It seems that many influential Americans have, after a year of the war against terror, increasingly discovered that there are indeed many powerful and long entrenched anti-American and anti-Western undercurrents, genuine or opportunistic, in the Third and Islamic worlds.

What are the American elite to do with these popular opinions and sentiments that are hostile or unfriendly to the US and the West, now being openly and honestly addressed?

One of such democratic and intellectual project is David Hoffman's thought-provoking article in the Foreign Affairs (March/April 2002) titled 'Beyond public diplomacy'. Hoffman is the President of Internews Network.

He says, "(s)ince Sept 11 (2001), Americans have faced the grim reality that hatred of the United States has become endemic in many countries around the world", and one major source of these anti-American "hatred" comes, paradoxically, from some of its so-called 'friends and allies'.

"US-backed repressive rulers such as the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, Suharto in Indonesia, and General Sani Abacha in Nigeria, while discreetly making deals with their American patrons and often enriching themselves from oil revenues, have proven their piety to the masses by encouraging the state-controlled press to demonise America. The media have thus provided the government a safety valve through which to redirect anger from local social and political failures." (p 86)

Indeed, as Singaporean scholar Chin Kin Wah records, the pattern of regime behaviour of Mahathir's Malaysia is also not unlike those mentioned by Hoffman:

Local focus

"In Malaysia, the deep financial and currency crisis of the late 1990s (undoubtedly the most serious challenge to the political legitimacy of Mahathir) and the ensuing political crisis that followed the dismissal of then deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, also witnessed a demonisation process of a kind at work, which focused on currency speculators like George Soros, 'internal enemies' and the spectre of neo-colonialism. There were resounding echoes of the rhetoric encountered during the severe economic recession of the mid-1980s when official concern had been variously expressed over the 'economic attack' on the country by the developed countries of the West." (See Chin Kin Wah, 'Reflections on the shaping of strategic cultures in Southeast Asia', in da Cunha, Derek ed. Southeast Asian perspectives on security , Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000, p 15.)

However, Hoffman seems to have failed to observe another dimension of the state propaganda these repressive regimes backed, or once backed, by the US itself.

As the familiar cases of Suharto's Indonesia and Mahathir's Malaysia now clearly suggest, these regimes also demonise domestic opposition parties and dissidents, especially Muslims, as 'terrorists', 'anti-Western' and 'anti-modernity', through regime lobbyists and lobby groups, while discreetly making deals with their American patrons and to obtain American or Western support for their regime security, and the introduction or maintenance of repressive laws.

In Malaysia, the diversity of languages stemming from different ethnic backgrounds merely facilitates the game.

Non-Muslim anti-Americanism

Moreover, Hoffman has also failed to distinguish various and different strands of anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism in Muslim or Muslim-predominated countries. Indeed, it can now be observed and argued that not all anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism in Malaysia and Indonesia stems from radical Islamism, although it is now fashionable for politicians and their 'intellectuals' to opportunistically join the bandwagon of the 'Islamic critiques' of the West and the United States.

For example, in Malaysia and Indonesia, anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism long preceded the rise of Osama bin Laden in the 1980s or even the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. A study on 'new' terrorism by RAND, a US think tank associated with the US Air Force (USAF), published in 1999, had already identified Malaysia, among others, as a country "where elites exist against a background of strong anti-Western resentment". (See Countering the new terrorism , Santa Monica, CA, RAND, 1999, p 107.)

One such major non-Islamic anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism in Malaysia and Indonesia comes from the so-called 'Pan-Asianism'. This script was planted, as pre-invasion programmes of subversion and destabilisation of the targeted areas, in the hearts and minds of the older generation of ethno-nationalists, by the Japanese militarists in the 1930s and 1940s as part of the war propaganda and psychological warfare.

Racist propaganda

In these 'Pan-Asian' scripts of anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism, Americans and Westerners in general were, and still are, characterised as 'decadent', 'predatory', 'individualistic', 'perfidious', 'arrogant' and 'oppressive'.

These scripts are also racist in that they premise on the passion-inflaming imagery of 'white' against 'non-whites'.

The anti-American and anti-Western components of 'Pan-Asianism' were later used by the propaganda of the now defunct Soviet Union, which was absorbed by some members of the elite in this part of the world in the 1960s and 1970s. 'Anti-neo-colonialism' was the catchword of that script.

However, the anti-American and anti-Western propaganda of the Soviet Union was non-racial in the sense that it did not attempt to inflame 'non-whites' against 'whites'; it was more political and ideological in nature.

To a certain extent, the anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism of the Soviet propaganda has also been absorbed ideologically by some tyrants in the Middle East who self-styled themselves to be 'heroes of the Muslims', especially the more 'secular' and 'modernised' ones like Iraq's Saddam Hussein and his supporters.

Shared freedoms

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that among the ordinary people and non-elite in contemporary Third and Islamic worlds, there are genuine grievances, misunderstandings and misconceptions against the United States and the West which must be sincerely and honestly addressed in dialogues, not monologues.

Hoffman is therefore right in suggesting that the long-term option for the United States is to promote freedom of speech, especially in the Islamic world, and to support forces in the Muslim community "that are struggling to create modern democracies and institutionalise the rule of law". (p 88)

He asserts that the national security of the United States "is enhanced to the degree that other nations share these freedoms" and "it is endangered by nations that practise propaganda, encourage their media to spew hatred, and deny freedom of expression". (p 84)

Hoffman also adds that in those countries where oppression breeds terrorism, the promotion of independent media should be made "a major priority" in the US foreign policy. (p 85)

For the suggestion of Hoffman to succeed, the US itself must be conceptually and politically clear-eyed enough to see that moderate, progressive and democratic Muslims are not necessarily those who are in power and who unilaterally claim to be so in their own propaganda system, and that there are also many equally, if not more, moderate, progressive and democratic Muslims in the opposition and among dissidents.

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia . Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily (now Sin Chew Daily ). He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew , he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.