Re: Your praise for anti-Americanism --or, as you put it, for Portugal's "resistance"....
Two very revealing pieces about culture, attitudes, and EU-US relations as well as traditional stereotypical gamesmanship and dislike between the British and the French.
The first is a stimulating little survey of growing resentment at American power and influence, along with the standard anti-Americanism of the French (at least the talky ones, with university degrees) . . . the former perfectly natural and only to be expected---the powerful, especially a giant superpower the world has never seen before, bound to cause concern, resentment, and envy whatever the quality of official state-to-state relations with that country---and the latter built into French intellectual life, the elites having a need going back over the centuries, it appears, to see themselves as the center of the universe, culturally anyway, and full of anger and acrimony when others by their behavior don't reciprocate in ways that reinforce this touchy-techy self-image. Such a self-image isn't unique to the French. In Europe, the Spanish considered themselves the center of civilization as late as the end of the 19th century . . . this, despite having lost their empire everywhere and being just about the poorest country in West Europe, not to mention the backwardness of science and technology in a society that had ruthlessly rooted out any anti-Catholic ideas and heresies, including most of the scientific developments after the 17th century, including the intellectual class of conversos (marranos), Jews forced to convert under pain of death and who were hounded mercilessly even in the New World by the zealous Spanish inquisition. Protestantism, of course, had also been fiercely rooted out and destroyed, not just in Spain and Portugal, but throughout Latin America as well . . . adding enormously to that continent's economic stagnation, not least compared to the North American countries. And in Asia, the Chinese saw themselves as the center of civilization and the universe long after China's once brilliant cultural and scientific and technological creativity had long burned itself out and Chinese power had languished and fallen so far behind the Europeans, the North Americans, and even the Japanese that the imperial state---which came down in a crash in 1911---was little more than a rickety structure of pretentiousness and political and cultural make-believe. (The desire to avenge itself as Chinese power grows these days seems very widespread among Chinese elites, determined to wipe-out a century and a half of national shame and humiliation.)
Back to Western Europe. Once the center of the world down until 1914, it has been hard not just for Frenchmen but West Europeans of all sorts to grow accustomed to imperial disintegration, destructive European wars without parallel twice in this century, and lagging scientific and economic prowess compared to others . . . not just the US, with its enormous cultural impact for good or bad, but Japan and the rest of Pacific Asia. Recently, the Russians---whose state development was inseparable for 4 centuries from empire-building and rule over others, not to mention great power status (even as it was almost always the most backward technologically of the great powers themselves)---have experienced an abrupt come-down in status, influence, and prestige of an almost matchless sort, and their elites bristle with a desire to restore Russia to the forefront of powers . . . something that may not occur for decades, if ever. Take away Russian nuclear weapons, and you're left with a country whose standard of living is about half of that of Mexico, with far less promising prospects (despite impressive technological talents among its people).
So yes, resentment and envy and dislike of the US are inevitable in the outlook and moods of West Europeans and Japanese and Chinese and Russians, not to mention Islamic populations living in backward societies with tyrants and dictators of one sort or another as their rulers, but what counts in IR is not such temperamental dispositions, but rather the calculations of their interests on the part of elites, business, military, diplomatic, and naturally political. And from this viewpoint, the anti-American resentments and envy---assuming that's the right name---are not at all being translated into concrete policies and behavior . . . other than the European members of NATO seeking, quite understandably, to commit themselves to developing a rapid deployment force of 60,000---which means at least 180,000 back-up troops and logistic support---by the year 2003, something not at all being funded for all the rhetoric, and not likely to until the EU countries regain economic dynamism and can sustain it for years: even then, note, the rapid deployment force will be using NATO reconnaisance and intelligence, which means American owned technologies).
One other point. It's wrong, as this article only briefly notes, to assume that the anti-American grudges and envy are shared by the masses of West Europeans . . . even in France. Most of American culture is popular there, even among some of the creative artists and writers. That said, West Europe (like the rest of the world) is being remorselessly buffeted by globalizing and technological changes beyond the control of anyone, even the US; and few West Europeans are comfortable with such changes, resent them, want to find scapegoats---a natural enough impulse, especially among the intellectually naive (the scapegoat varies: Jews, immigrants, the bourgeoisie, communism, radicals, or---in pc circles---heterosexual European and American males, with their silly outdated worldviews)---and needless to say, the US, the one country flourishing amid all the technological and globalizing tendencies, with a population that accepts change as inevitable and even desirable, is bound to be the chosen target for all those underlying, irrepressible crabby discontents and anxieties.
The one sour note here isn't mentioned in the article. From the US viewpoint, it's desirable for the EU to continue to unify and expand into East Europe, while revitalizing itself economically and technologically and developing more independent military capabilities. Only in this way will we as a country be able to disengage from the Balkans and East Europe and concentrate on the regions and critical countries in the world by means of a maritime-air-power and economic strategy---Russia, China, Japan, India, oil resources in the arc from the Caspian sea to the Persian gulf, and democratic and economic development in Latin America being the main concerns of US interest. Otherwise . . . well, expect to find American troops in the Balkans in another 50 years, something not in the US interest or the EU's . . . the problem here being that the EU countries, or more specifically their peoples and elites, really don't like one another very much. Fortunately, dislike and hatreds have declined markedly since 1945. All survey polls show that. THey also show that the British, French, and Germans, and Spanish don't like one another very much or even seem to trust one another much either (though the political elites, fortunately, continue to cooperate in the EU) and show little interest in a EU federal systemm, and the Scandanavians seem only to have a liking for the British among the EU big states. The Dutch, meanwhile, for reasons hard to separate, continue to see the Germans as the embodiment of evil, while the Greeks seem to sulk at everything involving the EU (even though the elites want Greece inside the euro-zone). Only the Italians seem different, not least because Italy is so miserably governed that the EU promises to be a much better way to deal with
home-grown problems, though possibly the Italians are just a flexible, hang-loose people without the complexes of others (at least in the North: their dislikes and grudges seem to be mainly reserved for the Italians in the south).
All of which brings us to the second piece, about busty, dimwitted super-models, tax systems, English boyfriends (the worst possible betrayal a French woman can conjure up, especially if she's a national icon), and the usual saracastic jibes that pass back and forth between London and Paris whenever the media in either city can get a chance to poke sarcastic fun at each other's countries and cultures. It's been going on for centuries, and the more they've been allies, the more they still seem to dislike one another.
[...]
Just read the title of his new book and you'll get an idea of Noël Mamère's perspective: "No Thanks, Uncle Sam."
Mr. Mamère, an outspoken though hardly extreme member of the French Parliament [ie a former newscaster turned Green parliamentarian], has devoted an entire book to his argument that America is a worrisome society these days. It has a record number of armed citizens. It embraces the death penalty, turns the poor away when they need medical care, and its legislators have failed to approve a nuclear test ban. Yet, argues Mr. Mamère, the United States throws its weight around and would have the entire world follow in its steps.
At this moment, he says in his closing chapter, "it is appropriate to be downright anti-American."
In France, indeed in Europe, Mr. Mamère is by no means alone in his criticism of the United States. Wander a French bookstore these days and you will find any number of catchy titles ("The World Is Not Merchandise," "Who Is Killing France? The American Strategy," "American Totalitarianism" to name a few) deploring the American way -- from its creation of a society ruled by profit to depictions of the United States as an unchecked force on its way to ruling the world.
The books are only one sign of what experts say is a growing backlash of anti-Americanism. More and more often, Europeans talk about America as a menacing, even dangerous force intent on remaking the world in its image. And, like Mr. Mamère, many members of Europe's political, cultural and intellectual elite are using a kind of moral calculator to deplore the American model as severely wanting.
Poking fun at America has always been a European pastime, particularly among the French. In the past, Americans have been ridiculed as Bermuda-shorts-wearing louts who call strangers by their first names and know nothing about the good life. But today's criticism is far from being an amusing rejection of food rituals. Experts say that it has a virulence and an element of fear never seen before.
"With the fall of the Berlin Wall, America was left as the only superpower," said Stéphane Rozès, the director general of CSA Opinion, which conducts many surveys for news organizations. "And there is a great deal of fear out there that the strength of America's economy will impose not only economic changes but social changes as well. What they see is an America that has the ability to impose its values and they are not values that the Europeans believe in."
The Europeans read menace in a wide range of recent events. Far from seeing America's involvement in Kosovo as a hand of support from across the Atlantic, for instance, many Europeans saw it as an American manipulation of NATO. And the humiliating fact that the intervention would not have been possible without American air power only rammed home the perception of America's military superiority, and of European deficiency.
But suspicion runs high in other areas as well. The Clinton administration's cheerleading -- for instance, its repeated description of the United States as being the "indispensable" nation -- strikes a threatening chord here. And recent disputes such as America's decision last year to impose an import tax on goods like Roquefort cheese and foie gras because the Europeans would not accept hormone-enhanced beef from the United States only fuels the European sense that the United States is a bully.
In Europe, these days, the World Trade Organization -- which sanctioned the American action -- is routinely dismissed as a tool of American interests.
The idea that the United States is already using its vast satellite and spy networks for industrial espionage is readily accepted here, as recent debate in the European Union on the Echelon electronic surveillance system showed. The United States denied the charges, but the European bloc is still mulling an investigation. Again, the size and scope of the surveillance system make Europe feel dwarfed.
Even the recent debacle over picking a managing director for the International Monetary Fund fueled the sense among some Europeans that the United States can do whatever it wants. In Washington, government officials let it be known that they were opposing the first German candidate because, they said, no one in Europe wanted to do the dirty work of pointing out his inadequacies. That version of events did not get much press here. In Germany, the American veto power provoked snide remarks.
"We have discovered that the superpower sees its global role not only in the military area but also in setting the rules of globalization through the I.M.F," pronounced Michael Steiner, chief diplomatic adviser to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, in the middle of the controversy.
To be sure, the average European is embracing much that comes from the United States. Its films, its music, its fashion and, even if no-one in France particularly cares to admit it, its fast food. The weekly best-seller list shows more than half the top selling novels in France are translations of American books. There are frequent complaints of a brain drain as young people flock to Silicon Valley and elsewhere in America to get their start in life.
But at the same time the view of a belligerent United States is growing too. Polls conducted by CSA in the last few years suggest that Europeans have some extremely negative views of the United States. In April last year, 68 percent of the French said they were worried about America's status as a superpower. Only 30 percent said there was anything to admire across the Atlantic. Sixty-three percent said they did not feel close to the American people.
Another CSA poll in September 1998, which compared the attitudes of the Germans, Spanish, French, Italian and British toward the United States, found they had deep reservations too. The Italians seemed to appreciate America the most. But they still showed profound concern about the American model. Between 57 and 60 percent said America's democracy and economy were worth admiring. But 56 to 62 percent said Italians should not look to America for inspiration on their way of life or their culture.
"We have the impression that America has no more enemy," says Michel Winock, a professor at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris who often writes on the subject of anti-Americanism. "It does what it likes now when it wants. Through NATO it directs European affairs. Before we could say we were on America's side. Not now. There is no counterbalance."
On some social issues, the United States and Europe do seem to be going in opposite directions. One that gets a lot of attention is the death penalty, which has either been abolished or suspended by all members of the European Union but is now legal in 38 states. Coming executions are often carefully followed here as examples of barbarism, and American diplomats say they are bombarded with questions about them. The fact that many recent executions have taken place in Texas also colors -- negatively -- European commentators' views of Gov. George W. Bush.
But other aspects of America are deplored too. Essayists have a field day with descriptions of the homeless on the streets, women in jail forced to give birth in handcuffs, drugs, police violence, racism, and what they see as a puritanism that invades people's private lives, the prime example being the Monica Lewinsky affair.
"Never has America been so loved and so hated," says the novelist Pascal Bruckner, who has also written on anti-Americanism. "But in some ways America should be glad. We are not condemning the Russians for a lack of morality. We don't care. They don't count."
Felix Rohatyn says he has felt the change of attitude take place since 1997, when he arrived in Paris as the American ambassador.
"The anti-Americanism today encompasses not a specific policy like Iranian sanctions but a feeling that globalization has an American face on it and is a danger to the European and French view of society," Mr. Rohatyn said in an interview. "There is the sense that America is such an extraordinary power that it can crush everything in its way. It is more frustration and anxiety now than plain anti-Americanism."
Mr. Rohatyn, like many others, says it is hard to measure the consequences of this attitude, though there are no doubt many. "It impacts most things," he said. "Not that it makes transactions impossible, but it certainly puts a different slant on them. It totally negates the notion that our interest is also in their interest. It creates the totally opposite point of view -- that only the weakening of America can be good for them."
Such an attitude, for instance, fed a recent frenzy of concern in France that American pension fund investments in French companies might be promoting layoffs of French workers to benefit American retirees.
"Well, that's just not the case," Mr. Rohatyn said. "That is not the way things work, but it is a perfect example of that anti-American view at work."
Some Americans believe that part of the problem is that globalization has meant an increase in Americans doing business abroad with methods that do not sit well with Europeans. These Americans say they tend to try to cut short discussion and value quick decisions. Europeans tend to take longer and look for consensus.
But the French, and other Europeans, often mention Americans' lack of knowledge about anything European and their unwillingness to learn as a major aggravating factor.
Mr. Bruckner described how when he was living in San Diego his landlady asked him how was his queen, when France has not had one since the 19th century. Mr. Mamère begins his book with a story about how Steve Forbes, at a recent Davos meeting, invoked the image of a Charlemagne who unified Europe two centuries ago. Charlemagne died more than 1,000 years ago and is usually billed as a conqueror, not a unifier.
"Omnipotence and ignorance," Mr. Mamère concludes about America in his first chapter. "It is a questionable cocktail."
Mr. Mamère's book, written with Olivier Warin, has not been published in America, nor does he expect it to be. "It would be great if they read some of what we write, but they do not," he said. "It would be great if they saw what they looked like from over here. But they are not interested. The Americans are so sure of themselves. They think they are the best in the world, that they are way ahead of everyone and everyone needs to learn from them."
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