Although many of the men were from Saudi Arabia, it wasn't a Saudi attack. Al Qaeda had made history with a coordinated attach against the United States.
And quite a few people think that's what They want you to believe.
Conspiracies, Convenience, and Comfort
Who the "They" is varies a bit across the globe. America, more specifically the American government, is a big favorite. So is Israel, at least in the Middle East.As I've said before, when elections or other stressful situations shake the tree of liberty, quite a few loose nuts fall out.
In cases like the 9/11 attacks, I think that many people find the idea of an attack on that scale, by a group like Al Qaeda, unthinkable. These people could
- Take the information, re-evaluate their beliefs, assumptions, and values, and come to a new understanding of what the world is, and how it works
- Point to their preferred bad guys, assume that they did it, and then assume that They conspired to hide the truth by besmirching Al Qaeda
When I was growing up, quite a few Americans seemed to believe that 'the commies' were behind most of the world's ills. (If you're too young to remember the fifties, watch some M.A.S.H. reruns. Frank Burns is a played-for-laughs buffoon, but he's also a caricature of a real sort of person.)
Times change. The commies have been replaced by other bogey men: like the CIA, Bush, and Big Oil. But the general pattern is the same: make up your mind, then treat reality like a cafeteria. If you don't like something, you don't have to accept it.
An outfit called World Public Opinion did an opinion poll, involving people in 17 nations. They released the results yesterday:
(From World Public Opinion, used without permission.)
I like the graph, but some of those numbers are a tad hard to read, so I put a table together, to get a better look at the data. A couple things jumped out at me. The percentage of 'don't know' goes from 3% to 57% - quite a range. And, what I think is good news: the European nations polled seem to have dropped anti-Semitism, for the most part. 1% is pretty close to background noise.
The Middle East, on the other hand, has a fair number of people who think Israel is responsible for the 9/11 attacks. A very interesting follow-up on this poll would be finding out why so many Egyptians, and others, believe that the Jews attacked America.
I don't think that public opinion polls are useful for determining what's true, and what's not. I do, however, think that they can be very useful in learning how people view the world: and what parts of reality they accept; and what parts they replace with their own assumptions.
| Al Qaeda | America | Israel | Other | Don't Know | |
| Germany | 64% | 23% | 1% | 2% | 9% |
| France | 63% | 8% | 0 | 7% | 23% |
| Britain | 57% | 5% | 1% | 12% | 26% |
| Russia | 57% | 15% | 2% | 6% | 19% |
| Italy | 56% | 15 | 1% | 7% | 21% |
| Ukraine | 42% | 15% | 1% | 5% | 39% |
| Palestinian Territories | 42% | 27% | 19% | 9% | 3% |
| Turkey | 39% | 36% | 3% | 1% | 21% |
| Egypt | 16% | 12% | 43% | 11% | 18% |
| Jordan | 11% | 17% | 31% | 4% | 36% |
| Kenya | 77% | 4% | 3% | 3% | 12% |
| Nigeria | 71% | 7% | 2% | 6% | 14% |
| Taiwan | 53% | 4% | 0 | 10% | 34% |
| South Korea | 51% | 17% | 1% | 9% | 22% |
| China | 32% | 9% | 0 | 3% | 56% |
| Indonesia | 23% | 14% | 5% | 1% | 57% |
| Mexico | 33% | 30% | 1% | 18% | 19% |
| Average | 46% | 15% | 7% | 7% | 25% |
More:
- "International Poll: No Consensus on Who Was Behind 9/11"
Reuters (September 10, 2008) - "International Poll: No Consensus On Who Was Behind 9/11"
World Public Opinion.org (September 10, 2008)
4 comments:
Brain, thanks a lot for sharing.
My concern is about the shape of the world after 7 years of the attacks which I think it became worse.
Another inquisitive point is what history shall the future generation read about this period? hummm
I was surprised to see so many mexicans think that the U.S government was behind 9/11, and we have millions of them flooding into our country. We definitely need that border fence.
Hicham,
My pleasure.
I don't entirely agree about the shape of the world becoming worse since September 11, 2001.
What has happened is that Muslims who believe that they have the right to kill people they don't approve of have become very difficult to ignore. It's not a new phenomenon at all: Examples go back at least as far as the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in Tehran by the Ayatollah Khomeini, and the 1993 bombing of the New York World Trade Center.
I put together a chronology last year ("Congress Must Decide Who to Protect Americans From").
In some ways, I see the current state of affairs as better than it was ten years ago. It's not as easy now to regard - and dismiss - Islamic (or other) terrorism as a political statement, excusable outburst from an oppressed populace, or manifestation of psychological angst.
Not that I wouldn't much rather that everyone be nice, of course.
johnny,
I really don't know about the border fence. And, the last I heard, the migration is going the other way: possibly because more jurisdictions are starting to regard illegal entry and residence in America as a criminal act.
As for being surprised about so many Mexicans thinking that the Yankees are behind 9/11: I'm not.
But then, I was around in the fifties, when a loud, if not large, segment of the American population was convinced that the commies were behind everything.
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