Down With America: Anti-Americanism and Study Abroad
This is the ninth in a series of “food for thought” pieces from CIEE. The themes vary but all deal with study abroad for U.S. undergraduates. We present our ideas not as the only viable ones but rather to stimulate discourse in furtherance of the study abroad enterprise. Previous topics include:
– How Are We Doing?
– Standards
– A CIEE Eye for the Study Abroad Guy...or Girl
– Parents, Pills, & Pandering
– A Research Agenda for Study Abroad
– What’s It All About?
– Numbers
– Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
We welcome your comments and requests for additional copies at any time to editor@ciee.org.
Anti-Americanism is not new. Those of us of a certain age who lived abroad in the 60s clearly remember being questioned and even yelled at about American behavior and intentions in Southeast Asia during the height of the Vietnam War. It was a real shock at first and of course later this criticism became the norm at home too. So much of this type of Anti-American feeling is episodic. It’s related to a particular war or particular military or social action that is not popular around the world. This sort of reaction is to be expected. It happens. No one would argue that our foreign policy or the foreign policy of any sovereign nation should be conducted based upon world opinion polls. In general, these feelings are transient. While American citizens abroad often bear the brunt of the negative feelings, most of the world’s hosts have separated the behavior of our citizens and their intentions with the behavior of our national political leaders. While one President or another might be liked or disliked around the world, people have traditionally separated US from THEM. This is not to suggest that we are universally loved around the world. But in general, people abroad in our experience are welcoming, curious about our beliefs, and willing to give U.S. citizens the benefit of the doubt about how “nice people like us could elect leaders like that” when they are unhappy about American political leaders and positions.
This seems to be changing. In the last few years, we sense that there is less separation of US and THEM. People are not so willing to give us the benefit of the doubt. Throughout “old” Europe and even in Latin America, traditional bastions of U.S. support, we are increasingly less popular as a people. Since we elect our leadership, we’re perceived as responsible for them and their unpopularity becomes ours. This pattern holds in varying degrees throughout much of the world. Given that opinion polls from most countries say that positive opinions of the U.S. have fallen below the 50% level, this isn’t surprising. Of course, we still have friends abroad both individually and collectively. There are still many people around the world who admire our freedoms and our “can do” society which provides significant wealth, upward mobility, and other opportunities not always available in their land. But, in much of the world there is a questioning of how a wealthy society can have such poor health and emergency care for the less fortunate. A health care system like ours is without explanation to many. The handling of Hurricane Katrina hurt America’s image as a place where problems get fixed, a society that always works, and a land of plenty. The world was exposed to America’s poor – some would say forgotten – and it wasn’t a pretty picture.
There is clearly a sense of diminished popularity for the U.S. At best, it’s nothing more than a passing phase. At worst, we’re disliked for our motives, our views, and our actions in a way that is not going to pass quickly. We don’t want to overstate this case nor do we want to make it sound uniform. Nor do we wish to make a political statement. It is a big world and there are a variety of views everywhere. We also don’t think this is solely a political issue. It’s cultural in many ways. While the Iraq War is clearly not a cause with much world support and contributes to the malaise, the issues we are describing will not pass with that conflict. They are deep, pernicious, and lasting and deal with cultural values such as the proper role of government in society, the degree to which there is and/or should be a gap between the have and have not, and human rights and access to government care and support when not self-achieved. It also deals with the extent to which our values should be exported elsewhere and/or imposed on others through military might.
It is hard to argue that there has not been a serious deterioration of the U.S. image abroad and a kind of hard, painful questioning of leadership at home. And, those who question are often labeled as anti-American so that the issues have become both internal and external. There is a bifurcation of our society that is different or more pronounced than in years past; have and have not, cared about or ignored, with us or against us, in a domestic as well as a global sense. It profoundly impacts our self-image as well as our global image especially in a world of CNN, the Internet, and other forms of instant communication and commentary. Leadership focused on black and white, good and evil, blue or red, and right and wrong values exacerbate this separation of society along relatively simplistic lines.
Each of us has our own positions and views on these matters. Our ability to think for ourselves, act as we see appropriate, and support or not support a particular political or social agenda is part of our national heritage. It is our right and our obligation as citizens. But, this Our View is not about citizenship. Rather, it is about the preparation of American students to study abroad and the extent to which these issues impact that experience. Many students have a very limited view of the issues described here. They think the world is like us. They are not necessarily open to learning that our society might be less than perfect in the eyes of others. And, they are ill-prepared to serve as informal diplomats for the U.S. or even understand that they might have that role. And, when confronted by hostility abroad, they are simply dumbfounded about how anyone could feel that way about them. In some cases, they are so culturally unaware that they’re surprised to find out that pets abroad don’t speak English.
Rather than be vexed and disturbed by this situation, we see this time as a huge opportunity to reaffirm the value of study abroad for American college students. An asymmetrical world, with divergent views and instant communications, is going to be the world in which they live. Their interdependency upon that world is going to be much greater than this generation’s. In passing the torch to them, we believe there is a real opportunity to prepare them for living in that world.
None of this is new to anyone involved in study abroad. These issues, though not vocalized daily, underlie a good deal of our activity. Cross-cultural experience, learning, and capacity to function in other cultures is a hallmark of the study abroad experience. However, as numbers and destinations have grown, and as market forces have impacted learning goals and perhaps the experience itself, it’s easy to forget that building skills for understanding and cohabitation in a multi-national world is at the core of what we do. While easy to talk about conceptually, coming up with operational ways to deal with the necessary intercultural learning is more difficult.
We think there are a number of things that all of us can do, or do better, to help students grasp and deal with these issues. First, a small number of case studies on anti-Americanism as part of the orientation process would be very beneficial. These need not be long and complex, only a few pages. These cases would provide opportunities for students to analyze what’s going on and why and discuss appropriate responses. For many, this will be the first time any of them have ever really thought about this issue. We’re big fans of online, multiple choice “vignettes” and are using these with non-U.S. students to orient them to U.S. cultural norms. We plan to use this technology to achieve similar goals with U.S. students. The point is that awareness is the beginning of understanding and there is innovative technology at our disposal to address these issues.
Most students never meet anyone who is a spokesperson for the “other side,” those who see Americans in a less-than-attractive light. There is no shortage of these people around the world. Many of them are intelligent, well-educated, and hardly radical. They simply see the world differently than we do. Inviting some of these people as speakers at cross-cultural development sessions is a great way to provide controlled exposure to study abroad students. We should seek and promote these opportunities in our programs. This is not subversive, it’s educational.
A required cross-cultural learning course or segment should exist in every study abroad program. Study abroad is about cross-cultural competence and it doesn’t happen by osmosis. We’ve written about this extensively in this series and in other places and don’t wish to belabor the point. The idea that one absorbs this knowledge simply by being there isn’t consistent with our experience. With programs getting shorter and the world becoming more homogenous in many ways, students need to be pushed a bit to assure that they get full value from the overseas learning experience. We can and should structurally develop programming to assure this happens.
Finally, we should provide students practice in explaining their piece of the world to America when they return home. A take-home story for them to tell their friends and family about the wonderful things they saw abroad, things that might be different from what those friends and family know and/or understand. One way to capture an experience is to develop this type of storytelling skill among students. Aside from many side benefits in terms of presentation skills, synthesis of information, and similar outputs, this project can be fun. In short, let them produce a presentation or video on their experience for use at a local event upon return home. Whether they ever use it is irrelevant, it’s the process of summation and presentation that will help solidify their learning. After all, study abroad is to some extent about “What will your story be?”
All these ideas are pedagogical, simple approaches and/or exercises in which students can engage to help assure they get full value learning abroad. It will help them better understand anti-Americanism. It will equip them in a variety of ways to respond to these issues. It will aid them in thinking critically about why these feelings exist and our responsibility as a society to respond to these issues. It will help them be better U.S. and global citizens. The small effort it takes in time, curriculum development, and execution as well as the sheer joy of doing it certainly seems worth the effort.