From time to time, when people fly airliners into our buildings for example, or when a shocking tragedy enacted by a first-generation immigrant sociopath is used by foreign media as a vehicle to cluck-cluck over our (implicitly deficient) culture, we tend to ask ourselves, “What’s up with that?”
Justin Webb, the BBC’s Washington bureau chief, travels around the globe searching for the roots of anti-Americanism. So far he’s visited Paris, where it all began according to Webb, and Venezuela, where an increasingly dictatorial Hugo Chavez surfs the populist waves of the anti-American wave generator to ever more grandiose visions of Latin rejectionism.
Webb’s essays are thoughtful and balanced, reflecting the complexity subject, even if they are rather shorter than the truly interested reader could hope for. You are left looking for one more page, or even a paragraph to reach some sort of conclusion. The best that he can offer us is, “It’s not necessarily what Americans do – it’s who they are.”
From Paris:
Anti-Americanism was born in France. And here’s a fascinating fact: it was born well before the United States existed. It was not caused by Coca-Cola, or McDonald’s, or Hollywood or George W Bush.
The prevailing view among French academics throughout the 18th Century was that the New World was ghastly. It stank, it was too humid for life to prosper. And, as one European biologist put it: “Everything found there is degenerate or monstrous.”
In their heart of hearts, many French people still believe that to be true…
Sitting in the Cafe de Flore, in the very seat where Jean-Paul Sartre once held sway, the self-described writer and philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy puts it like this: America became the nightmare that French right-wing intellectuals long feared, a nation built not on respectable ties of blood and tradition but on the self-conscious desire to create something new…
And this is not a recent migration brought on by Mr Bush. In May 1944 (just weeks before American GIs landed on the beaches of Normandy), Hubert Beuve-Mery, the founder of Le Monde newspaper – certainly no mouthpiece of the right – wrote this: “The Americans represent a real danger for France, different from the one posed by Germany or the one with which the Russians may – in time – threaten us. The Americans may have preserved a cult of Liberty but they do not feel the need to liberate themselves from the servitude which their capitalism has created. ”
It is time that we understood that this attitude, this contempt for what democracy can do, is at the heart of at least some of the anti-Americanism we see in the world today.
His view from Caracas:
Hugo (Chavez) said this recently about George: “The imperialist, mass murdering, fascist attitude of the president of the United States doesn’t have limits. I think Hitler could be a nursery baby next to George W Bush.”
You’ve got to wonder if there is any end to the capacity of the rest of the world to blame the United States for its problems. Nowhere is that more the case than in Latin America, where out of roughly 500 million people, 200 million live on less than $2 a day.
Why? Is it all the fault of the imperialists from the north? Or is just a little of it the result of local attitudes to poverty, local attitudes to honesty in government, and local attitudes to the rule of law?
In other words, in Latin America as elsewhere in the world, is anti-Americanism a smoke screen, a very convenient smoke screen, whose noxious fumes hide the reality of local failure?
As Otto Reich, a former Bush administration ambassador to Venezuela and public enemy number one (or two?) among many anti-Americans, told us: “The United States is the scapegoat. It provides an easy excuse for the failures: if something isn’t working, blame the Americans. Scratch the surface of some of these anti-Americans and you find self-loathing.”
What a Chavista like Eva Golinger will tell you is that that kind of comment is typical of American “prepotenzia” – arrogance.
Me? I think it’s got more to do with this, frankly.
Those that know, know.
If I may, a word in defense of our friend Michelle. Who actually needs no defense from me as she argues her case clearly and skillfully, whether we want to hear it or not. The fact that most of us don’t agree with what she’s saying does not change the fact that she’s eloquently voicing what a lot of people DO think–for better or worse. My thanks for that service Michelle.
We are in an information war, and until Americans, Canadians, Britons, Aussies, and the rest of the free non-Islamic world find some common ground of shared assumptions, the future is going to be increasingly bleak. Not hopeless by a long shot, but a lot harder and bloodier than it has to be. Unfortunately, the minds that need changing are not the minds of the “cowboys” expressed here. The sheepdogs shrug –if the sheep don’t get any smarter no matter how many times they are attacked, it doesn’t change the fact that wolves still need killin’. The wolves are Actors with their own rapid and remorseless OODA loop. The sheep who are talkers can talk all they want, but they’re just talking to their own vanity in an echo chamber. The real conversation is with deeds not words. Words may be tools, may express deeply held feelings, but they are trumped in the end by Actors who have assigned their own meaning to the words they choose with actual consequences. Both sheepdogs and wolves ACT, and that’s what sheep are allergic to. Sheep don’t believe that words really mean anything, so you can say whatever you want without any consequences or sacrifice. Wolves and sheepdogs both know that you get what you pay for. Sheepdogs will pay for you and wolves will make you pay, but payment will be made. It cannot be escaped.
Sheep are frightened of power –for good or evil, and don’t want anyone to have it. The benefits or the responsibility. Some nebulous one-world Carebear “thing” is supposed to take care of all that badness, but it never gets down to specifics and deeds and responsibilities. The dirty secret of liberty is that its do-it-yourself. Passive resentment is still passive.
And when a culture decides that its individuals will of past necessity and current habit, freely assume those power burdens themselves, a culture of these individuals soon ceases caring what anyone else thinks, unless they too are willing to back their criticism with deeds. When you walk the talk, “now you’re talking” –there is a basis for a real conversation. Otherwise we’re talking past each other. One may skillfully debate, but without a clear plan [and history]of action, talking alone is just sophistry.
Chap is dead on right –the question doesn’t matter –”At some point a person or a group has to make a decision and act, and at that point additional input does not help. In some respects, our culture has made that decision.”
So I’m respectfully listening Michelle, but I remain unconvinced so far.
Since we’re regarding Michelle, a self-admitted Canadian, let’s not also overlook that Canada had a far different genesis than did the USA. For one thing, Canada expanded in a line of civilization, with police and citizens marching westward at the same time. Thus the disassociation from government was not nearly as stark as it was down south during our westward expansion, where official representation of The Law often did not arrive until decades later.
Also, the Canadians and the Americans had a different policy regarding the aboriginal inhabitants. In the case of the Canadians they mostly co-existed, and in America we decided it was Manifest Destiny to head west and anything stopping us was going to get dead early.
Given such a historical difference in the culture, it is understandable that differences would arise today between various members of what used to be called Christendom, let alone between the English-speaking countries.
That’s OK. All families have differences. All have that batty old Aunt or that slothful Uncle or that smart-alek son-in-law. That’s conversation fodder at the family reunion, but it doesn’t break the bonds of family. Family still comes first.
And we’ve many other common enemies to deal with that aren’t of our family. These bickerings are, in light of that, of insignificant import.
We just have to remember that. Generally, we only do so when the Visigoths are at the gates.
– Max
CPT J, fine with me, truth be told, I am not even sure what we were arguing about anymore. I do appreciate those who responded in the same spirit as my comments were given. Sure, I expected my views would rattle a few chains but I didn’t expect to get smacked so concretely in the face with the very same attitude I was ruminating on in the abstract.
Chap’s comment was illuminatnig – my head is not completely thick. Lex is, as always, a gracious host and I appreciate and respect that. And I thank those, like yourself, who were willing to repond to and actually entertain the possibility of a discussion around what I was trying to say. Not sure how I feel about the possible characterization as the batty old Aunt, though. As for the rest of it … whatever. In the grand scheme of things, perhaps due in large part to simple geography, I think our countries have more in common than not. And, for better or for worse, I have a soft spot in my heart (which, truth be told, often more resembles an addiction) for the good Captain’s blog so…
I don’t know whether this will make it all better or not but I found this kinda funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdf4GeT4ELA
People are people wherever you find them. I have found some people to be mean or aggressive when I have been overseas but I have also found that they tend to become pretty nice after talking to me for a little bit. BTW, I have found the same thing here in the US.
LOL
Thanks Da Yooper. Just goes to show you – you can take the Canuck out of Canada but you can’t take Canada out of the Canuck.
Da Yooper –That’s what I’m talkin’ aboot!
See Michelle, you’re a person AND a ball player –Not just a Canadian
And who else is going to tell us when we’re a bunch of hosers? Glad you’re on the team.
how to fix a cold sore…
Did you know that? Your blog is informative. I wish to share one…
Maybe this article by Dr. Feinberg, Professor of Anthropology at Kent State University answers the “why do they hate us” question.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/1698
Maybe. Sounds like it better explains why Dr Feinberg hates us.