Back during the height of the Cold War, I lived in Europe for a few years. Anti- Americanism was pretty widespread at the time, though I had little contact with it in the insulated social plateau where I resided with my husband, entrenched in what was called at the time “the military-industrial complex.” The shenanigans of the leftist groups left us appalled—where was the gratitude we felt we had every right to expect? After all, we had virtually saved an entire generation from starvation after WW II, we had unselfishly given not just money but also the lives of our sons to the cause of their freedom. It’s the kind of injured egocentrism that can’t understand others.
The war in Viet Nam was raging at the time, and the anti-American animus was focused there. I wondered why the younger generation of Germans, who protested the war so loudly, often violently, should care so much about Viet Nam. Not that I agreed or disagreed that they should care—just that I couldn’t see the deeper reason for the passion—until a young man, the son of an affluent German family, made a comment one day while we were visiting their home. The father had made a remark, an obvious deference to my husband, on the great strength of America— which, he was sure, was far greater than the strength of the USSR. The son’s comment, more muttered than actually voiced, turned on a light in a dark closet: “Maybe someday the strong will kill each other off and leave the rest of us in peace.”
Germany was divided, as Viet Nam was—a ravaged object, fought over by two warring giants. If the object of the struggle had any choice at all, it was limited to taking a side, gambling on which giant would prove stronger and becoming a soulless prostitute. The look of contempt on the young man’s face was not directed at my husband, but at his own father, a wealthy, very pro-American German businessman. The slightest shadow of a wince crossed the father’s face.
From the moment I saw that wince, I understood the deeper reason for the anti- Americanism which had puzzled me until then, and for the anti-Viet Nam War sentiment that waved over Europe at large. The fuss between east and west revealed its true nature. Private versus state capitalism was not the issue, still less the expressed high-sounding ideal of freedom versus tyranny. I saw in a moment the deeper reason for the European anti-Viet Nam feeling, and it took only a little longer to grasp the deeper reasons of envy and greed for the fuss between the warring giants.
But that is not to say that I came to see the hapless European (or Vietnamese) as an innocent victim of an eastern and western contest for power. The arrogance in the young man’s condemnation was invisible only to himself, and it too had its own deeper source, one more dangerous to him than the warring giants because it was more deceptive: self-righteousness.
Europe today is contending with the consequences of that self-deception. Nobody is fighting over Europe any more. There’s no one to blame any more. The giants “killed each other off,” as the young man hoped they would—surprisingly out of fatigue, more than anything else. Germany was re-united, the victory of the west; and Viet Nam was reunited, the victory of the east.
So also has Europe united itself. How is it doing? Now Europe too has wealth and power. All should be well, shouldn’t it? Every time any nationalist sentiment raises its head, it’s successfully beaten down, keeping the cinema—and the politicians— in business. But outside the cinema plotlines and the politicians’ polls, the haves are bailing out the have-nots and resenting it. The have-nots are envying the haves and blaming them for their deprivation. And, maybe worst of all, the recurring cinematic and political themes are getting boring. Where is that enemy when you really need him….?
The role of innocent victim immunized Europe from the kind of self-confrontation experience of the US and the USSR. We have our own problems now in the cold peace and have little interest in Europe. But sometimes on BBC world news, we see behavior that seems a little strange to us: an intense defense of European Muslims or other groups who clearly have no need of defense, the apparently insatiable European hunger for celebrity—or the oddly violent riots at soccer games. (Good grief, they actually kill each other over a stupid game.) There is also an apparent dearth of villains, so that they have to dig up and stereotype the old American villain. (George Bush was actually cast as a womanizer [!] in the English film Love, Actually. Is anyone out of touch with reality here?) Lacking heroes of their own, they adopt our president, imagining (lyrically, perhaps?) that Obama “conquered” us— (on their behalf somehow?) The behavior is sometimes—well, in a word, weird.
Maybe it’s the behavior of the innocent victim when he’s been abandoned by his oppressors and left with nothing but a mirror. There may be need for distraction. Having discarded his own religion, country, culture, identity, he looks into the mirror and finds no one there. It must be terrifying—this specter of one’s own disappearance.
Dena, I have argued with many a leftist European and many a leftist American on internet forums, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it all boils down to that they have accepted Liberal/socialist outlook, and so see everything through that prism. I used to think that some sort of insecurity psychology was at play. But when you see Americans voicing the very same rhetoric, and when you come across a non-leftist European and see he has sane values and outlook, one has to conclude it’s the ideology. Since there are more people on the left in Europe than here, we brand Europeans as completely leftist. Unfortunately the trend in the US is going in their direction. As this 2012 election has pointed out, we have become Europeans.
I don’t think I see a left vs right thing any more, Manny. The ideology to which the European clings is not working for him at the level it must work in order to endure. Riots at soccer games and celebrity fanaticism is a poor exchange for one’s culture and country, one’s identity and faith–one’s soul. It doesn’t really matter any more whether the ideology is left or right. Its price is too high.