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“The Fantasy of a Pro-America Europe”
“Rumors of a return to trans-Atlantic harmony are premature for the moment,” writes Niall Stanage in The New York Observer. He criticizes the wishful thinking by some arrogant commentators. Instead of the term “arrogance,” Stanage uses the euphemism “a robust sense of self-importance,” which instantly became one of my favorite phrases:
The ascensions of Ms. Merkel and, particularly, Mr. Sarkozy have been heralded by American conservatives, who see their victories as evidence that anti-Americanism is neither as widespread nor as trenchant among Europeans as some have suggested. After all, they argue, didn’t Mr. Sarkozy’s detractors label him ‘Sarko the American’, and did he not win over French voters regardless?
Mr. Sarkozy’s victory, Fred Thompson said in an ABC radio commentary, “has been a serious blow to those who claim that America has earned the undying hatred of Europeans. A French president who openly admires America is an embarrassment to those who view us as the country bumpkin cousins of the sophisticated Europeans.” The New York Sun put things even more colorfully in an editorial: “How are all those Democratic Party, pinky-in-the-air U.N. admirers who wailed about Mr. Bush’s alienating of Europe going to explain this turn of events?” it gloated.
It is not quite as simple as that. For a start, it takes a robust sense of self-importance to assume that national elections on the other side of the Atlantic are nothing more than referenda on relations with America. In fact, the French and German elections were largely decided by domestic issues. In both cases, a moribund economy and a general sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo fuelled the victories of candidates whose pro-free market reform credentials were more important than their pro-Americanism.
Indeed. I also agree with Stanage’s conclusion:
At the very least, the cleft between Europeans and Americans seems deeper and more bitter than the cheerleaders of U.S. conservatism – or the elites of European politics—would like to believe.
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7 Responses to ““The Fantasy of a Pro-America Europe””
Great post. Very interesting.
Right on the button. It constantly amazes me the arrogance of America – that the whole world rotates on our axis. I lived most of 25 years in a variety of other countries (Israel, South Korea, India, Japan, Taiwan, Europe etc). Believe it or not, the people in those countries actually believe their issues are more important than ours. The utter gall of those people. LOL.
The ‘cleft; has been there for a long time, long before the Iraq war, if anyone had cared to notice.
The EU was created partially to challenge America’s power. Both sides of the Atlantic have their separate myths of supeiority they cling to, and those myths keep the cleft gaping and wide.
America has the myth of being able to control global problms by virtue of its military power and ingenuity, and Europe has the myth of cultural and intellectual superiority. Both are partially wrong and partially right.
In view of the rivalry, it’s laughable to think that Europe would ever want to emulate America. To be like us is the last thing they want. They want to be better than us!
Aside from the fringes, most run-of-the-mill conservative Europeans are horrified at conservatism US style, both in economic and social policies.
That’s what I hear from my conservative friends in Europe (Denmark, France, Spain), at least.
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Full-fledged harmony between Europe and the U.S. tends to accompany a shared threat or catastrophe. Most of the time, the two are competitors who remain on good terms, fortunately.
I suspect few individuals on either side of the Atlantic have not had the disheartening experience of watching a friend take a wrong turn and hurry down a bad path. I hope Europeans who remember the U.S. as a friend in deed during the continent’s most needful times will rightly perceive current U.S. policy and policy makers as aberrations.
One might equally title this post, “The Fantasy of an Anti-America Europe.”
Entropy-
It’s not a fantasy. Europe, and much of the world, is afraid of what America might do next. Rightly or wrongly, they don’t like being affected by what America does, as they inevitably are, without having a syy in the action.
That’s just the way things are, not a judgment on who’s right and whp’s wrong.