British and American Representations of 9-11

by Oana-Celia Gheorghiu

  Of course, the social and economic factors were doubled by cultural aspects in the first decades of the twentieth century, and one cannot disregard the impact on European culture of major literary figures such as Henry James, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway or Henry Miller, to name only a few of the American expats more or less ‘appropriated’ by European literary history. America is no longer a ‘wasteland’, and the period may be considered as the least anti-American one in the shared history of the two continents as Western civilisation.

  Nonetheless, it is also in this period that the Nazi ideology rises to contest all things American , on the grounds of America being ‘a mediocre mongrel mass society devoid of culture , ruled by a Jewish-dominated East-Coast-based plutocracy whose mission was global domination in politics, economics and culture’ (Markovits 2004, 12). At the same time, leftist attitudes and ideologies, spread across Europe after the Russian Revolution, regarded America as the root of all (capitalist) evil. America started to be regarded as a significant Other, and not only from the two extreme standpoints of the right and left ideologies, but also from a more moderate, centrist perspective. Interesting in this respect is the attitude of the British novelist D. H. Lawrence, both in his fictional and non-fictional works, as quoted by Jasper Gulddal:There are only two great diseases in the world today—Bolshevism and Americanism ; and Americanism is the worse of the two, because Bolshevism only smashes your house or your business or your skull, but Americanism smashes your soul. (The Plumed Serpent, 1926, qtd. in Gulddal 2011, 97)

  Lawrence proved prophetic with his mention of the two ‘isms’ as, after the First World War , the world was confronted with the great expansion of the influence of Soviet communism and an unprecedented rise of the United States as the superpower.

  The third period ranges from the early 1950s up to 1989–1990, with the collapse of the communist Eastern Bloc and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It was now, in the years of the Cold War, that the United States started to act as an imperial power (although it is noteworthy that America is indeed an empire without territorial possessions). Their hegemony was established through political and ideological means, but also through ‘police actions’ (read wars) in North Korea and Vietnam, the armed help granted to the enemies of the Soviet Union (for example, Afghanistan , where the coming to power of the Taliban with American support for the mujahedeen was to eventually rebound against the Western power), and the constant menace of a nuclear attack. As O’Connor remarks, the presence of American military bases in Europe ‘became an issue of considerable public antipathy and longstanding process such as Greenham Common’ (2004, 84). It is considered that European anti-Americanism was largely leftist during these years, although America does not get much sympathy from the conservative right either. Sergio Fabbrini, Italian scholar of political sciences, notes in an article written, this time, from the perspective of the European self (the majority of the sources presented here are either American or openly pro-American, and their authors often position themselves as offended, mistreated, misunderstood others), that for the European conservative right America represents the passion for political participation, the ascent to power of ordinary people, mass democracy—‘a challenge to traditional hierarchies, a refusal to defer to constituted authority, the kingdom of the individual, the society that shows no respect for the past’ (2002, 8–9).

  The help provided by America to the great European powers after the war, although indispensable and accepted, was, in Gulddal’s view, a political dependency that outraged Europe’s self-image (2011, 131) and, at the same time, a path to Americanisation (the American cultural invasion—an import of the American Way, the American Dream, the American symbols, cultural artefacts, and so on). Americanisation was attacked in the European media , as well as in a series of sociological writings which identified the American expansionist trend with globalisation.

  As far as literature is concerned, although the 1950s generation of angry young novelists was often characterised as having communist sympathies, which should have triggered visible anti-American attitudes (to match, perhaps, the Anglo-Saxon ones), instances of anti-Americanism are rather scarce at the level of the literary text and, where they exist, are forwarded as ‘knocking British anti-Americanism’. Such is the case of Kingsley Amis, whose main character in One Fat Englishman describes America as ‘a semi-permanent encampment of a battalion of parvenus’ (2011, 69). Interviewed by Paris Review (64/1975 online), the novelist claims that he thought he could ‘put all the usual tired old arguments into the mouth of a very unsympathetic character ’, expecting it to be ‘quite a good way of showing up all those British attitudes’. It is, nevertheless, noteworthy that Kingsley Amis (not only through one of his characters) considers that American novelists did not manage to establish an oeuvre, as ‘being American is […] a very difficult thing in art, because all the elements are European, and to give them a distinctive American stamp is something you can’t try to do—it can only be hoped that in the end this will emerge’ (ibid.), which somehow rounds off the discussion of the European cultural superiority, as it was outlined over the course of the entire nineteenth century.

  As for the final decades of the twentieth century, one may speculate that the British intelligentsia preferred to focus on issues at home (Thatcherite politics, the IRA) instead of carrying on with anti-Americanism . A PEW project concerned with how America is perceived in the world (carried out from 2002 to 2006 through multinational surveys) indicates that, during the years 1999–2000, 83% of the people questioned in Great Britain expressed favourable opinions towards America (pewglobal.​org 2007). On the other hand, Andrei Markovits, who conducted a thorough analysis of 1500 articles published by the British, German, Italian and French press during the 1990s (for the UK, he considered the following publications: The Guardian , The Times, The Independent , Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times, The Observer), describes the European attitudes as condescending. He reaches the conclusion thatvirtually all aspects of American culture —including its highbrow variant—experienced at least one derisive or dismissive comment, even in an otherwise positive review. The term ‘Americanization ’ of whatever the case may be (movies, theatre, universities, business practices, habits) was invariably invoked in a negative manner. (2004, 24)

  Of course, Markovits is intent on demonstrating that the anti-American attitudes in Europe precede the Schadenfreude manifest after George W. Bush’s coming to power , 9/11 and the war on terror. Ellwood is equally subjective in this respect, claiming that, because none of the Europeans ‘could match the world-wide spread of Hollywood and satellite television , the computer revolution symbolised by Internet and the Microsoft empire’, they display ‘an inability to deal with the combined, cumulative effect of America’s capacity to project its power in so many ways at any given time’ (2003, 7).

  The attacks of 9/11 open a new page of the history of global anti-Americanism , this time, a much more tangible and hateful one: terrorist anti-Americanism , which, although rooted in a complex combination of political, economic and cultural reasoning, acquired dimensions which had not accompanied the ideologically oriented critique up to that moment: violence and mass-murder targeted against civilians. Obviously, this type of anti-Americanism does not characterise Europe , but the most radical representatives of the Muslim communities7 , 8 In this context , it would seem appropriate to round off Amis’s remark quoted at the beginning of this outline by pointing out that certain religious-cum-psychological states may trigger a disaster such as 9/11. Such an undertaking would divert the course of this section from its initial aim—that of tackling European anti-Americanism in order to further identify its instances at the level of the literary texts under analysis—to a discussion extrapolated much further, to the global level. However, since the overview is mostly based on the opinion of the Americans on their being despised or rejected as Others , it would be worth mentioning that they fail to understand such adverse reaction
s even at a moment like the crash of the two planes. The literature in the field borrows the question ‘Why do they hate us?’ from George W. Bush’s passionate rhetoric in his Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, and attempts to answer it following the President’s arguments and his claim that America is hated for its democracy and many freedoms. When clearly inapplicable, as is the case with the Western European countries, they accuse the latter of envy and bitterness: Americans are asking: why do they hate us? They hate what they see right here in this chamber—a democratically elected government. They hate our freedoms—our freedom of religion , our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. (whitehouse.​gov, 20 September 2001)

  While such explanations may not be completely far-fetched, anti-Americanism is actually much more nuanced. In his book, What They Think of US? International Perceptions of the United States since 9/11 (University of Princeton 2007), David Farber, professor of modern American history, cites from Noam Chomsky and the (then) Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama , who both essentially claim that anti -Americanism is driven by American foreign policy and by its support for undemocratic regimes. While Chomsky is regarded as a radical and as an embodiment of anti-Americanism at home, which may render his position marginal, Obama’s subsequent validation in two presidential mandates is indicative of the fact that the American people rallied, to a certain extent, at least, to the wave of anger and distrust at the unjust(ified) attack on Iraq during the so-called Operation Enduring Freedom, in 2003.We all know that these are not the best of times for America’s reputation in the world. We know that the war in Iraq has cost us in lives and treasure, in influence and respect. We have seen the consequences of a foreign policy based on a flawed ideology , and a belief that tough talk can replace real strength and vision. Many around the world are disappointed with our actions […] There is no doubt that the mistakes of the past six years have made our current task more difficult. World opinion has turned against us. (Senator Barack Obama to the Chicago Council of Global Affairs, April 23, 2007, qtd. in Farber 2007, 79)

  To go back to the wake of 9/11, as Fabbrini remarks, ‘the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC […] and the killing of thousands of people were not sufficient to dispel a mood of suspicion in European public opinion about America ’ (2002, 3). Europeans sympathised with the Americans and shared their grief and fury during the first days after the attacks. Le Monde , one of the most important French newspapers, actually featured an editorial entitled ‘Nous sommes tous américaines’ (on 12 September 2001), which is indicative of the fact that the entire Western world felt threatened by the attacks. Nonetheless, such opinions gradually changed either to indifference or into an attitude best summarised by a single sentence: ‘they got what they deserved’. One cannot refrain from noticing that in the case of the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, in Paris (January 2015), the reactions were identical at first, starting with the message circulating all over the media and social networks—Nous sommes Charlie.

  It is important, on the other hand, to note that the British usually have a positive attitude towards their American ‘cousins’, and that the negative stereotyping applied to America is indeed marginal, mostly leftist and, perhaps, elitist. Politically, after 9/11, the United Kingdom was the greatest ally of the Bush administration, which Tony Blair readily joined—some would say too readily—in the operations of the war on terror. Public opinion only reacted in 2003, before the onset of the Iraqi war, with the huge protests on 15 February. One could assert that the United Kingdom willingly accepted a secondary position in the matter, thus disregarding their historical precedence and their assumed cultural superiority, which is not the case for the other European powers . For example, France, known as a cultural adversary of America , also opposed them in international affairs—illustrative in this respect is the declaration of Dominique de Villepin , French Minister of Foreign Affairs at the UN Council on 14 February 2003, in which he clearly stated that the use of force was not justified, and that he spoke as the representative of ‘an old country, France, from an old continent like mine, Europe , that has known wars, occupation and barbarity’, that ‘has never ceased to stand upright in the face of history and before mankind’ (2003 online).

  A possible explanation for the United Kingdom’s greater sympathy towards America may be sought in the existing cultural and linguistic affinity, and, if one chooses to follow Hofstede’s cultural compass, in the degree of similarity that characterises five out of the six dimensions of culture which make up the cultural model: power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and indulgence. According to this model, the United Kingdom scores higher than America in the pragmatism (long-term versus short-term orientation) category. This reflects a greater openness to societal change and a departure from tradition and from the past. This is an interesting inversion between the Old and the New World, as the latter scores very low (26%), which indicates its preference for ‘the fostering of virtues related to past and present, such as national pride, respect for tradition, preservation of face, and fulfilling social obligations’ (2010, 521).

  Although popular sympathy for American is prevalent in the present-day United Kingdom (at least, judging by the results of sociological surveys), the British writers whose literary (or essayistic) works deal, fully or partially, with the American tragedy of 2001 seem to row against the stream of compassion and understanding for the Americans , and thus to inscribe themselves in the long tradition of British literary anti-Americanism. The texts selected for the validation of this hypothesis allow for an imagological reading which points to the ingrained stereotyping of the Other , where this Other is regarded wholly, with reference to the entire American nation—but also in relation to American hegemonic power , in the Gramscian sense, exerted by the politicians over their nation and over their international allies, in order to acquire supremacy at the international level.

  Anti-Americanism as Neorealism in Iain Banks’s Dead Air

  In many respects, Iain Banks’s 9/11 novel , Dead Air, provides the most striking xenophobic stances in the entire corpus selected, which, at least in consideration of all the (more or less) recent theories of the novel that draw a clear demarcation line between author and creation, should not be projected onto the novelist but strictly confined to the area of fiction . However, in light of the countless unequivocal statements Banks made in the press, one can hardly separate the authorial voice from the fictional one of the narrator-protagonist in his case. As his obituary reads:Always a man of the left, Banks was animated by political causes and his pronouncements began to attract journalistic attention. The Iraq war made him a loud critic of Tony Blair . The impress of his political views was increasingly evident in his fiction and it seemed to some of his admirers that they were exerting too strong an influence. Dead Air (2002) featured a narrator , Ken Nott, whose views seem little distanced from his author’s and who is licensed to berate the reader about political morality, American imperialism , the Royal family and the like. (The Guardian, 9 June 2013)

  Banks’s critique of American imperialism is constantly manifested in a fictionalised manner in his science fiction cycle Culture, which features ‘an intergalactic civilization managed by sentient Minds and characterized by a post-scarcity economy, immortality for those who choose it, and a near-absolute ethic of freedom of choice’ (Vint 2008), which entitles many critics to regard it as a utopia. Many readings have also assessed ‘the imperialist implications of the Culture’s tendency to intervene in the affairs of other races’ (Vint 2008) and have consequently shifted towards analysing it as a heterotopia which obliquely points to America . Along the same lines, in 2009 Banks published Transition, another sci-fi novel which explores ‘the contradictions involved with a powerful organisation unilaterally adopting the moral high ground and setting out to put the world to rights’ (The Guardian, 8 September 2009). As Maxton Walker, the author of the
book review, remarks, it is difficult not to see the novel as an attack on American foreign policy, although Banks claimed that it was ‘about power and the way that is wielded in general’. Nonetheless, if science fiction is a way of creating new, alternative worlds, starting from the immediate reality and adding thick layers of fictionalisation to it, which allows sensitive truths to pass as fiction , a novel such as Dead Air , which is set, in point of both time and space, in this immediate reality , which it introduces without the slightest concern for the fictionalisation of the events and/or names of the real actors involved (George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Osama Bin Laden etc.), may be read, as Malcolm Bradbury once proposed in a brief analysis of 1990s fiction , as ‘an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become’ (1992, 23). Tracing back the origins of the British novel, Bradbury asserts that it ‘has been particularly subject to the gravitational tug of realism’ (13) since its eighteenth-century emergence and, moreover, that ‘we live in a period conscious of its own historical change […] we sense a deep disturbance in the world order, a new and changing balance among the powerful ideologies and aesthetic arguments that have dominated the [last] century’ (14). Next, he draws on the antithesis between modernism and postmodernism, on the one hand, and realism, on the other , a distinction which he admits to have drawn, but not without a certain amount of uneasiness, as ‘throughout the century there has been, in the line of the novel , a sustaining and powerful line of realism’ (16). Though technically a twenty-first-century novel, Dead Air may be inscribed in this line of neorealism which seems to characterise the end of postmodernism or the so-called post-postmodernism in the last decade of the twentieth century. In a review of Dead Air published in The Guardian, novelist Stephen Poole goes too far, describing the novel as a ‘naturalist romp’, owing to its ‘stripping of the fantastical elements his mainstream fiction used to display’ (2002). But if the construction flaws may originate, as Poole claims, from the ‘self-imposed authorly rupture, whereby the mainstream quasi-literary novels are published under his normal name, while the science fiction is by Iain M. Banks’, this is still far from proving that the demarcation line between Realism and naturalism has been trespassed in Banks’s novel. The arguments in favour of the naturalism of Dead Air would be its exaggerated sexual promiscuity and the linguistic ‘excesses’, yet the novel lacks any ambition to objectively assess the contemporary human being from a pathological and/or environmental perspective. To avoid dwelling on this distinction more than necessary, suffice it to mention at this point that the analysis of Dead Air as a realist piece of fiction is intended as similar to pursuing the cultural analysis of ‘the conditions that effect the production, reception, and cultural significance of all types of institutions, practices, and products’, as ‘literature is accounted as merely one of many forms of cultural signifying practices’ (Abrams 1999, 53).