding it easy to consider us servants of Satan? Luckily, the vast majority of Muslims oppose violence against America and know the Koran teaches against attacks on innocent civilians. But given the picture of us that Hollywood places on the screens of our globe every day of the year, it is amazing that there is not more hatred towards us than already exists.

Most Americans seem stunned with the response of Iraquis to our occupation. Why do they not have a little patience, we wonder? Part of the answer is that, like most of the world, Iraquis have long been skeptical of American intentions. Because they wanted to be rid of Saddam, many hoped for the best when the US invaded. But because their trust was so low to begin with, it took only a few months of errors on our part to convince Iraquis that their long-standing doubts were true.

In an age of weapons portable and powerful, no military force on earth can create security for Americans as long as the majority of human beings believe we are morally corrupt and selfish. Sadly, the truth is that moral corruption and selfishness do exist within us. But at the very least, let us curb our entertainment industry in peddling wicked exaggeration to the world.

Because we are not trusted at the most basic level of our own integrity, the grim truth right now is that any military move we make that is not clearly supported by the majority of the world works against us. Not only do we look immoral, we look ruthless and unaccountable.

Eventually, we may recognize that our defense can never rest in futile efforts to destroy with violence every threat that dwells abroad. We cannot, as military personnel like to say, “chop off the head of the snake” that now threatens. When the majority distrust us, every strike, even “successful” ones, multiples our foes.

Sustainable security will come when the people of the world see that we take seriously their own daily well-being, when they believe that we truly care about the ability of their children to get good education, basic healthcare and jobs. When they truly believe this, the extremists of the world will gain no followers. They will murmur and rail against us from the margins of their communities, but the world will handicap and neutralize the mongers of hate far more effectively than our bombs and marauding Special Forces.

Ron Kraybill has lived in South Africa and India, and served as advisor and trainer in peace processes throughout the world. He lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and teaches in the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University.