In praise of those 'damn Yankees'

 


Author:     David Warren

  WASHINGTON - On the face of things, it is hard to see how any 
reasonable person could object to the "war" the United States is 
now waging against international terrorism and terrorist 
regimes. The targets in this conflict are the common enemy of 
all civilized men and women, regardless of race, colour or 
creed; and the magnitude of the threat they pose was revealed to 
the world on the morning of Sept. 11. That the United States is 
compelled, through the unpreparedness of its allies, to conduct 
this fight in its military dimension almost single-handedly, 
should be a cause for soul-searching gratitude among those 
allies, hardly the resentment we have so often seen.

  To be fair, so far as truth can be discerned from polls, the 
free Western world is indeed grateful, and on balance quite 
supportive of the cause the Americans are leading. Where there 
are not even polls, in the tyrannies of the Middle East, of 
Africa and Asia, there is occasional evidence of the respect 
that the United States can command -- the belief that for all 
its flaws, the United States remains the champion of freedom.

  Perhaps the best evidence of this is the huge demand for U.S. 
visas -- especially in places such as the West Bank and Gaza. 
Potential terrorists may well be concealed among them, but for 
the great majority, it is common knowledge that the United 
States is a land of freedom and opportunity -- the preferred 
destination of the world's emigrants for the better part of the 
past two centuries. Action is more eloquent than words, and the 
real attitudes of people are often revealed in what they take 
for granted.

  This is especially true of intellectuals, the sometime masters 
of paradox (though sometimes paradox is their master). The many 
thousand generously funded U.S. universities are magnets for 
young literates from every culture. Often enough, the radicals 
who spout anti-American doctrines imbibed them amidst the safety 
and leisure of U.S. campus life. And in their confusion of ends 
and means, they make free use of technology and media largely 
developed in that America.

  The world's most prominent self-styled "Palestinian refugee," 
Edward Said, is the perfect example of this: a man who would be 
nothing without the chic and prestige conferred by elite U.S. 
universities and the publishing institutions of New York, N.Y. 
This man, who advanced a mendacious critique of "Orientalism," 
is himself a product of the scholarship he demeaned; and is able 
to command audiences in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East 
because of his success in America.

  Second only to the terrorism itself, this more muted and often 
self-satisfied anti-Americanism puts a great evil on open 
display. And while the conventional and verbal anti-Americanism 
is in a different league from the terrorist strikes -- closer to 
hypocrisy than to murderous hatred -- I think the two are 
animated by a common cause: a cause to be sought in the murk of 
the individual human soul, not in the externals of political 
argument.

  I come to this view after three decades of adult life, having 
encountered and often tried to resist anti-Americanism in 
several countries. Again and again, I have discovered it is a 
simple prejudice, rather than a product of comprehensive 
reasoning: for the charges brought against those "damn Yankees" 
shift loosely between the U.S. polity and people, and are no 
sooner effectively rebutted than more charges come forward in 
their place. There is a quality of "knowingness" about them, a 
flavour of conspiracy -- as if the world's most open nation and 
society were secretly behind every local misfortune. "We all 
know."

  In the column I wrote on the very day of the September 
catastrophe, I touched upon the envy of America, which I 
believed to be its "root cause." This column drew incredulous 
responses from several fairly sophisticated readers. In the 
words of one, "I can't believe anyone would sacrifice themselves 
and many others over something as petty as envy."

  Almost five months later, I feel more certain that my analysis 
was essentially right: We must look to moral rather than 
political causes to understand this "natural" antipathy that so 
much of the planet shares.

  Voices stilled by horror in the wake of the terror attacks on 
America, resumed their anti-American tirade when the United 
States took action in Afghanistan, and recently raised the pitch 
over the prisoners issue at Guantanamo Bay. And even in the 
first hours after the catastrophe, CBC was unselfconsciously 
airing a procession of guests making liberal use of the "but" 
construction. ("Yes, that was horrible ... but we have to 
realize why the Americans are so hated.")

  It was no surprise to me, though a surprise to others, to find 
both right-wing tabloids and left-wing pundits joining the fray 
in Europe over what I have come to call, facetiously, "the Gitmo 
Gandhis"; to see the speed with which even mildly conservative 
fellow-Canadians jumped to the conclusion that the United States 
was mistreating its "hostages," and wilfully ignoring Geneva 
Conventions that few had ever read. Nor are they now eager to 
retreat, after the collapse of all their arguments and thorough 
investigations by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

  For while the "left" has compounded anti-Americanism into dogma, 
the "right" in Canada, Europe and beyond, participates in the 
envy of U.S. success. From British lords down to humble 
skinheads, sneering at the American "vulgarity" confers a 
comforting sense of personal and national vindication, when no 
other prop can be found.

  Let me pause only briefly to allow that America is imperfect, 
like all earthly things; that its governments and people have 
committed many sins; that might does not make right; that power 
and wealth are not good in themselves; that goodness, truth and 
beauty may be found in every country and town. Let us even, 
sometimes, expect more from people born to every earthly 
advantage, and sometimes less from those born without.

  The mistake is to assume that envy is something so petty. Our 
ancestors wisely placed it among the mortal sins. It is a canker 
in the heart, that spreads by vanity through the human soul, 
turning worldly into spiritual failure. It can never be right to 
indulge this disease.

  We are told it is wrong to hate our enemies. What begins to 
happen when we hate our friends?



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