America discovers

America Discovers by Antony Black, department of politics

September 11 turned a visit to the USA into a mini-lecture-cum-media circus: my book The History of Islamic Political Thought from the Prophet to the Present had, with a hideous sense of timing, been published in July. I visited Texas A&M university to discuss a joint project for a distance-learning course on the comparative history of political thought, taking in China and India as well as Greece and Europe. I went to Princeton to seek enlightenment about ancient Egyptian and Mesopotanian political thought. In both places I was asked to give a public lecture on `Islamic Fundamentalism in Historical Perspective', to try to explain to faculty, students and the general public what sort of ideology might lie behind the horrendous attack.

I found the audiences, which at A&M included a few soldiers, receptive and there were a lot of enthusiastic questions. A soldier thanked me because he had to address his men on the subject.

There was one disturbing eye-opener. At a meeting of comparative government specialists at Princeton, I was asked why I thought there was such hatred for the USA. The answer of course is (1) US policy on Israel and Palestine, and Iraq. The moment I mentioned Israel and Palestine, someone jumped up and said Osama bin Laden wasn't interested in that, only about US troops in Saudi Arabia. Well, I suppose academics can deceive themselves just like anyone else.

I took part with a sociologist specialising in terrorism in a half-hour discussion on public radio, and gave an interview on the local Princeton TV network. I was frank about what I see as the dismal prospects for democratic states, perhaps soon for states of any kind, in some Muslim-majority countries; and about the profound ignorance and incompetence of elements in the unelected Bush administration. The TV interviewer, originally from mainland China, liked this; most people weren't saying it. I was also naive enough to remark how sensible I thought the US government overall was in refraining from direct military action, which would have suited bin Laden's long-term strategy.

The people I met were as worried as the rest of us. Above all, they desperately want to know more about the world that official America has ignored for so long.

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