U.S. can be loved by Muslims

U.S. can be loved by Muslims

Craig Charney, Washington D.C.

Picture this: Eight angry Egyptian men in a Cairo focus group
venting rage at all things American for an hour. Then a graying
60 year old with a pencil mustache sighed, saying: "I wish it
would get back to what it was. I used to love America." His words
pointed to something surprising we learned from 14 recent focus
groups in Egypt, Morocco and Indonesia: Many Muslims could change
their minds about America.

The research showed that the United States can improve its
image in the Muslim world, despite the widespread anti-
Americanism there. Perceptions matter. Muslims do not hate
Americans for "who we are" or "what we do;" they are angry at
what they perceive the U.S. has done in Iraq, the war on
terrorism, Palestine, and to Muslims in American. Moreover, they
continue to admire the U.S. in the domains where their countries
need help, but most are unaware of the large and growing U.S. aid
programs in these areas.

Awareness is growing of the dangers posed to the U.S. by anti-
American sentiment in Muslim countries. These feelings aid
terrorist recruitment, diminish America's ability to promote
reform in Muslim countries, and threaten U.S. business, troops
and tourists. These concerns were underscored by the choice of
Karen Hughes, one of U.S. President George W. Bush's closest
associates, to head the State Department's public diplomacy
efforts. The Muslim world may always hate and love America, but
her appointment suggests Washington wants to swing the balance in
its favor.

Our findings showed that the keys to a new U.S. dialog with
the Muslim world are a humbler tone, a focus on partnership with
local initiatives, and a sustained effort with major resources.
When Muslims knew of U.S. help on issues that matter to them,
like tsunami relief in Indonesia or women's rights in Morocco, it
made a real difference. So did facts on other U.S. aid programs.
As they heard them, many agreed with the Moroccan man who
declared: "If these things are true, we would be friends of the
U.S.!"

It was no news that Egyptians, Moroccans and Indonesians are
hostile to America and U.S. power. They associated the U.S. with
"blood" and "domination," called it "ferocious" and
"manipulative," and gave Bush uniformly bad marks. Anger spilled
over from U.S. policy to American firms and citizens. Such
perceptions were based on information about America chiefly drawn
from highly critical television stations, such as Al-Jazeera, the
largest Arabic-language satellite network.

Yet Muslims are still impressed by the U.S., even if
grudgingly. An older Indonesian woman said: "We hate its
arrogance, but like the positive aspects." These included
America's economy, schools and legal institutions, areas where
the groups most wanted help for their own countries, tempering
their anger against America. They felt that, as a 20-something
Jakarta woman put it: "Despite the drawbacks, we need America."

U.S. assistance, however, has become all but invisible to
Muslim audiences. Older Cairo residents remembered bags of grain
with the U.S. Agency for International Development handshake logo
from their youth, but are unaware that lately America has
provided low-pollution buses and family planning clinics. "Now we
don't see any of this," said a 50-year-old woman with a
headscarf. Egyptians put U.S. aid to Egypt over the last 10 years
in the millions; they reacted with disbelief when told it was
$7.3 billion.

But when Muslims learned of U.S. efforts to help them, the
impact was positive. After the massive U.S. relief program for
victims of the Asian tsunami, follow-up groups in Jakarta in
January voiced appreciation and were less hostile to America than
those a month before. Similarly, the U.S. has vigorously backed
reform of the family code and increased women's political
participation in Morocco, and women there were the only ones in
the study who said that America's message was not force, but
democracy. As information was provided about other aid programs
in the groups, reactions were similar to that of the Egyptian
woman who said: "If it's helping us, we'll thank them!"

Yet if America is to have a new conversation with the Islamic
world, this depends not just on saying something new, but on how
America says it. The groups rejected with scorn claims that the
Bush administration was working for the good of the Islamic world
by fighting terror and promoting democracy and reform. Defending
U.S. military action and presenting America as a force driving
change angered them. (A young Jakarta woman wrote on a mock
postcard to the White House, "Dear President Bush: Please help us
with our economy but let us run our country!") In contrast, a
more modest U.S. perspective based on listening, backing Muslim
initiatives for democracy and growth, and agreeing to disagree
over the war on terrorism, won wide support.

The groups also showed that Muslims will listen to what
America says about their own lands only if the U.S. can agree to
disagree over contentious issues like Iraq or Afghanistan, which
provoked rage that shut down the dialog whenever they were
mentioned. The fate of Iraq and Afghanistan will in any event
chiefly depend on their own citizens' views, not external
opinion. If the main U.S. interest in other Islamic countries,
like Indonesia, Morocco, or Egypt, is helping them reform, it
must tolerate disagreements over its more controversial policies
elsewhere.

As an older Casablanca man in a suit put it: "We have to
recognize, there are things we agree on and disagree on."

To reach Muslims, America should vigorously engage local and
regional news media -- including Al-Jazeera -- and also purchase
paid advertising. However, changing the current situation will
require major efforts and resources for an extended period.
America's image problem took years to develop and won't end
quickly.

Of course, there are limits to even the best communications
efforts. Attitudes will be influenced by events the U.S. cannot
control, as the recent storm over the Koran desecration story
showed. Yet while Muslims care about what happens elsewhere in
the Islamic world, the focus groups also showed that America's
relationship with the respondents' own countries matters just as
much. A sea change in attitudes may be impossible, but we saw
that real progress can be made in opening Muslim minds about the
U.S.

The U.S. now has a window of opportunity to reach out to the
Islamic world, thanks to a series of developments this year that
have improved the atmosphere. These included the Iraqi elections,
renewed hopes for Israeli-Palestinian peace, Syria's withdrawal
from Lebanon, and the possibility of a multi-candidate
presidential election in Egypt, as well as the tsunami relief
campaign.

The challenge for the U.S. now is to reach people like the
Egyptian woman who said: "America is like this great guy who
every once in a while does something immature and you begin to
hate him." She was mad when she said it. But she was smiling,
too.

Craig Charney is president of Charney Research, a New York
polling firm. His study of how America can respond to Muslim
anti-Americanism, A New Beginning: Strategies for a More Fruitful
Dialogue with the Muslim World, was recently published by the
Council on Foreign Relations. He wrote this commentary for THE
DAILY STAR.