Interesting article on Third World anti-Americanism. John Derbyshire calls it a complex mix of a Hollywoodized and ideologically-filtered view of America, mixed together with feelings of cargo-cult disappointement and moral superiority:
Yearning to be liked
by John Derbyshire
Let me begin with a story, a true story—the story of my one appearance on a lecture stage with Dr. Henry Kissinger. This happened, or rather failed to happen, in the month of September, 2001.
The U.S. State Department runs a Foreign Visitors Program, under whose auspices people from various parts of the world, people distinguished in the arts or professions, are brought to the United States to meet with American counterparts from their own lines of work. I suppose the idea is that mutual understanding will be created thereby, the veil of ignorance lifted, the fetters of ancient prejudice struck off, the dogs of war silenced, and so on. Whether this result is actually attained in many cases, I cannot say. In the particular case I am going to tell you about, it never had a chance to happen.
As a journalist who has been writing about Chinese affairs for nearly twenty years, I am sometimes asked to participate in these functions. The usual course of events is that the State Department will call to tell me that such-and-such a person is being brought over from China under the Foreign Visitors Program, and they think it would be a good idea for me to meet with him or her. They tell me who the person is. If the name is not familiar to me (which, I am sorry to say, is more often the case than not), they give me the visitor’s curriculum vitae. If I then express interest, a date is set up, almost invariably a lunch date. I hasten to add that this is unpaid work. I do it for the opportunity to meet interesting people, and in the hope that I might get a column out of it.
Well, one day last summer I took a call from my contact—I had done this often enough that we were on first-name terms—at the Foreign Visitors Program. They had a major event coming up, he told me. A large group of Chinese media people, TV producers and the like, were coming over in a single batch. “The cream of 30-40-year-olds at major Chinese media outlets,” he gushed. A series of discussion groups and lectures was being arranged. Would I care to address these people? I said I’d like to see names and titles. He e-mailed me a list. Scanning it, I was impressed. These were indeed heavy hitters in Chinese media circles. News Director, Shanghai Broadcasting Network … Deputy Editor-in-Chief, China Newsweek Magazine … Editor, International Affairs, Global Times … News Anchor, CCTV. I called the guy back. Yes, definitely I’d be interested.
In the fullness of time, arrangements were made, a program published. There would be an event at the State Department’s New York City office on 53nd Street. I would speak for an hour, 10:30 to 11:30, on the subject “Perceptions of China in America’s Right-Wing Press.” I would then be the guest of the Department for lunch. There would be an honorarium of $250! And the speaker right before me, 9:30 to 10:30, would be Dr. Henry Kissinger. The date: Tuesday, September 18th.
On the Friday following the September 11th attacks, I got a call from my man at State. The whole thing was off, he said. Why? I naturally wanted to know. “I can’t tell you, really can’t tell you. Anyway, it’s off. We’ve told Kissinger.” Where were the media hotshots? “Gone back, gone back to China, the whole lot. It’s all off.”
In the weeks that followed I was able to piece together what had happened. This, I should say, was from informal sources, whose versions of events did not always agree in precise detail. All the accounts told the same basic story, though. The Chinese media types came over on September 8th. They were in a room together with some State Department minders, receiving some kind of cultural acclimitization, when the World Trade Center was hit. There was a TV set in the room, and everyone got to see the second plane hit. When this happened, some of the Chinese party stood up and cheered. My informants differ on how many, from a lower bound of “only three or four” up to “at least half a dozen.” (The list of participants I had been given contained fifteen names.) This made the State Department minders very angry. A shouting match broke out. A report went up the chain of command. Whether it went all the way to Colin Powell I am not clear; it certainly went as far as Richard Armitage, Powell’s second-in-command. The Chinese media people flew back to China shortly afterwards—whether voluntarily or not, my informants do not agree.
continued at newcriterion.com |
