A RUNNING DOG OF AMERICAN ANTI-AMERICANISM

From: Once the most beloved country in the world, the US is now the most hated(Jan Morris, The Guardian, February 14th, 2007)

But I think it is true that only in our time has the American Idea lost its baraka. A generation or two ago, most of us, wherever we lived, loved the generous self-satisfaction of it, if not in the general, at least in the particular. The GI was not then a sort of goggled monster in padded armour, but a cheerful fellow chatting up the girls and distributing candy not as a matter of policy, but out of plain goodwill - everyone's friendly guy next door. To millions of radio listeners around the world, the Voice of America was a voice of decency, and one could watch the lachrymose patriotic rituals of America - the hand on heart, the misty-eyed salute to the flag - with more affection than irony.

For myself, I responded to them all too sentimentally. Like Walt Whitman before me, I heard America sing! I relished the hackneyed old lyrics - Mine eyes have seen the glory, Thy word our law, Thy paths our chosen way, Oe'r the land of the free and the home of the brave, God bless America, land that I love ... Most of the words were flaccid, many of the tunes were vulgar, but as I heard them I saw always in my mind's eye, as Whitman did, all the glorious space, grandeur and opportunity that was America, Manhattan to LA. Sea, in fact, to shining sea.

In those days we did not think of American evangelists as prophets of political extremism - they seemed more akin to the homely convictions of plantation or village chapel than to the machinations of neocons. We bridled rather at the American assumption that the US of A had been the only true victor of the second world war, but most of us did not very deeply resent the happy swagger of the legend and danced gratefully enough to the American rhythms of the time. We thought it all seemed essentially innocent.

Innocent! Dear God! Half a century, and nobody thinks that now. Far from being the most beloved country on earth, today the US is the most thoroughly detested. The rot really started to set in, in my view, with Abraham Lincoln, one of the most admirable men who ever lived. He it was who saw in American glory the duty of a mission. America, he declared, was the last best hope of earth. The pursuit of happiness was not its national vocation, but the example of democracy. The more like the United States the world became, the better the world would be. No statesman was ever more sincere or kindly in his beliefs, but poor old Abe would be horrified to see how his interpretation of destiny has gone sour.

For the missionary instinct, which impelled Americans into so many noble policies, was to be perverted by power. Pace Lincoln, America was not necessarily the last best hope of mankind, and the knowledge that it has possessed unchallengable powers of interference has distorted its attitude to the world and cruelly damaged its image in return.

OK, that’s it. It’s bad enough that we live in a world where Americans control global geopolitics, drive the world economy and undermine everybody’s popular culture. Until now, the rest of us could at least sniff, pout and rend our garments under the inspiration of a vast array of anti-American politicians, intellectuals, religious fanatics and activists from Europe, Asia, Latin America and even Africa. Those fellows liked their anti-Americanism neat. They knew the place is rotten to the core and always was. How we soared on their poetic imagery: “The Great Satan”, “yellow American imperialist” and even our personal favourite, “rapacious Yankee trader”. It was the one little corner of life we controlled that all the lure and might of America could do nothing about.

But what’s this? “I heard America sing”? Honest Abe is rolling in his grave? GIs distributing candy? Once beloved worldwide like innocent children, but now hated as thugs? There is only one kind of anti-American that talks that way and he/she probably doesn’t follow soccer. Are all our heros selling out for some mess of Yankee pottage like a walk-on role in Michael Moore’s next film or a guest fellowship at Harvard? Are our traditional indigenous versions of anti-Americanism too fragile to withstand the relentless imperialist march of the American version?

Do they have to control everything?