MICHAEL GOVE: The hatred of America is the socialism of fools

Confronting Yankee-phobia on the Left will be Tony Blair's toughest task yet

Tony Blair appears to have set himself his toughest task yet. Neither reforming public services nor maintaining economic stability compares in difficulty to the mission he took on yesterday. For a Labour politician to confront anti-Americanism is to set himself up in opposition to the dominant ideology of the contemporary Left.

Knocking America off its superpower pedestal has long supplanted taking control of the commanding heights of the economy as the idea which holds the Left together. Forget Clause Four. That was a dead red letter. It’s opposition to Uncle Sam which is the glue in the Left coalition, the brew which puts fire into bien-pensant bellies, the opium of radical intellectuals. And the crack in Osama bin Laden’s pipe.

Anti-Americanism provides the drumbeat for the protesters who march at every significant left-wing rally. Whether the protest is nominally against war, global capitalism or environmental degradation, the real enemy is Washington. Every significant Left intellectual, from Harold Pinter through Dario Fo to Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky has made criticism of the American imperium his defining belief. But Yankee-phobia now extends far beyond the protest march and the academy.

The German Social Democrats and Greens put opposition to US foreign policy at the heart of their, successful, re-election strategy last autumn. The Liberal Democrats here have made criticism of US policy towards Iraq the single biggest dividing line between themselves and the Blair Government.

The cultural popularity of anti-Americanism, particularly among Britain’s intelligentsia, is striking. The surprise publishing hit of last year was Why do people hate America? by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies, a work which set out to reassure readers that hatred of America was more than a rising sentiment, it was a moral duty. The top of the UK bestseller list is Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men, a furious polemic against US foreign, domestic and economic policy by one of its own citizens.

The widespread prevalence of anti-Americanism, the cachet accorded to its advocates, the reflexive sniggering triggered by any favourable mention of America’s President, all make opposition to this trend unpopular. But vitally necessary. For Yankee-phobia is, at heart, a dark thing, a prejudice with ugly antecedents which creates unholy alliances. And, like all prejudices, it thrives on myths which will end up only serving evil ends.

It is a myth that America is a trigger-happy cowboy state over-eager to throw its weight around, a myth that America seeks to use its undoubted military power to establish an exploitative empire, and a myth that America thrives by impoverishing and oppressing other nations.

A trigger-happy starter of wars and provoker of enemies? The truth is that the US has been painstakingly slow to involve itself in foreign conflicts. It hung back from involvement in Bosnia and Kosovo until it was clear that Europe could not manage alone. It refrained from dealing properly with al-Qaeda when that network attacked US embassies in 1998 and, even after 9/11, it waited until a huge international coalition had been assembled before striking back. In Iraq, it refrained from finishing off President Saddam Hussein in 1991 out of deference to its Arab allies. And with North Korea, it has practised diplomacy in the face of nuclear provocation since 1994, out of respect for its regional allies. Even now, in dealing with the dangers posed by Iraq and North Korea, the diplomatic route is followed out of deference to others.

An imperial exploiter? The truth is that America seeks to disentangle itself from anything which smacks of neocolonial occupation. It is anxious to bring the boys back home from the Balkans and Afghanistan. The real criticism of weight is that the US should do more on the ground to help failed states rebuild, as it did in Japan and Germany after the Second World War.

Which takes us to the myth of America the locust state, the predator on the poorest nations of the Earth. The truth, as the US writer Charles Krauthammer has pointed out, is that America’s influence for good in suffering states is directly measurable in three very different examples. After the Second World War three devastated nations were divided. In each case one part of a culturally unified nation fell under America’s political influence. And in each case — South Korea versus North, West Germany as against East, Taiwan as opposed to Communist China — the territory which took the American path enjoyed greater freedom and prosperity.

Why then do the myths of America the Hateful take such powerful hold? Because anti-Americanism provides a useful emotional function which goes beyond logic and reaches deep into the darker recesses of the European soul. In centuries past those on the Left who wished to personalise their hatred of capitalism, who sought to make it emotionally resonant by fastening an envious political passion on to a blameless scapegoat people, embraced anti-Semitism. It was the socialism of fools. Which is what anti-Americanism is now.

It should not therefore be surprising that those on the populist Right who share the Left’s antipathy towards the US are those, like the Austrian Freedom Party or the French National Front, who are heirs of anti-Semitic traditions. Nor should it be remarkable that the other tie which binds these allies of new Left and old Right together, the thread linking those such as George Galloway and Jörg Haider, is their hostility to Israel.

Both America and Israel were founded by peoples who were refugees from prejudice in Europe. Europe’s tragedy is that prejudice has been given new life, in antipathy to both those states.

The only thing wrong with this article is the title. The phrase "socialism of fools" is redundant, since socialism in adults is itself evidence of cognitive deficiency. Otherwise it's an excellent piece, and the point that today's anti-Americanism serves the same function that anti-semitism served in the past is particularly well taken. That does bring up another complication, however. Anti-semitism, often thinly disguised as "ant-Zionism", is becoming respectable again on the left, and many European leftists regard an excess of Jewish influence as being one of the things they don't like about the United States.

it is profoundly satisfying to hate, so much so that the hatred tends to remain long after its cause is forgotten or ameliorated, if it were ever sound in the first place. It is not restricted to the political left, but when all else is drained from a body politic hatred is all that remains to define it, and at the moment hatred is, in fact, the left's sole remaining defining characteristic.

Whether it's hatred, or simple desire to feel important, I'm not quite sure. But it DOES seem to be a character flaw. Leftism seems to me to be some sort of default thought pattern . . . you don't explain why people are leftist, the question is more properly why people transcend leftism.

"Chu,

My french pea brain dares make a little remark for your laser precision memory : 1790 is in the 1700s ... late 1700s if you want. You must encode dates on 4bits, what a super efficient compression algo. You must be very bright ;)

Seems the thread is all about anti-americanism of the EU morrons OK. How should I describe the anti-french bashing I so often read here ?

Are you socialist nuts too ? ... no ? OK

One good advice for the americans. Try to consider the real environmental problems Europe faces these days with a bit less disdain. For instance let's consider the pollution of the seas, the problem of sea transport regulations where floating trashcans are allowed to sink with none responsible for it. None pays except entangled fishermen in Spain, France or (tomorow?) England.

You'll be surprised of how the crapest anti-americanism will start to fade away. I know that after Irak, everyone will clearly see the advantage of the new situation. After Afghanistan, another nation freed from dictatorship. Then it would be a good starting point to induce a new pro american feeling. Only a few ww mediatic speeches only would.

I bet that France will be there in Irak. Most ppl I find here being fooled in the widespread primitive anti-french bashing I find here, I also bet that none here imagines this possibility. I sincerely think that EU and the USA share a lot. We face the same problems now and in the future.

Q : So who earns the benefits of this artificial division mainly fed by the sensational bias of the modern media ? A : Our real common enemies.

BTW : I think that most of what Blair and Chirac wanted was doing it all within the formal rules of the UN and the security council. UK uses it's traditional first american ally role, and France it's more neutral role. As always. I write this since months as it seems quite obvious on an historical perspective. Even if it's hard to understand for some here, the fact that the USA is the only big military power does not mean it's preferable, even for the USA, that you make it all alone. Specially in the current worldwide spread anti-american context. You ll need the political support of the french, russians and their relays to avoid an ethnical explosion in the irakian balkans. Specially as the US army plans to stay there for a while. "

Karl,

I am secure enough in my own being to not feel it necessary to respond to your little slams. I've been to France a number of times and generally find it a nice place, especially once one gets out of Paris. Versailles is excellent! We'll just have to wait and see how France responds when things get hot, won't we? Of course, when Libya was causing a serious amount of trouble and the only country willing to confront the situation was the US, what did France do?

In case you don't know, mon ami, they prohibited US planes flying over their country. Once your country becomes 51% muslim maybe you'll become a bit more worldly.

Have a fine day.

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