Posted on 01/04/2005 9:50:21 AM PST by quidnunc
How do you unite 500 million people who have fought each other for a thousand years? That is the biggest question for Europe today. In spite of endless denials, the answer is beginning to look a lot like old-fashioned nationalism. In Europe, nationalism has a black reputation — and rightly so. It was always a kind of mass egomania, which led to repeated warfare, culminating in two world wars and the Cold War. France went wild over Napoleon around 1800 and ended up with 1.4 million dead young soldiers. Germany had Bismarck, the Kaiser and Hitler. Russia glorified Lenin and Stalin. If Europe is at peace today, it is not thanks to its mad obsessions with national greatness.
-snip-
The Bismarck recipe for cooking up a superstate has one final ingredient: You need a common enemy. For Germany the necessary enemy was France. Whipping up rage against France was a key to Bismarck’s unification policy. On their side, French politicians encouraged vengeance against Germany. It was literally all the rage in Europe.
Today, Americans may be surprised to hear that we are Europe’s common enemy, but that idea is all over the European media. Soon after the Twin Towers assault, the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard praised the 9/11 hijackers in Le Monde.
-snip-
“How we have dreamt of this event … How all the world without exception dreamt of this event, for no one can avoid dreaming of the destruction of a power that has become hegemonic. … It is they (the terrorists) who acted, but we who wanted the deed.” (emphasis added).
It is very important for Americans to understand that Baudrillard’s rage is not just his own. It is the editorial policy of Le Monde, the equivalent of the New York Times in France, and it reflects political passions across the spectrum. The historian Philippe Roger writes that in France, anti-Americanism is the great unifier,
“the only French passion that calms the other passions, softens antagonisms, and reconciles the most bitter adversaries.”
And no, it is not George W. Bush’s fault; it has been bubbling up for fifty years and more. France needs its rage against the US like alcoholics need their next drink. Jean Francois Revel has written extensively about anti-Americanism. In his opinion,
-snip-
The first clause is obviously sarcastic. I do think that Chirac et al. are trying to pay this power game which I think is dangerous in the extreme and not just to the US.
I've taken to calling the nascent Federalised EU 'The Fourth Reich' because a united France and Germany are now accomplishing politically what they had never been able to accomplish militarily: the conquest of Europe.
It's why I understand Vladimir Putin and his militarism. Russia has been invaded and attacked time and again by both France & Germany and now Russia's two great historic enemies are united under one flag.
The EU is every Russian's worst nightmare. And the EU will always be one election away from a leader or party who will decide to march east and invade Russia again.
Heck, it is imaginable that the US will need to land at Normandy all over again if worse comes to worse.
I think you are suffering from severe Europaranoia. I am the US midwest and have been Eurotrash for the last 20 years and it isnt that way. The Euros understand the volatility of the world and the threat of islamics and look the US as a leader. When Bush decided he wanted to mend fences, they were thrilled. We have more in common with the Euros than lots of other people. Take a visit and find out.
I think you are suffering from severe Europaranoia. I am the US midwest and have been Eurotrash for the last 20 years and it isnt that way. The Euros understand the volatility of the world and the threat of islamics and look the US as a leader. When Bush decided he wanted to mend fences, they were thrilled. We have more in common with the Euros than lots of other people. Take a visit and find out.
I've been to Europe, on both sides of the Iron Curtain when there was an Iron Curtain.
As far as I could tell, there is a wide gulf in attitude between the average European and the average American.
Sections of the last two paragraphs are most telling.
"Europe’s rage against us is very much like the anger of an adolescent child against its parents. Western Europe has been utterly dependent on us for fifty years. It is frightening for them to contemplate a future without our protection. ... But it is a teenager’s emotions, not those of a parent, which creates all that anger.
"America should not aim to be loved, ... With Europe’s new adolescent rage the time may come for the EU to go its own way. America will then find new allies in the world."
MOst telling is the abject failure of the 1999 Lisbon conference. Nearly halfway into their 10 year plan to overtake the U.S. as the WOrld's leading economic power the actual results have caused Europe to fall further behind. Similarly, plans up upgrade European military capabilities not only haven't advanced they have lost ground relative to their 1998 position.
Although America still has friends in Europe there are certain realities to be faced:
1. Most of Europe no longer wants to be American allies.
2. Instead of closing the gap with America, Europe is falling further behind.
3. European economic systems are actually contracting while their leaders expand expensive social programs.
4. No European political leader is likely to emerge and accept responsibility for failed policies.
5. The U.S. is a convenient scrapegoat for Euro-losers.
6. Americans frankly shouldn't give 1/2 of one damn.
Europe’s rage against us is very much like the anger of an adolescent child against its parents. Western Europe has been utterly dependent on us for fifty years. It is frightening for them to contemplate a future without our protection. To many Europeans we seem to be all-powerful, and really mean to boot. But it is a teenager’s emotions, not those of a parent, which creates all that anger.
Also, like an adolescent, Europeans are extremely limited in their knowledge of the world.
They love to pat each other on the back and tell each other that Americans are ignorant because they don’t know the capital city of Lichtenstein (as if that’s important!), but I’ve had many discussion with Irishmen, Scots, Frenchman, Australians, etc. and they don’t know a single thing about world history or current events.
The entirety of their knowledge consists of “the US is a bully, and Bush is dumb.”
Obviously, I know there are exceptions, I’ve talked to them on this forum. But for the vast majority of Europeans I’ve met in business and in bars, that is the sum total of their global knowledge set.
Nonsense... I've been to Europe so many times that I've lost count. The Europeans are living in a make-believe world dreaming of lost and faded glories.
Europe must face some harsh and infinitely painful realities. Right now it is far easier to blame America for their problems. Quite frankly I can't see them doing that.
Worse for the Europeans every day the American good will toward Europe erodes further. It is perhaps below the tipping level already and is irreversible.
I frankly hope so. In two generations Europe will be the new third world.
The Old Europeans, particularly the French, are a bunch of whining, self-serving hypocrites. They don't mind killing the natives in places like, oh, say, the Ivory Coast for example, when it's in their own interests to do so, but when we pursue our own interests it's nothing but complaints. It was the same exact garbage when Reagan was president, because he looked out for America's best interests first and foremost, and the French don't see America's interests as being the same as theirs, period.
They love to pat each other on the back and tell each other that Americans are ignorant because they don’t know the capital city of Lichtenstein (as if that’s important!), but I’ve had many discussion with Irishmen, Scots, Frenchman, Australians, etc. and they don’t know a single thing about world history or current events.
At least we know Australia is not in Europe.
Good point. They do have accents though.
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Please give us a map from here to there.
FWIW, this European hopes that (1) neither Europe nor the US shall be impoverished and that (2) the Atlantic bond will remain, though not because Europe especially needs American 'good will.'
Oh your will find out how valuable America's good will is. Once you lose it, that is.
Care to enlighten me in advance?
Absolutely not.
Thanks, but I think we'll manage.
Well, I guess it will be a big surprise then! :-)
Thanks, but I think we'll manage.
I can understand your confidence, with all the success Europe has had managing their affairs over the last century.
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