Whole Life Times: The Weight of the World

October 2004 | BackWords

The Weight of the World

There is a great deal of confused amazement in America as to why so much of the world resents us. Are we guilty as charged?

by Matt Kelley

On my 25th birthday, I left Skardu (a little village in northern Pakistan) with the intention of exploring the Baltoro glacier, a vast expanse of ice located in the Karakoram mountain range. The caravan included two chickens, a goat and 10 Pakistani porters who would carry my supplies. Only two of the Pakistanis spoke any English and I spoke no Urdu—a rough start, but enthusiasm overcame any initial difficulties. During the month we spent in the mountains we discussed (as best we could) politics, religion, family life and the million different cultural differences that made us items of curiosity to each other.

Northern Pakistan is a staggeringly poor region, and our supplies reflected this. I wore sturdy leather mountaineering boots with heavy wool socks, while the porters wore only thin sandals—and yet they insisted on being allowed to carry me when we came to a stream.

My pack was a meager 35 pounds, while they carried 50 or 60 pounds apiece —but it was they who offered to shoulder my pack at the end of a 12-hour day.

They had brought nothing but bread for their meals, while I had with me mangoes and vegetables (which they carried)—but with selfless smiles they would offer me half of their dinner at evening time. All this while I paid them four dollars a day.

I had left the United States four years earlier for a work opportunity that took me overseas. I had worked in Antarctica, spent time in the South Pacific and traveled across Asia from Thailand and Cambodia all the way to Pakistan.

I returned home early in September 2001 with a great deal of anticipation after having been so long out of my home country. One week after my flight landed on American soil, the World Trade Towers were destroyed. Now, more than three years have passed, and we still have received no satisfactory answer as to why these attacks happened.

There is a great deal of confused amazement in America as to why so much of the world resents the U.S., but personal experience compels me to acknowledge that we are, to a certain extent, guilty as charged. We are perceived by the developing world as “spoiled rotten,” indulging in frivolous vanities while they go about the desperate business of staying alive—and I must admit that after witnessing the endless tent cities in Rawalpindi, I cannot walk through a shopping mall without hanging my head in shame.

America is viewed as being callously indifferent to the plight of the world’s poor. Indeed, it is believed that we exploit their labor and resources in order to further satiate our voracious appetites. And I cannot but agree with them, for I own the products of sweatshop labor.

The U.S. is regarded as arrogant in its disregard for the international community, and from the Kyoto Protocol to International Criminal Court immunity to unilateral action against Iraq, we have no defense against this charge.

When our government endorses non-democratic regimes, we are accused of hypocrisy—and I vividly recall the 1983 photograph of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, a criminal we armed and paid. We are accused of being so wrapped up in our own superficial affairs that we do not even recognize the struggle so many of the world’s poor contend with on a daily basis—and I ask you, if someone ran for political office on a platform of raising taxes to help pay for desperately needed infrastructure in the third world, how would you vote?

An American friend in rural Pakistan has told me that strangers are approaching him and apologizing, begging him to believe that terrorism is not the way of Islam. I have been asked to spread the word that the Muslim is not the sworn enemy of the American. But it is not so easy now—we have invaded a country, and the population that once believed us to be liberators is now beginning to regard us as an occupier. We are believed to be a profiteering exploiter—just another oppressor that shadows its moves under the touted veil of freedom.

The Pakistanis I interacted with were nothing but friendly and helpful to me, but I suspect they recognized that my attitude, my money and indeed my very presence indicated somebody—or something—was taking advantage of them. They were too kind to express this in any way, and seemed to harbor no resentment, but as we scrambled up a steep ice-covered slope at 18,000 feet, I with my crampons and ice axe and they wearing flip-flops wrapped in bread bags to keep out snow, it seemed painfully obvious that I could have done more to ease their burden. The ethical obligation of helping out our fellow humans all too often falls into the “optional” category.

Perhaps the anti-American sentiment expressed so vehemently throughout most of the Middle East stems from the fact that we are ignoring a few too many of our optional, ethical obligations. The faults they perceive? Ignorance of poverty. An unwillingness to acknowledge the hardship that beleaguers our fellow man. And above all, insensitivity to the responsibility we have to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

With all humility, I pose the question: Are they right?

Matt Kelley is a travel writer with expeditions to Antarctica, Tibet and elsewhere to his credit. When not traveling, he lives in a van in northern California.

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: