The New Anti-Americanism – A British Perspective
With the impending inauguration of President George W. Bush many pro-American Frenchmen and Englishmen are bracing themselves for yet another round of anti-American sentiments expressed by their countries’ left-wing elites. Out of all the nations that make up the European Union it is Britain and France that harbor the most virulent of critics who believe the United States is, once more, steering a unilateralist path to Armageddon.
Although Tony Blair remains a popular Prime Minister there is a substantial minority in his party, mainly grassroots activists, who distrust and dislike him for his pro-American positions and his moderate Labour policies. Many resent the way in which his political life is heavily influenced by his Christian faith.
This small, but effective group of opinion-makers from the worlds of politics, entertainment, academia, the arts and the media (aided by their counterparts within the United States, eager to show the world Americans are not the xenophobic hyper-patriots they are portrayed in Europe) have reduced America to a nineteenth-century cartoon-like status - a monolith grasping at world dominance and empire. Few give a balanced opinion. Nearly all of the critics excuse the 9/11 attacks by implying the United States brought about the situation by its failure to give the Arab world its due respect.
During anti-war demonstrations in Britain left-wing marchers have unashamedly waved banners defending known terrorists, shouted abuse at American tourists and British pro-American supporters and described George Bush in terms usually reserved for serial killers. Banners decrying the attacks of 9/11 were nowhere to be seen. When Daniel Pearl was murdered there was no outcry from the left in Britain. Instead, leftist and liberal commentators concentrated their critical faculties on the treatment of Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at Gauntanamo.
Anti-Americanism in Europe is not a new phenomenon, although the present strain is more venomous in character and is embraced by the far left and far right equally. And it is a myth that the new resurgence of anti-Americanism began when George Bush invaded Iraq. It originated shortly after America was attacked by Al Qaeda terrorists. Following a "honeymoon period" when the world grieved with every American, opinion-makers in Britain and France decided that America should accept some blame for the tragedy.
Many Britons in the 1960s blamed the United States for risking a nuclear holocaust. During the Vietnam War many students used the anti-war marches to propagate Mao-style communism whose vocabulary was not far removed from that of present-day Iran in calling the United States the greatest evil in the world. Anti-Americanism has always been vicious and irrational but today it is masquerading as legitimate political discourse, quickly becoming the global ideology of the age.
The new strain of anti-Americanism in Britain is also fuelled by a gradual disconnecting from American popular culture. Post Second World War generations in Britain looked to the United States as their "closest relative." The links were forged by television documentaries delineating a common history and American popular culture. Cinema and television westerns were especially popular in Britain and delivered a central theme of America’s basic values and decency. Now that position has been usurped as the youth of Britain turn to Australia as the land of opportunity and success. These sentiments have been reflected in the British media, which has established close links with that country, and in the way Australian soap imports have been a favorite with young people for over two decades. Others decry the United States because they want to forge closer links with Europe.
Anti-Americanism has its roots in British and French inherited complexes when the United States stepped in to save Europe from Nazism. As former leading world powers the idea that they had been usurped was difficult for many to accept. This resentment took root as the United States began to dominate the world scene economically, politically and culturally. It led many to blindly embrace Soviet communism as the answer to the world’s ills. It also provoked the European left to characterise America as imperialist and to classify Soviet empire building as philanthropic. In France the graves of American soldiers who died on the Normandy beaches became nothing but an embarrassment to French socialists. America’s support for Israel provoked anger in France’s anti-semitic far-right political parties.
Paradoxically this has occurred following a long tradition of American beneficence in the twentieth century. America saved Europe from totalitarianism in two world wars. It prevented the economic collapse of Britain and many other European nations through the essentially altruistic Marshall Plan. Americans confronted and defeated a barbaric ideology – communism – which was the foundation for the entry of formerly oppressed nations under Soviet control to European partnership. When Ronald Reagan gave his "Empire of Evil" speech the left in Europe sneered. Yet less than a decade later they had to come to terms with the expression of joy from Eastern European citizens when the Soviet Empire collapsed. America was responsible for the liberalization of Chinese communism. It helped Britain eject Argentina from the Falklands and it joined with Britain in preventing genocide in the Balkans. Without the intelligence gathering capacity and military power of the United States today’s war on terror would collapse
America saved Mexico from economic collapse in 1995 and dissuaded China from attacking Taiwan. It has successfully intervened in disputes between India and Pakistan, North and South Korea, the UK Government and the IRA. And George Bush is the first American president to unequivocally state that Palestinians have a right to their own nation. American force will always be used to fight tyranny throughout the world especially when it threatens American interests. However, unlike European colonialism of the past, there is no desire to build an American Empire.
Anti-Americanism in Britain has been blinded by its own propaganda which posits that America is run for the benefit of the rich at the expense of the poor – a judgement which ignores the reality of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It also promotes the idea that American education and culture is pathetically myopic. A number of critics have confessed they have never visited the United States yet feel qualified to sit in judgement unaware that the educational provision of thirty or so American universities put Oxford and Cambridge to shame. The left also seems to be unaware that the highest numbers of Nobel Prizes have been awarded to Americans. In the modern arts – including film, urban architecture, popular music and comedy – America is pre-eminent. The country hosts over 1700 symphony orchestras. In the more traditional forms such as the novel the achievements of leading American writers dwarf their European competitors. Accusations by the European left that Americans are a philistine people seem ridiculous when set beside their museum attendance, more than seven million visitors per year, and the quality of their literary, historical and political magazines. American freedom of the press is unequalled throughout the world and citizen access to government documents under its freedom of information laws is envied throughout Europe. American advances in medical science have saved millions of lives.
Most anti-Americanism in Europe reflects the worries about "imperialism" and "dominance" without positing any rational alternative, except for the belief that rational discourse with dictators around the world will bring an end to famine, civil wars and territorial expansion. Anti-Americanism is about accepting the idea that the United States is not sincere about fighting terrorism or exporting democratic ideals. Instead, according to arguments propagated by many intelligent Europeans, the United States is devoid of any restraints imposed by a rival superpower therefore it has become bent on securing its power at any cost to the stability of sovereign nations.
According to Europeans who hold these views America never had any real motive in spreading freedom or democracy – this was simply a cloak to hide an oil grab or a manipulation of the world order to support Zionism. They accuse the United States of being no different from a despotic regime trampling over the rights of weaker nations.
This onslaught of Americaphobia is rarely challenged. The reasons are varied. Some media commentators, including BBC journalists, seem to be imbued with the idea that Britain and France are politically and culturally superior and that every issue is morally relative. Others create the impression that all Americans are either narrow-minded Christians or materialistic hedonists. A cultural superiority pervades the French print and visual media.
Anti-American sentiment does not engender any alternatives to what the American government poses in the way of foreign policy – its modus operandi is simply to spread the word that the United States is the moral equivalent to the Islamo-fascism it is trying to defeat. It recites its propaganda to summon up every American failure of the past fifty years without mentioning the nation’s successes. In its hatred of the United States the European left find excuses for the wickedness of Saddam Hussein and the evil philosophy and cruelty of Muslim fundamentalist terror groups. Some pro-Arab intellectuals/celebrities like Vanessa Redgrave have even proposed that Al Qaeda prisoners stand as parliamentary candidates in the forthcoming British general election. Labour MP George Galloway, who was an admirer of Saddam Hussein, has disseminated the idea that Iraqi terrorists have every right to kill the "American invaders."
Anti-Americanism is particularly expressed in public debates about the Middle East conflict. The left portray the United States as bent on crushing the rights of Palestinians, humiliating Arab nations and waging a war against Muslims. Facts are rarely introduced to support their arguments. Rarely have these arbiters of political correctness mentioned how American soldiers have died defending the interests and security of Muslims in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. They also fail to mention that America has given as much foreign aid to Jordan and Egypt as they have to Israel. Nor do they provide the real reason why the state of Israel arose, which was a reaction to European anti-semitism, not the manipulations of American governments. America also waited patiently for 11 years as Saddam Hussein ignored UN resolutions and rejected a unilateralist answer to the terrorist threat by persuading dozens of countries to join in an effort to rid the world of Al Qaeda and its associates.
In Britain politicians on the left, blinded by their anti-American sentiments, no longer remind their audiences of the legitimacy of the state of Israel and its struggle to defend itself against a hostile Arab world. The anti-American left in Britain is also naive in its belief that the Al Qaeda attacks resulted from U.S. support for Israel. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
We are never reminded by the leftists that Israel is the only democratic nation in a sea of dictatorships and oligarchies. During public debates leftist politicians (which includes some moderate liberals) always qualify their condemnation of Palestinian suicide bombers by making reference to Israel’s attacks on Palestinian communities - as if the rooting out of terrorists which sometimes creates civilian casualties has some kind of moral equivalence to the deliberate targeting of innocent men, women and children. Nor do they mention the joyful Palestinian response to the 9/11 attacks or how Arab states have, for over fifty years, rejected the integration of Palestinian Arabs into their societies. We hear nothing of how Arab nations have never really wanted an Israeli/Palestinian settlement. It was simply never on their agenda as the Palestinian "problem" always furthered their interests in ridding the Middle East of Zionists and "Jew Beasts." We also hear nothing of the real reason why the Arab/Israeli conflict has endured – the brainwashing of Palestinian schoolchildren through educational systems that propagate the idea that Jews are less than human and that it is the duty of all Palestinians to kill Jewish men, women and children.
America has made mistakes, sometimes criminally so, and no country deserves to be defended uncritically. America is not without sin as the history of the U.S. Civil Rights movement and the War in Vietnam testify to. Yet it should be remembered that France’s colonial experience in Algeria and Britain’s colonial past do not lend themselves to sympathetic treatment either. Leftwing articles, critical of America’s treatment of African-Americans and the slavery heritage, rarely remind readers that it was European ships that brought the slaves to America. And America has, arguably, a better record of assimilating immigrants than either France or Britain. Muslims in Britain, for example, live in isolated communities. Many have resisted efforts to bring them into full citizenship with a common allegiance to the nation and its culture.
There are some things in the United States that Europeans find distasteful in comparison with the subtle and low-key sensibilities of the English and French. However, in the main, most British holiday-makers return to these shores delighted at the hospitality, generosity and optimism of most Americans they have met. They are also in awe at the way Americans rightly defend their values of patriotism, equal justice and community spirit and the way their high energy is infused into everything from entertainment, sports, work and creativity.
The new strain of Anti-Americanism in Europe has damaged the Atlantic alliance and can only encourage America to pursue a unilateralist answer to common world problems. It is therefore incumbent upon moderates in Europe to vocally reject Anti-Americanism’s empty rhetoric – a rhetoric that is essentially prejudicial in nature and devoid of any rationality.