[IP] more on Understanding Anti-Americanism
Begin forwarded message:
From: Erik Huizer <huizer@xxxxxxxx>
Date: August 22, 2004 7:12:56 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] Understanding Anti-Americanism
Dave,
I really have problems with this view of anti-Americanism. Of course
the rest of the world deals with stereotypes of the USA, distributed
mainly by your own movie and TV industry. However that is exactly the
same for any other country. Everyone ouside my country seems to believe
we live behind Dikes and walk on wooden shoes and are very tolerant
towards drugs. Most countries in the world, including the USA assume
that the Netherlands is the root of all drug-evil.
On average those stereotype misgivings balance out and do not create a
real feeling of anti-country in any respect. Until Bush came into
office the Netherlands and its inhabitants were real pro-American. Teh
USA was at the top of the list of nations considered most-friendly.
Even before 9/11 the USA had slipped down that list. Bush turned
Clintons decision about the Kyoto protocol upside down, and that hurt
(Dutch care very much about the environment). Then Bush opposed the
internetional court of law for war crimes established in my country. He
even went as far as to adopt a ruling that the USA can invade the
Netherlands at any time to free US soldiers that would be on trial
before that court. (The reasoning being that US soldiers do not ever
commit war crimes, yeah right).
As you can imagine, being the only country in the world where the
US-president now has a carte-blanche for attack does not help to
increase popularity. The US tumbled down the list of most friendly
countries and entered on the list of most feared countries.
9/11 reversed that. There was a lot of sympathy over here and people
really grieved with your countrymen over what happened. We supported
the anti-terrorism plans. But then bit by bit we saw things happening
that again reversed everything: the protection of the American steel
market (against WTO agreement), the Patriot act and (probably somewhat
a stereotype, but still...) the perception of the Americans dealing
away freedom for safety. The horror stories of non-US travellers
boarding planes to/from the US. The war on Iraq, which we were unsure
about (remember that almost all European governments supported Bush in
his attack on Iraq, but 90% (!) of the population of Europe (including
teh UK) was against it). Then the llack of weapons of mass-destruction,
the uncovering of lies, untruth etc.
All that has instilled a lot of anti-Americanism and has made the US
now number one of the list of most feared nations.
However, bad as that may be, it is not all bad. Most people in Europe I
believe know that this anti-Americanism is directed against politics
and government. We know too many Americans personally to be able to
dislike the American people (on the contrary). We also realise that
Europe still is not a unity that is able to effectively respond to
world-crisis, and we need the US to do that.
So there is a lot of anti-Americanism in Europe, but it is not just
based on stereotypes and it is also not so deep that it is harmful
(yet). However it is certainly due to developments ofver the past three
years, to think otherwise is unrealistic.
Erik Huizer
University of Utrecht
The Netherlands
--On zaterdag 21 augustus 2004 16:42 -0400 David Farber
<dave@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Stephen D. Poe" <sdpoe@xxxxxxx>
Date: August 21, 2004 4:38:24 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Understanding Anti-Americanism
Reply-To: sdpoe@xxxxxxx
UNDERSTANDING ANTI-AMERICANISM
by Barry Rubin
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/