[IP] The crusade for monoculture book review from Asia Times
BOOK REVIEW
The crusade for monoculture
Who Are We? America's Great Debate by Samuel Huntington
Reviewed by Chanakya Sen
The prophet-provocateur of international relations, Samuel P
Huntington, is back to rattle some bones with a combative teaser on
American identity. In the tone-setting foreword, he states that his new
book, Who Are We? America's Great Debate, is "shaped by my own
patriotic desire to find meaning and virtue in America's past and
future". Americans are exhorted by the "clash of civilizations" guru to
recommit themselves to Anglo-Protestant culture, the source of their
identity and moral leadership of the world.
Prior to September 11, 2001, the salience of the American national
identity was eroded. The proportion of immigrants with "other national
loyalties" and dual citizenships had risen to record levels (7.5
million). Intense programs of "Americanization" to assimilate
immigrants into mainstream US culture had stopped since 1965. Various
sub-national racial, ethnic and gender identities cropped up.
Denationalized elites, intellectuals and business persons pursued
multicultural diversity theories. The "global speak" of these
"cosmocrats" was influencing US government policies.
Post-1991 Americans were shaky about the substance of their national
identity, being "not what we were and uncertain who we were becoming"
(p 11). They joined several other societies facing identity crises as
globalization mixed and huddled various races and cultures. The absence
of an external "other" after the collapse of the Soviet Union
undermined American unity and bred splits. Rhetorically, Huntington
asks, "Does it take an Osama bin Laden to make us realize that we are
Americans?" (p 8).
Settler nation
Huntington bewails the half-truth that the United States is a "nation
of immigrants". Americans' ancestors were not immigrants but
Anglo-Protestant settlers who came to the New World in the 17th and
18th centuries to create a new society. "Immigrants came later (1830s)
to become part of the society the settlers had created" (p 40). The
Anglo-Protestant settler culture and its political and economic
freedoms attracted immigrants to America. Settlement was central not
only to the nation's formation but also to its internal westward
expansion, the "peopling of the frontier".
Liberal beliefs that American identity is defined entirely by political
principles of liberty, equality and individual rights is another
partial truth for Huntington. Settler Americans enslaved and massacred
native peoples, segregated blacks, excluded Asians, discriminated
against Catholics and obstructed immigration from outside northwestern
Europe. From King Philip's War (1675) onward, white Americans
ethnically cleansed "savage", "backward" and "uncivilized" natives.
Until 1965, blacks were denied basic liberties and insulted as an
inferior class of beings. Up to 1952, Asian immigrants were shunned as
"a menace to our civilization".
Core culture
The core components of Huntington's American identity are
Anglo-Protestant practices inherited from fragments of English society
whence the settlers came. The English language, Tudor governance and
Protestantism were the bedrocks from which emerged the "American Creed"
(Gunnar Myrdal). "America was created as a Protestant society just as
Pakistan and Israel were created as Muslim and Jewish societies" (p
63). Evangelicals and Puritans carved the American national value
system - extreme individualism, glorification of work and self-made
men. The moralistic dualism of US foreign policy is derived from the
same Anglo-Protestant culture that sets right apart from wrong and
appropriate from inappropriate.
The United States, a predominantly Christian nation, was always the
most religious country in the Western Hemisphere. Throughout American
history, the proportion of church members has increased. Sixty-eight
percent of respondents in a 1992 opinion poll felt that belief in God
was "extremely important for a true American". So-called
"de-Christianization" of the country was and is a myth. The US Catholic
Church was "de-Romanized" in the late 19th century and adapted to the
Protestant environment. American "civil religion", centering on special
destiny and a mission to save the world, originates from the Protestant
ethic.
Zigzag path
Revolutionary warfare in the late 18th century stimulated an American
identity distinct from British colonial identity. The long spell of
peace that followed uncovered sub-national, sectional, state and
partisan identities. "English-speaking America could have become
divided as Spanish-speaking America did" (p 114). However, the
unqualified patriotism of the Civil War reified an identifiable
American nationhood. Mushrooming of a national economy and national
voluntary associations solidified the identity.
The 1898 Spanish-American War spawned mass jingoism and patriotic
indoctrination of previously unseen dimensions. The cult of the Stars
and Stripes, "equivalent of the cross for Christians", was a
development of that era. Americans deplored cultural pluralism as
fissiparous during World War I. Major social movements to Americanize
immigrants and infuse them with nationalism flourished in the inter-war
years.
National identity climbed to its zenith during World War II and stayed
there until the 1960s. Huntington lays the blame for bringing the flags
down after that on "tossed salad" deconstructionists who hoisted
affirmative action. Government institutions, newspapers and businesses
supported the "replacement of individual rights by group rights"
through racial preferences, even though the majority of Americans
opposed quotas for admissions and jobs. Federal administrators, judges
and intelligentsia promoted minority languages and downgraded English
against the will of the majority of Americans (pro-English forces won
11 popular referendums between 1980 and 2002).
Multiculturalism, which Huntington vilifies, was anti-European in
essence and "challenged the Anglo-conformist image of America" (p 173).
It removed patriotism from the educational curriculum and marginalized
national history. American youth lost memory and "became something less
than a nation" (p 176).
For Huntington, the greatest threat to American "societal security"
(identity, culture and customs) came from waves of Hispanic
immigration. Sixty-nine percent of illegal immigration to the United
States is of Mexican origin. Latin American immigrants were reluctant
to approximate US norms, especially Mexicans, who remained highly
concentrated. Separatist Mexicans engendered the "most serious cleavage
in American society" by converting the country's southwest into a
"MexAmerica" that has the potential of going the Quebec way.
Ampersand efforts for not getting Americanized were supported by
liberals who claimed that ethnocentrism was dangerous. A "reactive
ethnic consciousness" resulted, especially among Mexican immigrants,
whose identification with American values was zilch. They grew
"increasingly contemptuous of American culture", living "in America but
not of it" (p 256).
Non-assimilatory immigrants detrimentally affected the meaning and
practice of US citizenship. Naturalization was trivialized into an
exercise of claiming government economic benefits. Lacking any
requirement of loyalty and nationalism, US citizenship was rendered
unexceptional.
Hispanization, in Huntington's assessment, can threaten the political
integrity of the US, what with the Mexican Embassy issuing consular
cards to illegal immigrants. "The Mexican government, in effect,
determines who is an American" (p 282). Congressional contests in the
US are fought between opposing diaspora lobbies. Cuban dominance of
Miami has transformed the city into an "out-of-control banana republic"
with an "independent foreign policy" (p 251).
'Thank God for America'
Nationalism is today alive and well with huge majorities of Americans,
giving hope to Huntington. Americans rank first in extent of national
pride in every world values survey. The number of unhyphenated white
Americans is on the rise. More Americans identify themselves as pure
"American" instead of relating to their ethnic background. Younger
blacks prefer the title "African-American", an affirmation of their
multi-racial heritage. White American nativism and racism do pose
specters of renewed intolerance and division.
Elite multiculturalism and mass American craving for national identity
stand at loggerheads. The public feel that the federal government's
efforts to curtail illegal migration have been "very unsuccessful",
although they identify it as "a very important goal" (p 331).
Governmental policy is deviating more and more from the wishes of the
plurality of Americans.
Huntington concludes that political creeds cannot alone sustain a
nation. They cannot match the deep emotional content and meaning
provided by religion and culture. The dramatic resurgence of
conservative Christianity in the US responds to the psychological and
moral needs of Americans. Perceived decline in morality and family
values played a big factor in George W Bush's election in 2000. The
September 11 attacks "pinpointed America's identity as a Christian
nation" (p 358). What the US must do is rediscover its Anglo-Protestant
roots in this "age of religion".
Huntington's populist crusade for monoculture misrepresents categories
such as "elites" and "race", broad-brushes institutionalized
discrimination and structural violence in US society, and fails to link
the images of evangelical Brother Jonathan and imperial Uncle Sam. To
those hoping for a milder, mellower and more tolerant United States,
reinvigoration of US nationalism pours fuel over the inferno.
Who Are We? America's Great Debate by Samuel Huntington. Penguin Books
India, September 2004, New Delhi. ISBN: 0-14-303241-0. Price: US$7.50;
428 pages.
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FL25Aa01.html>
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