The Ugly Guest
Have you ever had somebody come to your house and wear out their welcome, but somehow not figure out that you have grown tired of their presence and want them to leave? Maybe they decided to start trying to clean your house, moving furniture and throwing things out without asking for your opinion. Perhaps they keep interrupting polite conversations with uninvited suggestions on how you “should†be living your life. Possibly they keep spoiling your children with money or toys, giving your pet food it shouldn’t eat, or sneaking whiskey to your alcoholic wife. How ever it is that they do it, they become annoying to you and possibly destructive to the peace and happiness of your home, but they just won’t leave, or they won’t stop coming over. Don’t you just hate those people?
Well in the world’s opinion we are those people. We show up in other countries around the world with the best of intentions, trying to do what we think is right. The only problem is that somewhere along the way we forgot to ask people if they still actually wanted our help. The perception is that our assistance whether it be through business, charity, or investment is offered as a superior providing to a lesser instead of as a sharing of resources among peers.
This arrogance that the world perceives is very real; when any nation publicly disagrees with our actions we become defensive and aggressive. In the run up to the Iraq war there were opinion makers who were saying that nations like France and Germany owed us for bailing them out of WWII and defending them from communism, and were being ungrateful for having now for disagreeing with us. Our government is the world leader in giving out aid to less developed nations, but we add strings to that aid to coerce those nations into adopting various rules and laws that conform to our desire for western culture to spread. This arrogance that we portray in our speech and in our actions is one of the reasons that anti-Americanism is spreading.
Interestingly enough the people addressing this image problem that our nation has are business leaders. Business for Diplomatic Action was formed in the past few years because spreading anti-Americanism is bad for business. It is pretty self evident logic that if people around the world hate America and Americans then they will be less inclined to buy products from American companies.
But we are resistant to the changes that are being suggested by the people who have to deal with the citizens of other countries and the anti-American sentiments that exist there. We as a people are comfortable with being arrogant, we are comfortable with feeling superior, because we are the only remaining superpower and we are the preeminent economic power in the world. And I am sure that other super powers of the past felt similarly to us when they sat upon they top of the heap, but where are those powers now? History dictates that great nations rise and fall, we have been rising for a good long time, do we want to be thought of poorly by our neighbors in the future when we trip on the top of the hill and tumble down? And all we have to do as a people is ask the rest of the world if they actually want our help, and show a little humility at the gifts that our nation is able to provide.