European Views III
Europe's intellectuals see freedom 'trampled'
Something 'terribly wrong in America'
Sarah Lyall
The New York Times Saturday, February 15, 2003
LONDON Asked what they think of the United States in these uncertain times, European intellectuals tend to draw a swift distinction between the American government and the American people.
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But European anti-Americanism is more than just straightforward opposition to the policies of the current administration.
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There is a growing sense on the left here, reflected in interviews with writers, cultural figures and other intellectual leaders in Western Europe, that many of America's most admirable qualities - its respect for its great cacophony of voices, its belief in freedom, its proud democratic principles - have been so trampled in the debate over war as to have been rendered toothless or even nonexistent.
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"Something has gone terribly wrong in America," said Jacqueline Rose, a feminist scholar in Britain. "America established a certain tradition of public dissent, with the civil rights and feminist and anti-Vietnam movements. But post-Sept. 11 there is a feeling that the American left has largely gone silent."
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In an editorial in The Times of London last month, the writer John le Carre went further. "America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember," he wrote. Comparing the current crisis to the McCarthy era, he said: "The freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded."
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Opposition to the war is everywhere in Western Europe. With millions of people expected to take part in anti-war protests around the world over the weekend, more and more people here have been signing petitions, publishing anti-war articles in newspapers and on the Internet, and giving speeches at antiwar rallies.
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In France and Germany, dozens of influential writers, artists, scientists and others - including Guenther Grass, Christa Wolf and Jacques Derrida - signed a statement opposing the war.
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In Britain, a similar petition appeared Thursday in The Guardian, signed by, among others, the musicians Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, the playwright David Hare and the actors Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman.
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In Spain, where the film establishment turned a recent film awards ceremony into a virtual anti-war demonstration several weeks ago, the director Pedro Almodovar planned to present an anti-war manifesto at a rally in Madrid on Saturday.
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Some of the anti-war sentiment goes hand in hand with an outright hatred of all things American, a view that many believe belongs in the category of "stupid anti-Americanism," as the German author Peter Schneider put it in an interview. But stupid or not, such an attitude is on the rise.
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"I would say that even in the Vietnam years, I've never seen so much anti-Americanism all over Europe as I see now," Schneider said. "This is something America doesn't realize."
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But the cause for a subtler approach toward the United States, which Schneider advocates, is not helped by the American government's own perceived lack of subtlety. For the Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom, one of the most distressing recent developments is how thoroughly and brutally the Bush administration seems to dismiss even well thought-out European disagreement.
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"I get rather upset if I read American comments from people like Perle and Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld that we are all anti-American," Nooteboom said. "I do not think I am anti-American; nor do I like it when people say I am, because of a difference of opinion."
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In The Guardian, Annick Cojean, a commentator from the French newspaper Le Monde, said that the debate had descended into vicious name-calling from America's politicians, supported by too-complacent news media. "This torrent of insults against France and Germany, these are insults that one thought belonged to a bygone century," she wrote.
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Europeans have always been ambivalent toward the United States, of course. Affections ebb and flow; each country has its own unique history and relationship with America. Cultural leaders might denounce the ubiquitousness of American influence, but they wear American clothes, read American books, listen to American music, watch (and make) American films, and cross the Atlantic as readily as they might cross the French-German border.
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"Anyone who's sincere would admit to a certain degree of conflict or compromise in their own life about America," said Ian Jack, editor of the British magazine Granta.
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He added, "You find that, even with writers who say, 'I cannot stand what American culture has done for the world,' many of them have e-mail addresses ending in 'harvard.edu.'"
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The same is true, of course, among another growing anti-American group in Europe: young people who criticize what they see as the imperialistic tendencies of the United States, its bullying tactics, its efforts to turn the world into an American-owned subsidiary.
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Such people might take part in anti-globalization demonstrations and buy anti-American books - several were on French best-seller lists last year - but they could also be seen dancing to Bruce Springsteen in concert in Paris last month, shouting themselves hoarse as they sang, "I was born in the U.S.A.!"
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"I don't believe one should blame America - America is many other things besides whether or not there is a war in Iraq," said the Italian commentator Alain Elkann, an adviser to the Italian culture minister. "Each one of us for one reason or another dreams of America, and America is everywhere."
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Johano Strasser, president of the German PEN Center, said that if disagreeing with the United States meant being anti-American, "I know many Americans who are also anti-American.
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"I think it's nonsense to talk about pro-Americanism and anti-Americanism," he said. "People have different opinions on very important political questions. Let's talk about the opinions and not the motivation behind them."
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In Italy, where there is a particularly deep affection for the United States, even opponents of war say that many Europeans are unfairly dismissing the profound sense of anger and vulnerability that are driving American policy.
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"I would prefer an approach from America that was more open to discussion and different points of view," said Furio Colombo, the editor and publisher of the Socialist newspaper L'Unita in Rome. "But anyone who was here and not in New York on Sept. 11 cannot understand in full the immensity of that tragedy."
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