A Brit Looks At Anti-Americanism
This is a very, very interesting article from the Guardian that should be worth a full read. Justin Webb, the BBC Radio's chief Washington correspondent, writes about the large number of people he has been interviewing about their views on America and Americans. He reaches a number of conclusions that will, frankly, shock a lot of people. Because he does not sound at all like what many, myself included, expect from someone from the BBC or Europe in general. And a lot of knee-jerk America-bashers - even those who live here in the US should take a careful look at what he is saying.
It is a historical fact that anti-Americanism predates the US. It was not invented in reaction to the Monroe Doctrine or the use of marines to pacify Latin America or McDonald's or Hollywood or Bush. It was invented by European biologists who wrote of the New World, shortly after it had been discovered, that nothing good could come of it. It was ghastly. It stank. One cultured scientist, the Dutchman Cornelius de Pauw, put it thus: "Everything found there is degenerate or monstrous." A lot has happened since then, but some people have not noticed, or do not want to.
The French writer Bernard Henri Lévy points out that the impetus for much of the European disdain for the US came from the right; from "a fascist tendency in French thought based on fear and hatred of democracy". Part of that hatred lives on in our friends' question about our children's accents: it is a deeply held belief among Europeans that US democracy leads to a coarsening of culture. They think our children sound crass. It does not matter how many Nobel laureates live in the US, or how many novelists or musicians; in the end, the taste America leaves in the mouth is of hamburger, not foie gras.
John Bolton looks to me like a hamburger man. The least diplomatic of any recent American diplomat, Bolton, lately of the UN, is the living embodiment of what anti-Americans mean when they say "It's the policies, stupid!". When Bolton growls that "the legitimacy of the US comes from ourselves, we do not require any external validation", you can feel the anti-Americans of the world unite and punch the air with delight; they have their cause and, lo, it is reasonable.
So Hubert Védrine, the former French foreign minister, tells me with a sigh that "the Americans are a colonising people with a mission to convert the world". They have forgotten the lessons of history, he says, and it is Europe's job to remind them. I asked John Bolton to comment on this lofty French vision. "Good luck," he chuckled.
I really recommend reading this one - it is well worth the time. Much of what Webb has found he attributes to an unreasoned mind-set - a knee-jerk. It really doesn't matter what the US does or says - the reaction would be the same. A dislike based not on any reason, just on a feeling of cultural superiority or a visceral aversion to America. So those who think we can change the world's opinion of us may find that no matter what they try to do, it will not work.
And you know what? I am really glad someone from the BBC wrote this.
World news | Gaius Wednesday, 11 April , 2007
