Elinor Burkett, now chairwoman of the department of journalism at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, found herself a new Fulbright professor of journalism in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in August, 2001. In Central Asia, an American Professor Finds Hostility Spiked With Cynicism demonstrates the local attitude toward America:
I caught my first glimpse into that miasma of misinformation, envy, and anxiety on the morning of September 12, 2001, when I staggered into class only to face my students’ announcement that a world war between Christians and Muslims was imminent. I had been up all night surfing through 63 television channels that did not include CNN, so I wasn’t exactly in the mood to teach. But the professorial gene kicked in as soon as I settled behind my desk.“Which Christians and which Muslims?” I asked the class. Half of the students in the room called themselves Muslims although after eight decades of Soviet hegemony, few knew what Islam required. “Are you talking about yourselves?”
“Not really. Muslims here aren’t really Muslims like in Afghanistan.”
The quietest girl in the class shyly suggested, “But Muslims have to defend other Muslims against attack”
I stopped her mid-sentence. “What if the Muslims are in the wrong? And what happens when Muslims attack other Muslims?”
“Muslims don’t attack other Muslims,” she insisted.
“Iran and Iraq? The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait? Should I go on?”
A boy in the back raised his hand. “But Muslims have no choice but to hate the United States and declare a jihad, since the United States is always attacking Muslims,” he said.
“Is that true?” I pressed. “Where have we attacked Muslims?”
“I don’t know. That’s what people say.”
“In Bosnia and Somalia, we were supporting Muslims,” I said. “And in the war against Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait, we were supporting Muslims who were attacked by other Muslims.”
A stony silence, more of bewilderment than hostility, enveloped the room, as if I’d just announced to a group of American students that the earth wasn’t round, or that Utah was just a cartographer’s fantasy. It was the first of many retreats in the face of an unaccustomed challenge to official truths.