Crisis Exposes Many Americans’ Ignorance About World Affairs

Two years ago, it was a punch line. Could presidential candidate George W. Bush, the Texas governor thought to be a lightweight in his knowledge of world affairs, name the leader of Pakistan?

No, he could not.

Nor, when asked in a pop quiz by a radio station reporter, could Bush name the leaders of India or the dissident Russian republic of Chechnya. More to the point, Bush didn’t seem especially embarrassed by his failing. Nor did his fellow countrymen seem to hold it against him.

Why should they? Many of them who voted in 2000 probably couldn’t find Pakistan on a map, much less identify its leader.

Today we know for sure that Bush is well aware that Gen. Pervez Musharraf is Pakistan’s leader. The country shapes up as a key player in the United States’ strategy to flush out Osama bin Laden as part of its counterattack on world terrorism.

Question: Will the American people follow Bush’s lead and get up to speed on what’s involved in our new “war” on terrorism? Or, given our well chronicled lack of interest in--and knowledge of--both world geography and international politics, will we remain blissful in our ignorance?

“I think [the terrorist attacks last week] will shock us into learning,” said Julie Estrada, who works for an Orange County marketing company that does business worldwide. She’s 26 and confesses that her fiance, Bryan Gracia, has been preparing her for a terrorist attack on the United States. Like most of us, she listened but didn’t fret. “He’s been telling me that something is going to happen. He’s been saying it for years.”

Gracia and Estrada were among about 215 people at a meeting earlier this week of the World Affairs Council of Orange County. Attendance at the council’s regular meetings for people interested in global issues is usually about 170. Although those attending Monday evening’s session--”Terrorism and the Afghanistan Connection”--at the Irvine Marriott didn’t pretend to be experts, they’re probably more tuned in than the average citizen.

In the cocktail hour preceding the program, some of them said that maybe, just maybe, their fellow citizens would do an about-face.

Let’s hope it wasn’t the wine talking.

“I think we’re going to be surprised how fast they’re going to learn and get up to speed,” architect Jack Gabus said. He thinks the improved communications and information technology of the last decade or so will “make the learning curve a lot easier.”

OK, the public has the means to get informed. Does it have the desire?

“It’s a want and a need,” Gabus said.

His wife, Bolette Albertsen, agrees. Also an architect, she read a lengthy news article a few days ago on Osama bin Laden, the suspected leader of the terrorists who struck last week. “I read it from start to finish,” she said. “I probably would not have read it the week before, but it was a fascinating article because it went back about 15 years. I knew about him for a couple years [before last week’s attack], but I didn’t know exactly where he had come from. I didn’t know he was the exiled son of a Saudi family.”

I asked if her intensified interest constituted morbid curiosity. “It’s better to know thine enemy,” Gabus interjected. “There’s nothing worse than an enemy lurking in the shadows that you don’t know. You’ve got to know who you’re facing.”

Gracia, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, said Americans should bone up on the Middle East and Islam.

“I think the public understands more than they did 10 years ago during the Gulf War,” he said. “But I don’t think they exactly know the different ethnic groups that are in Afghanistan [which has harbored Bin Laden] or that region.”

He thinks the public will get educated. “Once the U.S. starts putting servicemen in foreign lands, people are going to care a lot more, especially if they call up reservists. People are going to want to care, more so than with other conflicts in the past--a totally different element than in the Gulf War--because this is something that happened on our homeland.”

However, before we rush to pat ourselves on the back, hear the dissenting voice of Cal State Fullerton political history professor Harry Jeffrey. Although he makes his comments with good humor, he isn’t ready to say Americans will suddenly reverse course.

“I had students, OK?” he said, laughing. “I’m a little bit discouraged with their basic knowledge of American history or anything else. Most of them have traveled widely--they’ve gone all the way to Las Vegas and think that’s the East.”

Jeffrey doesn’t think Americans as a whole will become geopolitical experts. They’ll rely on the government to figure things out, but that isn’t to say they won’t have opinions.

“They’ll form their own ill-informed opinions,” he said.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.