by Barry Rubin
If other Britons disagreed and decided that they liked American culture or ideas, that choice seemed to others a betrayal that made them even angrier. For if Europeans wanted to adapt such things then the danger of America being the model for the continent's future was a very real one. In the words of one British writer, in an article entitled, "America Has Descended into Madness":
Every week one [cabinet minister] tells us it is all done far better in the United States before announcing policies to further the Americanization of Britain. We must have their damned highway [system].... What next? U.S.-style justice which leaves the poor and disenfranchised without half-decent lawyers, merciless boot camps and barbaric death chambers? Or a health service which can give you wondrous help if you are middle class but which fails millions of others who cannot afford to have the right kind of insurance? And schools and neighborhoods grossly divided along race and class lines?16
America, once disdained in Britain as too egalitarian, was now savaged for allegedly being the opposite. Often, as in this case, anti-Americanism is put in the context of a losing battle accompanied by bitterness that the "obviousness" of that country's evil nature is not obvious to everyone. In the words of another left-wing British writer in the Guardian, the flagship daily of the intellectual class there:
All around you, you can hear people choosing to ignore the fact that America is greatly responsible for turning the earth into an open sewer-culturally, morally and physically-and harping on instead about American "energy" and "can-do." Of course, nine times out of ten, that energy is the energy of the vandal, psychotic or manic depressive, fuelling acts of barbarism and destruction from My Lai [a massacre by U.S. troops in Vietnam] to Eminem [a rap music singer]; and it's a shame that that legendary can-do usually translates as can-do crime, can-do imperialism and can-do poisoning the seas.''
But this was not entirely new. Deploring American popular culture precisely because it was seductively popular had been a mainstay of antiAmerican complaint for well over a century. Thus, even partaking of Americanism simply reminded one of the danger. Salman Rushdie, the British novelist who himself stirred up a minor anti-American wave among fellow intellectuals when he announced his decision to move from London to New York, remarked, "In most people's heads, globalization has come to mean the worldwide triumph of Nike, the Gap and MTV. ... We want these goods and services when we behave as consumers, but with our cultural hats on we have begun to deplore their omnipres- ence."18
Indeed, during an anti-American demonstration over the 2003 Iraq war in London, a British journalist recorded her ironic observations along these lines. One student wearing Nike shoes and standing in a long line outside a Starbucks coffee bar told him, "September ii was the fault of the Americans. They want to rule the world, like, literally, but also with cultural imperialism." A yuppie wearing a hat emblazoned with the name of New York City explained, "I'm marching against hypocrisy: America is the greatest terrorist in the world, but they call their terrorism war." Meanwhile, a hippie type eating a McDonald's hamburger insisted, "Socially, we're not allied with the United States."19
Nevertheless, one major reason for American culture's popularity in Europe is that it was something Europeans, regardless of their national origin, could share on an equal basis. It is less divisive to adopt something from the United States than a characteristic cultural product from one European country alone, whose success could be seen as representing that state's domination over a united Europe. For example, using American food, music, or clothes is less politically problematic than, for instance, Germans and Italians adapting the French equivalents.20 As one expert put it, "There is no pan-European identity among youth" except for American popular culture.21 "The only true pan-European culture is the American culture," said French television commentator Christine Ockrent.22 Even the English language-though also, of course, Great Britain's native tongue-is more acceptable for common European use because of its third-party credentials.
Equally, Europeans, especially young people, tend to view the meaning of American ideas or items in a way far different from the mass-produced banality that is all the critics see. As a European student of popular culture puts it, the attraction is one of a "youthful and dynamic life full of excitement, adventure and glamour," providing anti-establishment escapism, "a projection screen for people's fantasies." Thus, for instance, American pop music is a symbol of rebellion to both Third World immigrants and white natives in Europe, an alternative to the existing so- ciety.23
Those rebelling against the United States intellectually may be simultaneously using America to rebel against their own cultures. It is precisely America's individualism-the opposite of the conformity and standardization alleged by anti-Americans to dominate there-which "offers a way out of everyday boredom" and the "restrictions set by existing social structures."24 Rather than imposing imperialist and reactionary ideas, the impact of America is to encourage a demand for change at home, which is exactly what is feared, as it has been for two centuries, by those who govern European culture and society.
Missing all these realities, ideologically oriented writers argue that those attracted by American products are victims of an insidious political assault. One such critique claimed that America was like a terrorist using biological weapons to infect progressively larger groups of people until it can seize cultural-intellectual power. Using McDonald's as an example, a sociologist from a British university explains how American products, unlike others, are dangerously addictive and politically subversive: "When the natives start behaving more like the burger [companies] and start infecting themselves with their attitudes and behavior (impatience, obesity, heart disease, etc.), they become even more susceptible to even more American interventions."25 By this time, they will be too weak to resist the spread of U.S. imperialism.
The real purpose of the "homogenization evidenced by Coca-Cola and McDonald's," according to a sociology professor in Britain, is to universalize dreaded American values and lead to an "end of history" directed by "arrogant American superiority and self-centeredness." The outcome will be a form of global slavery: "The Disneyfication of the world, its transformation to Waltopia, the cocacolonization of the globe, the McDonaldization of society." So predestined is this kind of "analysis" that even the fact that Ford produced a car called Mondeo (world) is simply one more example of the horrifying American view that its products are master of the globe.26
"Watch out, the process of globalization, lacking logic and seeking modernity, will inevitable lead us all to McDonald's," warned Francois Guillaume, member of parliament, former minister, and leader of the agricultural lobby, whose economic interests were damaged by the import of competitive American foodstuffs.27
In many ways, the campaign against McDonald's was simply a replay of the post-World War II battle of Coca-Cola.28 As early as 1986, several thousand Italians demonstrated against the opening of the first McDonald's in Rome as signaling that city's "degradation" and Americanization. In August 1999, this battle greatly escalated when Jose Bove, French farm activist, trashed a McDonald's under construction in Millau, France. He complained, "McDonald's represents anonymous globalization with little relevance to real food."29 He was also protesting American sanctions on French farm products in retaliation against a governmentimposed ban on the import of hormone-treated American beef and led other protests as well to wreck genetically modified corn and soybean fields managed by a U.S. company.
In France, the stomach was often presented as the main front in the war against American imperialism. France's very identity, though certainly seeming solid to any observer, was allegedly under siege by an objectively inferior but more powerful rival intent on stealing its people's souls, or at least taste buds. Thus, a 1999 anti-American book, No Thanks, Uncle Sam written by Noel Mamere and Olivier Warin, accused the United States of trying "to make us gobble up his hormone-fed beefwe, the country of [the world's greatest chefs]."30
The argument continues with thi
s oral fixation of outraged patriotism: "We are certainly used to humiliations; our soil is the most regularly invaded of the Western world. But who bites into the Frenchman always ends up finding him too spicy, probably because we season the stuffing: cut into the Gaul, he is copiously filled [with] Jose Bove."31 The implication is that the American cultural onslaught is somewhat equivalent to three German invasions 32
Compared to the bon vivant French, the Americans are food fools. They are obese people who think only of eating pizza and hamburgers washed down with Coca-Cola. This choice between two items is what passes in America, the authors add sarcastically, for "varying the gastronomy." In exchange for the great French delicacies of foie gras, truffles, shallots, and Roquefort cheese, the Americans offer only to force the French to eat McDonald's beef full of hormones.33
But food is just one aspect of the problem; underneath the sauce is the traditional complaint of anti-Americans going back to the earliest days of the United States: "The symbol is McDonald's but the real enemy is the world organization of commerce, the conversion of the whole planet to the American model," Mamere and Warin wrote .14
Of course, there is-despite all the talk about bad food-a delicious irony in much of this contemporary America-bashing. There are endless complaints that Americans-in the words of the same French authorsdon't "know who we are or where we are, and [don't] give a damn about us." The authors sum up the problem of America's global power in these words: "Omnipotence, added to ignorance: a dreadful cocktail."35
Yet such people repeatedly show their own remarkable ignorance about the United States and indifference to its concerns. Ignorance is not an American monopoly.
The same point applies to the real causes and effect of spreading American culture. To hear the anti-Americans speak about it, the future world will be based on Europeans eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner at McDonald's, as Americans already presumably do. In fact, in most cases, American products simply join the European mix of mildly exotic things one does sometimes. Going for an occasional hamburger is the equivalent change of pace for Europeans as visiting a Chinese restaurant, which also explains why McDonald's has not wiped out all the wide variety of alternative eating places in America.
Even fast-food globalization is not as simple as it has been portrayed. If American companies want to succeed, they must adapt to local tastes rather than force American customs down people's throats. In London, McDonald's sells the McChicken Korma Naan, intended to please local South Asian immigrants. In India, where Hindus eschew beef, there is the lamb Maharaja Mac. In Hong Kong, Starbucks sells green tea cheesecake, while in New Zealand one can get a kidney pie at its outlets.
It is also easy to exaggerate cultural differences between Americans and Europeans, especially since these influences flow in both directions. As an Italian journalist explained, "When I moved to New York as a young Fulbright fellow, there wasn't a single McDonald's in Italy and it was impossible to buy a decent bottle of olive oil or sip a warm cappuccino in Manhattan. Now the McDonald's in my hometown, Palermo, attracts hungry teenagers, but I dress my salad with the dark green olive oil produced in Palermo that's now available all over the United States. And I rate American cappuccinos the best outside the old country."36
It is amusing to recall that next to hamburgers, the food probably consumed most at McDonald's is "French fried potatoes," an extremely popular dish from France, where it is called "pommes frites." And, finally, the columnist Thomas Friedman pointed out that while Europeans were shunning U.S.-grown food containing genetic manipulations, "even though there is no scientific evidence that these are harmful," everywhere he looked during a high-level European meeting, they were smoking cigarettes.37 Moreover, contemporary French anti-Americans are unaware of how their ancestors once ridiculed health consciousness about diet as a silly American affectation.38
But the root of the problem was not merely misunderstanding. There was also a large element of old-fashioned economic rivalry involved, in which anti-Americanism was simply a way to run down the competitor. For example, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie complained that U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld allegedly believed that "the United States is the only military, economic and financial power in the world. We do not share this vision." She urged European firms to unite and resist what she called an American "economic war" against them, under French leadership.39
Of course, America was criticized over far more than just food, with many issues manipulated to put on it the worst possible light. For example, the use of the death penalty was portrayed as a profoundly revealing factor about the American psyche. Charging that Americans were extraordinarily violent had been a common theme in nineteenth-century anti-Americanism. Now, according to Raymond Forni, chairman of the French National Assembly, the death penalty in the United States was pure "savagery.... There used to be slavery, then organized racial segregation. Today there is the death penalty.... The country of scientific innovation deploys innovation in the service of death."40
One French anthropologist suggested that Americans engaged in human sacrifice because they knew their society was doomed: "Facing the threat of destruction of their social order, modern Americans, like the Aztecs, are terrified by the prospect of an end to the current cosmic cycle. Only the deaths of countless human beings can generate enough energy to counter the danger. "41
But no one pointed out that the death penalty was a matter of choice by the individual states, not even practiced by a majority of them, and hence told nothing about America in general. Typically, U.S. engagement in a practice was seen as sinful and symptomatic even if others doing it were forgiven and not so stigmatized. For example, a prominent Italian writer exclaimed, "I'll never visit the United States while the death penalty is in effect" but then proceeded to travel to other countries at a time when they used that punishment.42
There were, of course, many variations in the causes of antiAmericanism among different countries. For example, the Soviet Union had been the most systematically anti-American country in the world, with such attitudes officially inculcated by every institution over many decades. Thus, when Communism fell, anti-American doctrine was associated with a discredited regime. After a brief interval, however, many of the same historic anti-American themes and arguments were revived.
According to a March-April 1990 poll, as they were only beginning to be able to speak freely, 25 percent of Soviet citizens had a very favorable view and 47 percent a somewhat favorable view of the United States. Only 7 percent had a negative view.43 In 1994, 70 percent in Moscow and St. Petersburg were favorable compared to 21 percent negative.44 Yet while these results were typical, there was also an undercurrent of hostility visible in these polls, with a majority of Russians consistently believing that the United States was seeking world domination while reducing their country to a second-rate power dependent on raw materials' export and Western aid.45
In a November 1999 poll, only 4 percent of Russians thought "the West was doing everything possible to help Russia become a civilized and developed state," while 41 percent thought the West wanted Russia to be a weak "Third World" state and 38 percent saw its goal as destroying Russia entirely.46 Polls taken in 2002 showed that as many people viewed the United States negatively as those who viewed it positively.47 America was seen as being an alien cultural influence, a rival, and a would-be master.
An article in Komsomolskaya Pravda in March 2003 explained that it was now proven to be a myth that the United States was a paragon of virtue that respected human rights. It could now be seen to be a selfish, money-grubbing, oil-stealing war criminal. The American army's performance in Iraq, during the highly successful initial war there, supposedly proved it to be inferior to Russia's forces. And the same issue showed there was no freedom of speech in America because the mass media were obviously censored, despite the unprecedented live coverage of the fighting and the numerous commentators who felt free to criticize U.S. policy on television.48
; In April 2003, Russians polled said they liked Saddam Hussein by a 22 to 17 percent margin (most were indifferent), but that they disliked George W. Bush by a 76 to 11 percent margin .49 A poll conducted the following month showed that 44 percent had a "strongly negative or mostly negative" view of the United States, while 46 percent had a positive attitude. Speaking on the anniversary of the 1941 Nazi invasion, former defense minister General Igor Rodionov told war veterans that their own country was now occupied by America. "Our geopolitical enemy has achieved what Hitler wanted to do," he said in an emotional speech. General Andrei Nikolayev, chairman of the parliament's defense committee, warned that the United States was seeking to establish its domination over the world and that no one "would be able to stop the U.S. military machine."50
A popular film, Brat-2, showed a Russian hitman killing large numbers of Americans, telling his victims, "You've got money and power, and where has it got you? ... You don't have truth." One hit song was entitled "Kill the Yankee." And sophisticated intellectuals, like economist Mikhail Delyagin, argued that Russia could only survive if it fought the "aggression of the U.S. and its NATO allies against Yugoslavia," a country for which Russians have a special feeling as fellow Slavs."
As in Western Europe, nationalistic self-definition was often being built by invoking the need to battle an American threat and alternative. Not only had this idea been an element of the Russian left, but it also was incipient in the main opposing philosophy of Slavophilism, which exalted the Russian spirit, religion, and culture against a decadent Western counterpart. Although usually focused on Western Europe in the nineteenth century, it had been applied against the United States as early as Dostoyevsky and was taken up by the new Russian political right after the fall of Communism.52
