Summary in seconds: The influence of the United States on Arab and Islamic countries, the significance of understanding American society, and what we will cover in our next article.
Regardless of your feelings towards the United States, one must acknowledge the enormous influence that the United States exerts on the lives of people residing in Arab and Muslim countries. This influence is not confined to political or military aspects alone but extends to include various cultural and civilizational facets in our societies.
We watch American movies, enjoy their music, imitate their celebrities, and hang pictures of their cities’ skylines and natural landmarks on the walls of our homes. Even our children dress up like the heroes of their comic books and proudly hang their flag on the handlebars of their bikes. In addition to these cultural impacts, the influence of the United States extends to all facets of our daily lives: from the flour that we use to bake our bread to the medicine that treats our patients; from the computers on our desks to the social media sites through which we stay in touch with our families and see pictures of our grandkids.
Despite the pervasiveness of their culture and the products of their civilization in every corner of our lives, our knowledge of them remains superficial. Conversely, they seem to know everything about us.
And although we may differ in how we define the metrics that measure the nation’s progress, we can probably agree that American culture has enabled its citizens to achieve remarkable feats. These achievements include low infant mortality rates and high life expectancy for their citizens, globally esteemed university degrees and educational institutions at the forefront of science, leading the world in scientific progress throughout most of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century, and having the highest number of Nobel Prize laureates in all fields of science compared to other countries. Top of Form
Furthermore, understanding American culture may reveal their road-map to success, allowing us to follow in their footsteps and identify the mistakes they made while building their nation, so we can avoid repeating those errors.
In my upcoming “Letter From America” articles, I aim to provide a deeper understanding of Americans: their value system and its priorities, the role of religion, morals, and laws in shaping their behavior, the influence of their families and educational institutions in molding the minds of their children, and how they instill sacred principles in the consciousness of their youth. These principles include individualism, freedom of thought and expression, and the belief that any goal can be achieved through hard work.
My goal is to acquaint Arabs and Muslims with Americans; how they perceive the world around them, their thought processes, their decision-making, and then how they translate these decisions into reality.
In the next article of this series, I will introduce Alister Cook1 the host of “Letter from America” on the British Broadcasting Corporation for nearly 58 years. During his fifteen-minute program, Alistair Cook visited topical issues that preoccupied American society at the time. He connected these topical issues with threads from his observations and anecdotes about American society, often ending the letter with a humorous or poignant tone.
References
1. Alistair Cook: (November 20, 1908-March 30, 2004), was a British-American writer, journalist, television personality, and a radio broadcaster.