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Editor's Introduction This issue, like 12 of our issues in the past 17 years, contains papers based on presentations at a Social Research conference. “Their America: The US in the Eyes of the Rest of the World,” our thirteenth conference, was held at The New School in October of 2004. We are grateful to the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and an anonymous donor for making this conference possible. The immediate motivation for “Their America” was the sharp increase in anti-American feelings across the globe in the aftermath of 9/11. However, this did not occur in the immediate aftermath, when there were strong expressions of sympathy from almost everywhere, but only later, when our aggressive and virtually unilateral response to the attack was made clear. The conference was convened to try to place this phenomenon in the context of a longer history of attitudes toward the United States as a way of better understanding the current situation. Unfortunately, things have not improved much in the past year since the conference. We continue to refuse to sign the Kyoto accords or become a party to the International Criminal Court. In addition, we have apparently engaged in what many believe is torture of prisoners who we secretly transport to other countries where our laws against inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners do not apply. None of these actions are likely to endear us to others around the world, particularly
Given the increasing tendency of the United States to act unilaterally on the world stage, an understanding of how the rest of the world views us, our administration, and our actions is crucial to comprehending why our actions succeed or fail, and how best to formulate future plans-not only as to how to face or prevent failed states, but in how to face or prevent the myriad transnational challenges that would best be confronted multilaterally and collaboratively (for example terrorism, international justice, environmental despoliation, natural disaster, AIDS, and other public health crises). Of course, even in the current moment of intense anti-American feeling, there continues to be, in many places around the globe, a dynamic tension between responses to America’s aggressive military interventions and, for lack of a better shorthand term, what American culture has to offer. The conference and this issue examine this tension in the hope of deepening our understanding of the current situation and illuminating ways in which this situation might be made more conducive to global engagement and multilateral cooperation. Our intention in the issue, as it was in the conference, is to foster discussion among representatives from across the globe, and then between them and the conference audiences and now our readers, on how the United States is and has been viewed in various countries over approximately the past 75 years. This discussion has the potential to lead to new understandings of how the United States has both succeeded and failed in its political and military interventions, and how our cultural influence is received in other parts of the world. To that end, we invited representatives from different regions of the world to participate in the conference, because we believe that it is these reflective people, native to a country, who can speak with most authority about how the United States is and has been viewed from elsewhere. We decidedly did not want to bring together a group of American “academic” authorities to talk and write about how we are viewed from beyond our shores. Unfortunately, some of those who spoke at the conference were unable to prepare their remarks for publication in this issue, which is why there are no papers from anyone in the Middle East, Mexico, or France. We regret this, but nevertheless believe that the issue makes an important contribution to out understanding of how we are viewed in other parts of the world. Arien Mack |
| Views from the UK, Mexico, Germany, and France | |
| Jonathan Schell |
Introduction |
| John Eatwell |
Britain and America: Ameliorating Unilateralism |
| Michael Naumann |
Europe and America: The Ties that Bind |
Views from Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East |
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| Elzbieta Matynia |
Introduction |
| Richard Goldstone |
Ambiguity and America: South Africa and US Foreign Policy |
Avishai Margalit |
A Story of Ambivalence or Pure Love: Israelis and America |
| Naiem A. Sherbiny |
America: A View from Egypt |
Views from Russia, Pakistan, Malaysia, and China |
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| Fedor Lukyanov |
America as the Mirror of Russian Phobias |
| Pervez Hoodbhoy |
The United States and Islam: Toward Perpetual War? |
| Chandra Muzaffar | The Relationship between Southeast Asia and the United States: A Contemporary Analysis |
| Sulayman S. Nyang | US–Africa Relations over the Last Century: An African Perspective |
| Yuen-ying Chan |
Reimagining America |
Notes
on Contributors
(at
time of publication)
Introduction Jonathan Schell Jonathan Schell is the Peace and Disarmament Correspondent at The Nation and Harold Willens Peace Fellow at The Nation Institute. He is the author of The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People (2003) and A Hole in the World: A Story of War, Protest and the New American Order (2004), a compilation of his “Letters from Ground Zero” columns.
John Eatwell is former Economic Adviser to Neil Kinnock, a member of the House of Lords. He is a Lecturer in Economics at the University of Cambridge and President of Queens College. Europe and America: The Ties that Bind Michael Naumann Michael Naumann is
Professor of Political Science, McGill University, Montreal. He is the
author of The Explanation of Behavioris a Professor at Humboldt University. He is the publisher of Die Zeit, in Hamburg, Germany, and the former Minister for Culture and Media of Germany. He served as CEO for both Metropolitan Books and Henry Holt, Inc., and Rowohlt Verlahg, Germany. Introduction Elzbieta Matynia Elzbieta Matynia is Director of the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies and Senior Lecturer in Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research. Her current research includes nationalism and ethnic conflict, new democracies in East and Central Europe, and women and democratic transition. Ambiguity and America: South Africa and US Foreign Policy Richard Goldstone Richard Goldstone is a former Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and a former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He is a member of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the Iraq Oil for Food Program (the Volcker Committee). A Story of Ambivalence or Pure Love: Israelis and America Avishai Margalit Avishai Margalit,
Shulman Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, received the Spinoza Lens Prize in 2001 for “a significant contribution to the normative debate on society.” He is one of the founders of Peace Now and the author of books and articles on topics that include the philosophy of language, social and political philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. America: A View from Egypt Naiem A. Sherbiny Naiem A. Sherbiny, author of numerous books and papers on the Middle East, has been on the faculty at Berkeley, Wisconsin, Harvard, AUC, and Georgetown; and economist at the Arab Fund in Kuwait and the World Bank in Washington. Presently, he represents the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development in the United States, and is director at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Foundation. He lives and works in Arlington, Virginia. America as the Mirror of Russian Phobias Fedor Lukyanov Fedor Lukyanov is the Editor in Chief of the Moscow-based Russia in Global Affairs, the foremost journal of Russia’s perspective on global economic and social issues. The United States and Islam: Toward Perpetual War? Pervez Hoodbhoy Pervez Hoodbhoy is Professor of Nuclear Physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan. He is the recipient of several awards, including the Abdus Salam Prize for Mathematics, the Baker Award for Electronics, and the UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the popularization of science. He is author of Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality (1992)
Chandra Muzzafar is President of International Movement for a Just World, which seeks to raise public awareness of the moral and intellectual basis of global justice. He was previously a Professor at the Center for Civilizational Dialogue, University Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. He has written numerous books on religion, human rights, Malaysian politics, and international relations, including Rights, Religion, and Reform (2002).Assistant Professor of Philosophy, City College of New York, is the
author of several articles, including "Fine, Mathematics and Theory
Change," and "On Explanation in Archaeology."
Sulayman S. Nyang is a Professor of African Studies at Howard University. He was Deputy Ambassador and Head of Chancery of the Gambia embassy in Saudi Arabia. He is also co-director of Muslims in the America Public Square.
Yuen-Ying Chan yuen-ying chan is an award-winning journalist and reporter for the New York Daily News. She is Director and Founder of the Journalism and Media Studies Center at the University of Hong Kong. Her honors include a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, a George Polk Award for Journalistic Excellence, and an International Press Freedom Award by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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