Why Do They Hate Us?

Like the rest of the country, I’m reeling from news of the terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon and the follow-up spree of violence and subsequent manhunt.  I keep flashing back to September 11, 2001, when I like most Americans sat glued to the television trying to absorb news that was unabsorbable.  Now, almost twelve years later, the cloud of fear and apprehension has descended again on the United States.

I was in China the day of the marathon, on the last leg of a trip that took my wife and me first to Malaysia, then to Beijing and Shanghai.  Friends and family were concerned about our safety in view of saber-rattling in North Korea and reports of a new bird flu epidemic in China.  Little did we know that the U. S. was the more vulnerable place.

It’s a different experience, hearing about tragedy from another country, especially one like China which tightly controls the news and blocks access to Facebook.  The Chinese press understandably focused on the graduate student from China killed in the bomb blast.  To most of the world, what happens in the U. S. seems very far away.  Three people died watching a race—meanwhile 42 died in Iraq bombings, scores died in Syria, and yet another mine collapsed in China.  To those of us Americans, however, it feels like a kick in the gut, wherever we are, and waves of helplessness and fear wash over.

Like a bipolar magnet, the United States attracts and repels with equal force.  While I was traveling, the Gallup organization reported that 150 million people would like to move permanently to the U. S., triple the number who chose either of the next two countries on the list (the U. K. and Canada).  Yet the U. S. also attracts hostility that sometimes boils over into acts of terrorism.  Why do they hate us so?

I heard a British historian answer that question with a shrug.  “You’re the top dog.  Look at the history of conquest and colonialism.  Romans, Germans, French, Dutch, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, Mongols, Persians, Russians, British—they all took turns ruling large parts of the world, and they all inspired hatred.  It goes with the territory, especially if you’re rich.”  Others have a more sinister view: a majority of the world and a huge majority in the Middle East and Central Asia blame “US policies and actions in the world” for inciting terrorist attacks.

Traveling overseas, I had plenty of opportunity to think about the strengths and weaknesses of my country.  It occurs to me that both trace back to our love of freedom, the transcendent value that inspired our founders to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and sacred honor.

Much of the world views freedom with suspicion, focusing on its dark side.  As they see it, Americans have the freedom to own assault rifles that kill innocent children; to pollute the Internet, magazines, music, video games, and movies with pornography and violence; to allow greedy bankers to wreak economic havoc; to proselytize anyone of another religion; to divorce and abort at will, undermining family systems; to gobble up natural resources while billions live in squalor.

A Muslim nation like Malaysia prefers control.  Converting a Malay from Islam to Christianity is a serious crime.  Movies are so strictly censored that on a Malaysia Airlines flight I watched a movie in which a statue of Cupid had its backside blurred out.  “We are attracted to what we most fear,” said one thoughtful Muslim.  “Imagine what decadent American culture represents to a young Muslim who, outside his family, has never seen a woman’s knee, or even her face.”

As for China, it seems caught in a schizophrenic transition, with its women wearing the latest mini-skirted fashions and the bright lights and seductions of consumer capitalism out-dazzling anything in the West, even as the government clamps down on Google and Facebook and continues to persecute Christians and other religions in the hinterlands.

Salman Rushdie said the true battle of history is fought not between rich and poor, or socialist and capitalist, but between what he termed the epicure and the puritan.  The pendulum of society swings back and forth between “Anything goes,” and “Oh, no you don’t!”  Radical Islam swings one way; what its advocates see as the decadent West swings another.  On a beach in Malaysia I saw female Saudi tourists in full burqa garb, covered in black except for eye slits, strolling next to bikini-clad European tourists.

As an American, I felt better about our recent fractious election when I read the government-controlled newspapers in the buildup to Malaysia’s coming election.  The same party has held power since independence in 1956 and newspapers had at least 40 pages of bald propaganda about how great the party is with scant mocking mention of the opposition.  In China I had to read between the lines to guess at the truth behind the bird-flu scare and the perils of pollution (1.2 million Chinese die prematurely each year from exposure to outdoor air pollution).  I get tired of all the lawyer ads on U.S. television, but wouldn’t trade them for a country that has virtually no consumer rights.  And unless you’ve spent time in a country where corruption is endemic, you can’t really appreciate our ability to get a driver’s license, get accepted in university, or start a business without paying a substantial bribe.

The world increasingly faces the challenge of how to govern a pluralistic society in which some members cling to traditional values and find other subcultures positively offensive.  Not so long ago, most Islamic nations were championing the ideal of a secular state.  Now, fundamentalists are on the rise, vigorously resisting cardinal values of the West such as human rights, democracy, sexual equality, capitalism, a scientific worldview, religious pluralism.  Witness the murders committed against health workers who are vaccinating children against polio or against girls simply trying to get an education.

Meanwhile in the U.S., counter-cultural Christians face the challenge of living in a secular society which trumpets contrary values and is growing increasingly hostile to those who oppose them.

Freedom has always been a risky proposition.  It astonishes me that God entrusted us with  that gift, in view of our appalling abuse of freedom throughout history–beginning in Genesis, continuing to the present dark day, and including even the killing of God’s own Son.

The United States shines as a beacon to those who lack freedom, even as it represents a threat to those who fear it.  A few decades ago, just as China was emerging from the tyranny of Maoism, someone asked a Chinese general, “What is your opinion of the French and American revolutions?”  He thought for a moment on his own nation’s tumultuous history, spanning 7000 years, and replied, “Too early to tell.”

God, bless America.  We need it at such a perilous time.