Interesting op-ed piece from the Baltimore Sun:
Politicians in the Middle East and the United States agree on one thing: The occupation of Iraq will shape how America is viewed in the infamous "Arab street."But any examination of public opinion in the region should begin by discarding this misleading cliché.
The Arab street is inaccurate, disrespectful and obstructive to U.S. efforts to engage the Middle East. There is no monolithic Arab street stewing with a singular hatred of the United States; the populations of 18 different countries and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories do not think as one group.
It suggests a mob mentality; even when France is frustrating we don't decry the "French street." It is simply hypocritical to talk of public opinion at home and ethnic streets overseas.
Defenders say the term emphasizes the gap between Arab dictators and their citizens. But it is precisely those rulers who advance the impression that the "street" may erupt at any moment (even as they control information and limit expression). This is the most dangerous part of perpetuating the "street" fiction: It feeds the scare tactics of dictators in the Middle East.
Last year, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak incorrectly predicted that if the United States invaded Iraq, "not a single ruler will be able to curb the popular sentiments" and "chaos may prevail in the region." Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, warned the war would lead to hellish violence in the Arab street.
And in 2001, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah wrote to President Bush arguing that the United States and Saudi Arabia should "look at their separate interests" because "those governments that don't feel the pulse of the people and respond to it will suffer the fate of the shah of Iran," a reference to the Islamic radicals who ousted him in 1979.
The warning to the United States is that it is better to deal with dictators than violent extremists among the populations they oversee.
Laurent Murawiec, a former RAND Corp. analyst, recently explained this tactic to a congressional subcommittee: The Arab street, he said, is "a cliché that has gained currency because Arab dictators wanted to be able to project ... the dangerous irrationality, the lurking violence [and] the explosive potential of the very populations that they keep in check under poverty."
U.S. officials are all too ready to use that cliché. Example: A House government reform subcommittee held a hearing in October titled, "Are We Listening to the Arab Street?" At one point, the chairman of the panel, Republican Rep. Christopher Shays from Connecticut, conceded, "There is no one street, and I'm almost a little embarrassed that we called it that, but it was a good title."
Americans have been sacrificing accuracy for catchy titles. "Arab street" was rarely used before 9/11; in a typical year in the 1990s, it appeared about two dozen times in major American newspapers. But the same papers referenced the Arab street 532 times in 2002.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has said the United States has a "problem with the Arab street" because many people in the Arab world misunderstand America. But understanding is a two-way street.
Americans should be wary of adages that lump all Arab populations together and dictators who warn that the oppressed are even more dangerous than the oppressors. After 9/11, many people fixated on the melodramatic question, "Why do they hate us?" But we should be asking, "Who hates us?"
This is a more important question, because it could push Americans to consider both the diversity and repression of public opinion in the Middle East.
Ari Melber is writing a book about college admissions. He lives in Washington.