JJcastro wrote:
Can any of you actually say that you've had a bad experience abroad for the sole reason that you were american?
I've had bad experiences but it is not always so easy to say why. Its not like a surly waiter or violent mugger would just come out and say they act the way they do because you're american. And, to the degree we have had bad experiences, of course it is not like one could lay it entirely to just one cause any way. But to expect us to be able to do that would be both unfair AND unnecessary. I think it is entirely possible that anti-americanism of some sort played at least a part in some or even many of these occurances AND that some might not have occurred otherwise.
However, I'd add a couple of other very important observations.
The first is that, unpopular as our current President and his policies may be overseas and for that matter as anti-american may be the GOVERNMENT in those countries, the PEOPLE in most of those countries can and do differentiate between the policies of our government and the American people ourselves (even though we elected Bush and then essentially ratified his policies by re-electing him). For example, I've read that among the Iranian PEOPLE 92% hold an unfavorable opinion of Bush (86% very) while only 49% look unfavorably on the American PEOPLE (33% very) while almost as many (45%) look favorably (9% very). And that is among one of our worst enemies. I'm sure you could find equally wide or even wider discrepancies between views towards Bush and our current government and the american people in general in most other countries. So, in spite of whatever negative views there may be of how the US has acted as a country the last few years there is still a large reservoir of goodwill towards us as a people and we can travel to those countries without suffering as a result of the attitude towards our government. ....Well almost. Which brings me to my 2nd observation
I think, as big as an impact whomever we've had as President has had on attitudes towards Americans overseas, a far wider and more direct impact comes from how OTHER AMERICAN TOURISTS act when they go to these countries. We've all heard the expression "the Ugly American" which usually refers to the very worst amongst us (but still far too common). These are the loutish, loud and arrogant types, who look down their noses at locals and treat them just as some poor dumb servant that they can step on and secretly (or sometimes not so secretly) laugh at behind their backs. These are the ones who go around with an air of entitlement and think that everything should be handed to them just because they are, well, Americans. It is only natural that the poor locals see these rich and rude interlopers as something to be resented even if (or especially because) they have become so dependent on them for their livelihoods. And I have definitely seen this form of anti-americanism grow in various places as the volume of American tourism has grown in those places. Ironically, the country that I have found in Central America with perhaps the nicest attitudes towards gringo visitors is El Salvador and I suspect that is at least partly because they still get so few of us that we haven't screwed up out image yet.
My point is that there are many factors that go into how the people of other countries view and act towards us as foreign visitors and a change of Presidents probably only has a small part to do with that. So while the so-called Obama Effect might have some positive impact I wouldn't count on it changing things when we travel that radically.*
Signed, Prolijo
*
(Other than possibly opening up Cuba - see other thread).
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. It will be interesting to see if the so-called Real Americans support our new Commander-in-Chief when he takes over in January.
Sean Hannity and the rest of the lackys get paid to spew that shit, but what's in it for the rest of the the flock?
