Posted on 04/15/2004 4:25:20 PM PDT by NovemberCharlie
Americans don't get Europe. On the day of the Madrid massacre, I received a ton of e-mails from US readers along the lines of: "3/11 is Europe's 9/11. Even the French will be in." Friends told me, "The Europeans get it now." Doughty warriors of the blogosphere posted the Spanish flag on their home pages in solidarity with our loyal allies in the war against terrorism. John Ellis, a savvy guy with a smart website, declared that "Every member state of the EU understands that Madrid is Rome is Berlin is Amsterdam is Paris is London is New York."
All wrong. Within 72 hours of the carnage, Spanish voters sent a tough message to the terrorists: We apologize for catching your eye. Whether or not Madrid is Rome and Berlin and Amsterdam and Paris, it certainly isn't New York. Is it London? Hard to say. I do know if I happen to be in the United Kingdom a week before the next election I shall take sensible safety precautions and avoid using public transit.
One reason why Madrid isn't New York can be found by taking a trip to the multiplex to see the new Starsky & Hutch movie, based on the old Seventies cop show. Don't worry, you won't have to sit through the whole thing. You can leave after ten minutes and go to some dreary Miramax thing with Nicole Kidman valiantly spending four hours in make-up each morning to look wan and sallow. But my point is a simple one. Starsky & Hutch is one of a zillion Seventies retreads around these days. They're all the same: S&H opens with Barry Manilow, but it could as easily have been the Starland Vocal Band or the Partridge Family or the Village People. And after the song come the cheesecloth shirt jokes and the flyaway collar jokes, and afros and discos and Tab.
That's the difference. If you're American, the Seventies mean tank-tops, Charlie's Angels and Jimmy Carter. If you're Mediterranean, the Seventies mean Franco, Salazar and the Colonels. Not so funny. In Madrid and much of the rest of Europe, the day before yesterday means dictatorship. The men and women who run Spain today grew up under Franco; they were young adults when King Juan Carlos stood firm against a coup determined to overthrow the country's new democracy. For many Spaniards, the desire to reach an accommodation with the forces of history is natural - indeed, the default mode.
So, three days after their fellow citizens got blown up, they shrugged to the Islamists, "You're right. We'd rather sit this one out. Go blow up the Anglo-Saxons." "Don't mention the war," John Cleese instructed Manuel the Spanish waiter in "Fawlty Towers". Manuel has no intention of mentioning the war, and if the British are foolish enough to keep doing so they can take it up with al-Qa'eda themselves.
Just over a year ago, in one of those wretched Security Council performances before the Gulf War, the French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, turned to Colin Powell and offered the umpteenth variation of the familiar argument that, if we Europeans are resistant to ze idea of war, it is because we have seen so much of ze horrors of ze war. The reality is the other way round: the reason they've seen so much of the horrors of war is because they're so resistant to the idea of it - until it's too late and conflagration is all that's left.
If one had to cast the great Continental fatalistic shrug in a less jaded light, one would do it this way: the Second Republics and Third Empires, Fascists and Communists and European Unions come and go; they're mere political forces. The ancient buildings, the old vineyards, the big stinky unpasteurised cheese your village has made for centuries and which the wimps at that Yankee Federal agency responsible for regulating all the taste out of American food won't even let into the country: this is the essence of a man's identity; the political fashions of the day come and go, but underneath you endure. By contrast, an American's sense of himself as an American is much more explicitly political - it's about First and Second Amendments, or, according to taste, a "woman's right to choose". The United States is a political project in a way that Spain - imperial, Fascist, monarchist, republican, pacifist, Euro-federalist, your-ideology-here-ist - isn't.
They're right in a way. For most Communist or Nazi foot-soldiers, the label was a flag of convenience. But that's not true of the jihadi. And the tragedy for the Continent is that this time it's their core identity that's at stake. If you think that Spanish election result is a disgrace, look down the road two or three years, to the next election cycle, in France, Belgium, the Netherlands. In the US, psephologists speculate on the impact of Ralph Nader's two or three per cent. Think about an election where 20% of the voters are a culturally unassimilated Muslim bloc. If Washington has a hard time getting any useful contribution to the war from Europe now, you do the math five years hence. The incompatible buddy-cop routine works in Starsky & Hutch, but America and Europe have stretched the formula way beyond breaking point. It can't be put back together.
Nothing. The French will rebel only when, as and if the Islamists outlaw smelly cheese.
L
You weren't the only one...
I had discussions with a European acquaintance (permanently living in the US) during the Clinton fiasco(s), and she couldn't understand why any of it bothered me. She just shrugged and said, "all politicians are corrupt, nothing can be done about it". She wasn't too pleased when I pointed out that with that attitude, it's no wonder they feel free to keep being corrupt.
Does that mean you also prefer Velma to Daphne? (Scooby-Doo)
BZZZZ... wrong answer .
By contrast, an American's sense of himself as an American is much more explicitly political - it's about First and Second Amendments, or, according to taste, a "woman's right to choose". The United States is a political project in a way that Spain - imperial, Fascist, monarchist, republican, pacifist, Euro-federalist, your-ideology-here-ist - isn't.
All of the "American" terrorists have been registered democrats...the ones in Syracuse and Washington state. For those of us who gloat over the Nader 3%, it's a scary thought...
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