U.S. cannot fight what it does not understand

WASHINGTON — "You cannot fight what you can’t understand," my neighbor is telling me, and I think he is right, although some of what he is saying is very hard for an American to hear, particularly at this moment, barely a week since our world was altered.

My neighbor is French by birth, a virtual American by acculturation — having spent most of 40 years here — and also an Africanist, intimately tied to the developing world. His perch, then, is a cultural three-legged stool, and his empathy is distributed accordingly.

He is hoping, says Xavier de la Renaudiere, that the tragedy of September 11 could cause the United States to ponder how we might eliminate some of the grievances the world nurses against us. To do so, he says, "would take deliberate action on the part of the U.S. to review its whole attitude."

Reviewing our attitude is hardly what America seems inclined to do, but I continue listening. We must try, he says, to understand what fuels the grudges against the West. Partly, it’s opposition to modernity. When centuries-old social systems are catapulted forward without benefit of generations of evolution, there is shock.

Then of course there is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which breeds support for terrorism in the Muslim world. Finally, there is the feeling among many around the globe that America is arrogant and unready to recognize the legitimacy of other views and other aspirations.

What might we do about all this? To quell the fears of modernization, he suggests, we must "eliminate the desire to convert everyone. You are what you are, they are what they are, have respect for their customs." A second need, of course — so urgent yet so difficult to achieve — is resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

And then there’s the arrogance. We must tone down our rhetoric, quit proclaiming our power and virtues, and let our deeds — and our friends — speak for us. "Bill Gates doesn’t say all the time that he’s the richest guy in the world. The others can say that."

In a way, Xavier notes, what happened September 11 represents not a political change, but a technological one. Anti-American sentiments — anti-Western sentiments — have been around. But now we see them operating on a different scale. "No longer is this something that could kill a few people in a ship somewhere, but something that could go to the heart of a society."

The only hope against such terror, he says, lies in a coalition — not simply of governments, but "a coalition among people." This is not a coalition set up essentially as a cover for our pursuit of our own goals, nor a coalition only of close allies. "You need much more this time. It is essential that some of the nations in the Middle East be with you. You need sources of information there. You need the people with you. It’s the people who will find the terrorists."

And how might this come about? "You can achieve much more if the U.S. is prepared to show a different face: A country that is not simply the arrogant superpower, but a country that is in tune with world public opinion."

Again I am struck that world opinion may not be uppermost in our minds at the moment — though I recall a powerful American antecedent for having it be so, in times of crisis: Our forefathers, in the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming themselves mindful of what "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind" required of them.

However, even as I am moved by what Xavier is telling me, I am aware that a very different course is likely. What does he think will happen, I ask, if we now attempt to get rid of Osama bin Laden? "Killing bin Laden will galvanize the others," says Xavier. "Successors will rise up. Not with the same resources, perhaps. But once he has found the technology, others will find it, too — or worse. Whatever you do to protect yourself, they will always find a weakness through which to go after you, eventually."

I think of Russia’s "bleeding wound," as Mikhail Gorbachev characterized his country’s tragic efforts in Afghanistan. I think of what our open society and respect for civil liberties mean to us, and of all that now threatens them. I think of the fears of the terrorist acts still to come. And I think that, by contrast, what my neighbor is saying feels hopeful.

"You cannot fight what you cannot understand," he says again. "At least we should know it. There is a difference between understanding and approving." And I think that he is right.

Geneva Overholser can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200 or overholserg@washpost.com.