by Barry Rubin
All that this left for the French intellectuals was the hope that America might somehow decline, that its own people and the whole world might catch on to its sheer awfulness, that the contradictions detected in Paris would bring the edifice crashing down. One of the most famous of such exercises in wishful thinking was a 1968 book, L'Empire Americain by Claude Julien, who, as Washington correspondent for Le Monde, was the French intellectual establishment's expert on this issue.
America was vulnerable on two fronts, he explained. At home, presented as a paradise, consumer society actually was a hell of poverty, racism, injustice, unbearable tensions, hypocrisies, neuroses, and explosions of violence. Like European writers of the early nineteenth century, he suggested that this unworkable system might soon implode, ridding the world of its unwelcome presence.
Then there was the international situation. Surely the world would rebel against America, perhaps with France as its leader? After all, Americans accounted for only 6 percent of the world's population but consumed a large portion of its resources. As the gap between rich and poor grew and the United States relied on dictators to protect its raw materials, the end might be near in a revolutionary maelstrom.
Such events did not happen, however, during Julien's generation. Later, the American victory in the Cold War was a grave setback for these expectations. Later still, however, it seemed to some that the events of September ii, 2001, were a sign of some new heroic resistance, another round in the struggle that might succeed in overthrowing the beast from outside if not from within.
The idea of France reclaiming its glory and great power status as the champion of an anti-American coalition was not merely the fantasy of a few writers and intellectuals. It was also at times embraced by the country's highest officials. At a UNESCO conference in Mexico in 1982, Minister of Culture Jack Lang declared cultural war on the United States. The dominance of American songs, films, and television, he claimed, represented an "immense empire of profit," an empire against which must be waged "real cultural resistance, a real crusade against ... this financial and intellectual imperialism which no longer grabs territory or, rarely, but grabs consciousness, ways of thinking, ways of living.... We must act if tomorrow we don't want to be nothing but the sandwichboard of the multinationals."82
For a group that portrayed itself as the world's most brilliant and superior set of thinkers, however, it was amazing how consistently wrong the French intellectuals were about the United States. As a result of these misconceptions and contorted claims, they remained mystified about why that country was so successful.
In 1986, Jean Baudrillard, author of a widely read travelogue about America, pondered this paradox as he considered its largest city: "It is a world completely rotten with wealth, power, senility, indifference, Puritanism, and mental hygiene, poverty, and waste, technological futility and aimless violence, and yet I cannot help but feel it has about it something of the dawning of the universe. Perhaps because the entire world continues to dream of New York, even as New York dominates and exploits it."83
There was, of course, anti-Americanism elsewhere in Europe, though compared to what went on in France, it was a rather anemic affair during the Cold War. After all, there were few points of friction between the United States and Britain, Germany, or Italy. America was defending Europe from a Soviet threat that could not easily be dismissed. Communist parties dissented but were increasingly discredited. The far left in Western Europe railed against America periodically but was a marginal force. Negative sentiment existed, especially among intellectuals, but rarely had any major role.
"Culturally, the British masses are much more friendly to America than what passes for our literary and academic intelligentsia. It is there, from Harold Pinter on the squawking left to Le Carre on the surly right that the more frenzied expressions of hatred tend to come," as one British observer described it.84
But the views of these opinion-forming sectors, dispensed to the general public through books, newspapers, radio, television, educational institutions, and other routes, did have an effect on the thinking of far larger groups. And these long-term influences would erupt when changes or events triggered already-existing attitudes.
For example, an in-depth 1988 study of the British public showed the continued existence of many traditional negative stereotypes among conservatives as well as leftists. "The Americans I meet tend to put me off ... because they appear to be brash and shallow and loud," said one affluent conservative. Added a left-of-center counterpart, Americans are "showmen ... braggers," people who always believed they were the best. "Gunboat diplomacy-it all ties in with their brash showmanship." And American culture was junk. As one Manchester citizen summed up the United States, "It's more of a racket than a society."
Such cultural cliches shaped the interpretation of political actions. While accepting their country's close alliance with the United States, the British tended to judge the United States more harshly than they did the USSR. In international affairs, it was seen as a "cowboy shooting from the hip."85 As one well-heeled conservative put it, "I would trust the Russians to think things through and perhaps win a point because they've stayed calm and steady and thought it through like a chess game," while the Americans tended to lose their temper and act less rationally.86
Yet the specific cases used by interviewees to prove these views were in themselves revealing of an anti-American bias. Among these were the 1980 rescue attempt of American diplomats held hostage in Iran and a 1986 U.S. bombing raid on Libya following that country's involvement in a terror attack on American soldiers in Germany. These were, though, defensive actions, and certainly nothing so different-and far less motivated by imperial self-interest-from the kinds of things Britain had done when it was the world's leading power.
The most serious discrepancy was a tendency to see the United States and Soviet Union as morally equivalent, mirror images in following a selfish and ruthless policy. Expecting far less of the USSR, it was easy to take that country's misdeeds for granted: since they were expected, they didn't count. One might be quick to seek some positive attribute to balance matters somewhat, as well as to give hope that the Cold War might be kept peaceful and resolved quickly.
In contrast, the fact that the United States was an ally might make for harsher judgment of it. As leader of the West, the United States might drag these once-powerful countries in its wake, risking their futures by its adventurism. Those interviewed in the British study resented America as insensitive to their country's suggestions and dismissive of its positions. Lingering resentments at old issues intensified this feeling. Respondents cited the United States' "late" entry into World War II (forgetting its tremendous aid for Britain while ostensibly still neutral) or failure to support Britain during the 1956 Suez crisis (ironically, criticizing an anti-imperialist U.S. stance that ran counter to a common anti-American stereotype).
This last example is especially revealing and ironic. After all, however justified in strategic terms, the 1956 British and French invasion of Egypt was a prime example of the kinds of things over which they criticized the United States. On that occasion, rightly or wrongly, the American government had backed the leftist Egyptian regime as the victim of imperial machinations. France, where such criticisms of the United States were even more common, had engaged in far more international adventures, including many unilateral interventions to overthrow or preserve dictatorships in its former African colonies.
This issue of evaluating what American culture or society proved about its foreign policy or how, in turn, such international behavior revealed an underlying pattern of U.S. methods and goals, was a critical element making anti-Americanism so distinctive. After all, despite decades of aggression, imperialism, and exploitation by Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Russia, no systematic doctrine of antagonism to those societies ever came into existence. Whatever they did-and did wrong-was not attributed mainly to the essence of their culture or character of their people.
There was also a new element in late-twentieth-century antiAmericanism that only became really salient after the Cold War's end and Communism's collapse. It still seemed far out in 1983, when the British travel writer Jan Morris proclaimed "the reluctant and terrible conviction that the greatest threat to the peace of humanity is the United States. I can no longer stomach America's insidious meddling across the face of the world. Wherever I go I find myself more and more repelled by the apparently insatiable American urge to interfere in other people's business."87
Yet Morris was prefiguring a new worldview that would be fully launched against America in the 199os, albeit one under construction since the time the United States was a little country huddled along the Atlantic seacoast. In the words of the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, "Whenever there is hunger, wherever there is exploitative tyranny, whenever people are tortured and the masses left to rot under the weight of disease and starvation, the forces which hold the people stem from Washington."88
In short, the fifth and highest phase of anti-Americanism would be that the United States was responsible for virtually all the world's problems and evils. For two centuries, both pro- and anti-Americans had been predicting that America would become the future of the human race, the model of civilization, and the greatest cultural and strategic power. Anti-Americans warned that one day, the United States would threaten the world in its lust for conquest, exporting its malformed so ciety and destructive culture. Now, at last by the 199os, that moment would be at hand.
Whatever the injustices of the Vietnam War, it was not widely credible, even in France, to portray the United States as responsible for all the world's ills as long as the USSR existed to take some of the blame and provide a rationale for much of what happened. Only when that rival bloc collapsed could America be believed to be the planet's greatest villain, because now it really was the globe's greatest power.
THE GREAT SATAN
To some extent, they succeeded far more than just hijacking four planes and crashing three of them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. It was also the greatest graphic demonstration of anti-Americanism and advertisement for that doctrine that had ever happened.
There were two types of anti-American responses. The first and more extreme was the idea, mainly in the Middle East and among Muslims, that bin Ladin was right, the attacks were justified, and there had to be more armed struggle against the United States and its influence. The other approach-more popular in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere-was to say that there was much truth in bin Ladin's claims and large legitimate grievances against the United States, though the attack itself was excessive and American influence should be fought with nonviolent means. While the first school of thought wanted to fight America, the second was content merely to blame America.
f at least one good thing might come out of September ii, 2001, the most terrible terrorist attack in modern history, surely it could have been expected to be heightened world sympathy for the United States in the Middle East. In fact, however, the opposite happened. Usama bin Ladin and his al-Qa'ida group organized the operation in the first place because they wanted to identify America as an evil country that was the source of the world's problems.
For almost a half-century before September ii, anti-Americanism had been a major force in the Middle East. But before that date, it had usually been part of a larger worldview, an accessory (albeit an important one). Now, anti-Americanism was placed at the very center of these ideologies.
The Middle East version of anti-Americanism possessed its own distinctive roots, course of development, and list of complaints. At the same time, though, it had, like counterparts elsewhere, the same dual concept of America, two mutually reinforcing ideas in building an anti-American vision.
On one hand, the United States was portrayed as a bad society, especially dangerous since its model might displace the Arab/Muslim culture and way of life. On the other hand, the United States had an evil foreign policy, antagonistic to Arab/Muslim interests because it sought to injure, conquer, and dominate the Middle East. The root of antiAmericanism in the Middle East, then, is not so much the substance of American words or deeds but the deliberate reinterpretation of American words or deeds to make them seem hostile and evil.
What were some of the causes that made Middle Eastern antiAmericanism so intense? First, and ironically, was the fact that antiAmericanism developed later in the Middle East than in Europe or Latin America, largely because that region's significant contacts with the United States only took place in relatively recent times. It came onto the stage at the time of that phenomenon's highest, most intense, phase. Middle Eastern views of America were formed at the time in which that country was a global power and seen mainly in that light.
Second, and perhaps even more significant, was that cultural distance made it far easier to distort the nature and motives of the United States. Europe and Latin America knew they shared a great deal in common with America. Ultimately, the United States was only a variation-even if some considered it a perverted one-of their own civilization. For the Arab and Muslim world, however, the United States was not only far more alien but also often seen as the embodiment of the entire Western world.
A third key element was the entwining of anti-Americanism with the Arab world's, and later Iran's, political system. At the root of this version of anti-Americanism was less a factually based set of grievances than a campaign far more systematic and keyed to political advantage than elsewhere in the world. Most of the ruling and opinion-making elite-even those whose countries maintained good relations with the United States, as in Saudi Arabia or Egypt-had strong political motives for endorsing anti-American views and making them a key part of their strategy for retaining power.
As in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, anti-Americanism was a state-supported doctrine. The reason was that in the Arab world and Iran, ruling ideologies-Arab nationalism and Islamism, respectivelysaw themselves as alternative models of how society should be organized. For them, America was a rival for the loyalties of their own people and the preservation of the way of life they wanted. Consequently, it had to be discredited and defeated in order for their vision to triumph.
Unlike in Europe or Latin America, these dictatorial and ideological regimes controlled all social institutions, including the media, mosque, and schools, using them to spread systematically their version of the United States. Also in comparison to other places, the liberal forces that had always been the main foes of anti-Americanism in Europe and Latin America were far weaker there.
Fourth, the Middle Eastern regimes' visible failures made them need to wield anti-Americanism all the more. How else could they explain their own inability to unite the Arab world, destroy Israel, bring rapid economic development, or give their people more freedom than by citing U.S. sabotage? To survive, they needed to persuade their people that the main threat came from a powerful and evil external enemy, which required them to unite around their government to fight.
Even governments considered relatively moderate that maintained good formal relations with the United States, such as Egypt or Saudi Arabia, still vigorously promoted anti-Americanism to deflect attention and blame from their domestic and foreign policy failures, to mobilize internal support against a make-believe enemy, to forge militant credentials, and to appease radical neighbors. They were happy to receive U.S. help and protection while denouncing the country that gave it.
Finally, anti-Americanism also became an important tool for revolutionary movements, which tried to portray their rulers as American stooges and themselves as patriots that fought against imperialism. This was not such an unusual posture, as it had been adopted elsewhere by Communists and nationalists in many countries. What made it different, however, was the fact that in the Middle East, these forces were increasingly Islamist, meaning that America was also seen as a threat in the passionate and sensitive area of attacking one's religion.
Such men as Ayatollah Ruhol
lah Khomeini, who seized power in Iran in 1979, and Usama bin Ladin, who tried to foment revolution in Saudi Arabia in the 199os, viewed America as an alternative model of society that was subverting Muslim culture and religion. For them, too, like the Arab nationalists, the United States seemed to block their ambition to rule the region: it was a demon against whom they could mobilize the masses, and anti-Americanism was a rationale for their inability to overthrow Arab governments. Millions of their followers were persuaded by their slogans that Islam was the answer and that America was the problem.
Moreover, while the Islamist revolutionaries were trying to overthrow their Arab nationalist rulers, the latter actually agreed with them on the point of promoting anti-Americanism. The mutual accusations against the United States by Arab nationalist regimes and Islamist oppositions reinforced each other. Rulers even increased the volume of their antiAmerican rhetoric to co-opt potential supporters of the opposition and to shore up their Islamic, as well as patriotic, legitimacy. The result was a spiraling upward of anti-American propaganda.
As a result of government policy, anti-Americanism became official doctrine throughout the Middle East, even in those countries where relations seemed best and regardless of U.S. actions favoring Arab or Muslim interests. Since anti-Americanism became state policy in the Arab world in the late 195os-and in Iran since 1979-schools, religious authorities, intellectuals, political figures, and the media have repeated these themes with little or no alternative point of view being available to their audiences.
But it was not merely a matter of regimes twisting the arms of an intellectual class, which has been the main carrier of anti-Americanism throughout the world. The overwhelming majority of Arab teachers, writers, and journalists were true believers in Arab nationalist (and sometimes Islamist) ideology, and they promoted anti-Americanism to serve these causes. Whatever their own degree of personal Westernization, do ing so validated their militant credentials and cultural authenticity while also bringing them rewards from the regimes that generally paid their salaries and gave them access to the means of communication.
