Commentary
Is patriotism crowding out tougher questions?

By John Griffin

I came away from a recent East-West Center program feeling better about the state of journalism than about the image of America in the world today.

Prayers and patriotism have converged at gatherings held throughout America in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Advertiser library photo • Sept. 14, 2001

(I should disclose that I help select from among the fellowship applicants, which gives me no pay but satisfaction and a special interest in the results.)

This fall's program opened in the shadow of the Sept. 11 attacks. Our bombing in Afghanistan began as the fellows left on their trips. It concluded amid the anthrax scare, which drew few comments from the fellows.

As usual, most of the 13 American and Asian fellows were mid-career news editors, broadcast program directors or producers. Many are "gatekeepers," people who select or influence the kind of foreign news that gets reported and played in their countries.

In discussions on their return, the four Americans went first in reporting back. Their trip took them to New Delhi, India; Bangkok, Thailand; Hong Kong; Guang-zhou in southern China; and back through Tokyo.

Those on first trips to Asia told of their culture shock amid the pressing crowds, traffic confusion, poverty and the general vastness of the continent. Previous visitors to Asia remarked on the pace of new development. Other topics touched on corruption, pollution, media restraints and excesses, and Asia's economic problems.

But it was not long before talk turned to America's new war and Asian reactions.

CNN producer Jennifer Mattson pointed to a contrast between Indian governmental support and some public unhappiness with U.S. bombing in Afghanistan. She noted Asian doubts about getting rid of terrorists. And to the Asia-Pacific fellows around the table, she said:

"Our first week (at the center), you guys told us of the doubts and we doubted you. Then we got there to find it was true."

Other fellows told of finding memories in Thailand of the Vietnam War. They reported that people in Bangkok asked if the United States had the staying power for another long war.

The same pattern prevailed in a long afternoon session in which the eight Asia fellows and a Fijian woman broadcaster were candid about their impressions of San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and New York City (which after Sept. 11 was substituted for Houston).

Much impressed them. Wang Yanping, a department director at the China Daily, an English-language newspaper based in Beijing, spoke of the "shock, anger and unity" he found, including among his former colleagues now living in the United States. He and others remarked on how the American flags (sometimes made in China) had become a symbol of resolve.

Visits to the World Trade Center ruins moved several, as did talks with police, firefighters and others nearby. "The TV or nothing can prepare you," said one fellow from India. Harry Bhaskara, a Jakarta Post editor, commented on the volunteers, saying he couldn't imagine that would happen in Indonesia.

Salah Abdel-Maqsud and Mohamed Gharib Ismail wave the Quran and Egypt's flag, merging nationalism and religion in a potent way. Advertiser library photo • Nov. 24, 1995

Still, this was a group that often didn't hold back in its criticism of the United States, including in some testy exchanges with testy American editors. (One from the Bay Area yelled at them, "What would you do if it was your country?")

Mild-mannered Htin Aung Kyaw, a Burmese writer-editor, saw an America being remade by fiery patriotism. But he said Americans also have to ask themselves, "Why do they hate us?"

Sri Lanka journalist Amantha Perera said nobody seemed to care that terrorism in his relatively small island nation off India has killed 75,000 people in the past dozen years.

Osama bin Laden and others are creatures of an environment, and Americans seemed to be fighting the germs, not the greater disease, he said. Not enough Americans, including journalists, were asking, "Why are these people (the terrorists) doing that?"

Most outspoken of all, yet also in a friendly and attractive way, was Gautam Chikermane, editor of a New Delhi business magazine. He noted that during discussions on the Mainland, he often compared the New York death toll with that of innocent civilians in the U.S. atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

"We asked harsh questions. We provoked," he said. Yet he also added that he thought India's reaction to an attack like that of Sept. 11 would have been even harsher, and that the only person rude to him in America had been an Indian.

But his main point was this: Americans are too self-involved and preoccupied with themselves. They need to take a broader and deeper view of the world.

Ancient China and India were once great powers, he said, as were the Greek and Roman empires. All eventually failed because they became too inward looking. "And if that happens here, America will not stand the test of time."

Several in both groups of fellows made the point that Asians take a longer view of history over hundreds, even thousands, of years. They see it as cyclical where Americans are linear in their outlook.

For perspective, Sept. 11 was less than a month before their visit. They noted that more Americans were now asking questions about American tactics and the need to do more about deeper Third World problems.

So it went in the center's Jefferson Hall in this program now backed by the Freeman Foundation, which has a special interest in East-West relations.

These are not scholars. But they are good journalists who came together, shared a month, and got along to the point you could feel the friendships and enjoy both the humor and the occasional differences.

I left thinking their communities, East and West, will be better served by the perspective they gained. But I worry that not enough Americans are asking tough questions amid our understandable anger and patriotism.

John Griffin is the former editorial page editor of The Advertiser. He writes frequently for these pages.