Martin Smith Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

Photo by Jane Scherr

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Documenting the Islamic World

Let's focus now on work that you've done on our problems with the Islamic world, with terrorists, with some of the regimes in that area. You did a documentary called "Saudi Time Bomb?" You did the documentary on "Hunting bin Laden." You've done things on 9/11 and understanding Muslims in the United States, and so on. Is there a main set of themes that emerge from these different works on this particular subset of problems? Or do they each stand on their own merit? I guess what I'm getting at is, is there a way that we don't understand the Islamic world that reappears on all these?

Yes. That's all one body of work, to start. These are not separate films. They're all continuing attempts to understand the context and background to 9/11, to what happened on 9/11. Why did nineteen young men get into those airplanes and fly them into those towers, into the Pentagon? What is the history out of which they've emerged? What are the societies that they've come from? I think all of those films are an attempt to understand that basic thing, as well as understand some of our attempts at investigating them, and some of our cultural misunderstandings that have made it difficult for us to make progress. But it's all one body of work.

I'm just probing. One of the first programs we did after 9/11 was called "Looking for Answers," because we couldn't think of a better title, and we decided that's exactly what it was. We, like all Americans, were sitting depressed and distraught, and disturbed by what had happened, and we wanted some answers, and so we went back to the countries out of which most of the terrorists had emerged -- Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in this case; bin Laden from Saudi Arabia and his top man, Imam Alsawahari from Egypt -- and looked at their backgrounds. Where did they come from? Nobody was doing that in as concentrated a way. There were snippets here and there on the news about these people and their backgrounds.

When bin Laden attacked the African embassies, people couldn't understand it. "Why would they attack these embassies in Africa?" And, "These are Islamic terrorists: aren't they just mad about Israel? Why would they [attack African countries]?" These questions went around and they sort of rattled around in our heads, and then we lost our attention and we moved on. Well, we went back and found out that, in fact, it was a revelation to many people to learn that bin Laden's grievance had nothing to do with Israel per se, it had to do with the U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. The attack of the embassies in Africa was a convenience, because he could. Just becoming [aware of] and answering these questions. [The fact] that there were large, angry Muslim populations in those African countries was also a revelation to people.

So we were able to answer some of these questions that people lost [track of]. Their attention span had wandered. After 9/11, of course, [our inquiry] intensified, and we produced a whole raft of programs.

After doing all this work, do you buy into Samuel Huntington's argument about a "clash of civilizations," that there are fundamental differences and values?

Somewhat. I think some of that is operating. But I think it's a mass emasculation of a people. Young men growing up with fairly good educations in many cases in these countries find very poor job opportunities, and they know that the societies from which they came once held a more prominent role in world affairs, and feel as if they've been cut off. That leads to a feeling of impotence, and then seeing this globalization flood of our dominance of their cultures -- the movies, the food, the clothing, and the music that's being pushed out into the world --! And not with ill intent; people are trying to make money and they're selling these things, and people are buying them. But many of these young men see this and feel that they want something that's theirs, that they can identify with. It was the failure of capitalism and the failure of communism in Egypt that led to more and more young men turning to Islam, because those other "isms" came from outside. Islam was theirs.

It was an identity that could be mobilized in the face of these other frustrations that were coming from their own culture and their domestic politics, I guess.

Right. Whether it was Egypt or Saudi Arabia, there was great distrust and anger at their own governments, and one thing that most of these governments had in common, whether the government of Mubarak or King Fahd, was that they were allies with America. And so bin Laden would say, "Our common enemy, whether you're in Uzbekistan or in Saudi Arabia or Egypt, is the United States, because they're propping up these corrupt regimes that are oppressing us." And so he was able to create a pan-Islamic movement where they found common cause in driving a wedge between their governments and the United States by attacking the U.S., rather than continuing to fragment their energies by attacking their own governments.

One of the documentaries in your series, "Saudi Time Bomb?" was quite a revelation for all of us -- I'll speak in general terms here -- who had lost sight of the nature of that relationship and may never have understood, actually, the dynamics of Saudi society. But one of the interesting themes in that is American policy towards Saudi Arabia and some striking interviews with some of the principals in U.S. foreign policy -- I believe Scowcroft and Baker -- who said surprisingly honest things.

Yes, they were amazing.

For somebody who had done earlier work on foreign policy -- you had done something on Guatemala and elsewhere -- were you surprised by that and the dynamic that emerged?

And delighted.

I can imagine.

Because it was true. Not because it was sensational, but because it was true. They spoke honestly about the schisms and the instabilities they saw in Saudi Arabian society and understood the hypocrisy of the American democracy supporting an autocratic dictatorships. I think that that's to the credit of Lowell Bergman, who did those interviews, that he got them to speak up. If you bring a certain amount of intelligence, and you're briefed, these guys are eager to talk about these things openly and frankly. But also at a particular time in history where, maybe, they were willing to be more honest because of the magnitude of 9/11, it was time to speak honestly.

Right. Because of the shock of what had happened.

The seriousness of it. "We'd better speak clearly about what's going on." These guys are also out of government -- Baker, Scowcroft, Holbrook.

Next page: Documentary: "In Search of Al Qaeda"

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