"More and More, Europeans Find Fault With U.S."

Carl Remick carlremick at hotmail.com
Sun Apr 9 10:27:16 PDT 2000


[The most cheering, inspiring article I've read in the NY Times in a long, long time -- with special guest star Felix "The Fixer" Rohatyn. You go, EU!]

More and More, Europeans Find Fault With U.S.

By Suzanne Daley

Paris, April 8 -- 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, 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 Rozés, 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 Schröder, 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'Études 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."

[end]

Carl

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