Nevertheless, Ken, from his outer perspective, finds the Americans an excuse, as the allegedly fraud election which brought George W. Bush to the White House is validated through the democratic vote of only a fifth of the population:I have a problem with anybody who voted for the man claiming to be your president, for example… but then as not all Americans are eligible to vote, and half of those who were eligible to vote didn’t bother to vote, and less than half of those who did vote voted for Dubya, that means I guess that I’m probably only appalled by about twenty per cent or less of the population, which is not so terrible. (DA 70)
The problem with Mr Hecht, the fictional American interlocutor, is that he is reluctant to accept any argument presented to him, whether it is the one about the absurdity of believing that Islam envies American democracy or those that detail the hegemonic interventions of America in the Middle East, which might have, most probably, led to this outcome. It is obvious from the following argumentation that Banks drew his inspiration, again, from the activism of Noam Chomsky , whom he deeply admired and whom he also made the personal hero for the main character of Dead Air: ‘“You admire Noam Chomsky,” she said […] “Closest thing to a hero I have”’ (DA 81). Over the years, the American political activist has constantly brought the American involvement in Middle East affairs to the fore, advancing arguments that the CIA recruited fundamentalist Islamists to fight against the Soviet Union in the early 1980s conflict in Afghanistan, that they were involved in the assassination of Anwar al Sadat, the President of Egypt (1981) and in Saddam Hussein’s coming to power in Iraq (1979) (Chomsky 2002, 342). As an aside, he recently outdid his own anti-Americanism , claiming no less that America is the biggest terrorist in the world and Europe is the servant of America as they are too cowardly to take an independent position (EuroNews interview 17 April 2015). The fictional discourse in Dead Air closely follows Chomsky’s explanations about America’s responsibility in the 9/11 atrocities:I’ve banged about the Taliban for years. But don’t forget that you helped put them there; you funded the Mujahedin and you armed Bin Laden and supported the Pakistani security service, like you once supported the dictator Saddam Hussein because you needed him and like you’re supporting the dictator General Musharraf and the grotesque mediaeval despotism of the Saudis now because you need them. (DA 71)
Although he claims that he only has something against a small percentage of the American population, one should notice that the character uses the pronoun ‘you’, thus associating the common Americans with the decisions made by their government, which they support. Interestingly enough, the American bears Ken’s accusations, uttered in a long diatribe against the ‘evil that America did’, retorting only with the reiteration of the American right to defend itself and with the citation of the faulty slogan ‘who is not with us is against us’, this time, in the form ‘but if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem’ (DA 72). His outburst of fury manifests only at Ken’s direct offence addressed to President Bush: ‘he’s a sad , inadequate little man’ (72). Hecht’s reply, ‘go to hell, sir, as you surely will’, which ends the dialogue, points again to American stereotyping: not only are they blindly faithful in their rulers, they are also a very religious people, therefore, they may be considered as having a medieval mindset. The scene ends with a punch line in its own right—‘American Embassy on line one!’—which once again may be suggestive of a certain appetence for actually censoring the much-applauded free speech.
To conclude, Banks’s Dead Air presents instances of anti -Americanism that inscribe it in a centennial literary tradition. Beyond the direct manifestation of anti-Americanism in the speeches of a character largely inspired by the speeches of its own creator and by those of the latter’s political models, as is the case with the rewriting of Chomsky’s political texts, the anti-Americanism in the novel is suggested by subtle references to the Americanisation of the United Kingdom, but, above all, by the witty conveyance of the Europeans’ indifference to the American tragedy , acquired through what may appear as a construction flaw in the novel: what Iain Banks does by leaving the 9/11 events in the background is yet another way of indicating that, as historical as they may be, the attacks targeted a distant other , and their importance should not be exaggerated on this side of the Atlantic.
American Hegemonic Claims in David Hare’s Stuff Happens
When it comes to exceptionalism , not many states nowadays hold themselves in such high regard as America , so that this ideology , otherwise applicable to any region, has somehow started being taken for one of its branches—American Exceptionalism . This is grounded in their history as a state that emerged from a Revolution and is based on democracy, equality, ‘liberty and justice for all’, according to their Pledge of Allegiance, and has gradually grown into a superlative auto-image in global geopolitics. In recent years, this American pretence has translated into what political theorists term ‘exemptionalism’, ‘a tendency to remain outside of multilateral regimes and […] an unwillingness to abide by the norms of international law’ (Thimm 2007, 2). In his introduction to the volume American Exceptionalism and Human Rights (2005), Michael Ignatieff explains thatthe United States signs on to international human rights and humanitarian law conventions and treaties and then exempts itself from their provisions by explicit reservation, non-ratification, or noncompliance. Second, the United States maintains a double standard: judging itself and its friends by more permissive criteria than it does its enemies. (2005, 3)
It is generally acknowledged that throughout the entire twentieth century America overtly or covertly asserted its prevalence as the superpower in international treaties and conventions, and that this has escalated from the early years of the twenty-first century, with the initiation of the war on terror, with the specific aim of punishing the perpetrators at the WTC : (‘Our war on terror begins with Al-Qaeda , but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated’, as G. W. Bush asserts in an address to a joint session of the Congress, 20 September 2001). NATO agreed with America , joining their forces in the coalition combat operations in Afghanistan , invoking on 12 September 2001, for the first time in history , Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which essentially states that an attack targeted at one ally is considered an attack on all NATO states:The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the Other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. (The North Atlantic Treaty, Washington DC, April 4, 1949, nato.int)
Nonetheless, the UN member states did not unanimously agree with the Americans in the case of the latter leg of the war on terror, the attack on Iraq , an operation conditioned by the discovery of the nuclear weapons allegedly owned by Saddam Hussein’s regime. This is the background documented by Hare in his ‘history play’ (2004, author’s note), Stuff Happens , which allows both an anti-Blair and an anti-American reading. Applauded as ‘an excellent historian’ (Martin 2006), the leftist author manages to provide his audience and readers with a ‘brilliant, discomforting and coruscating’ play, ‘a blizzard of exposition, facts and devastating detail’, according to the opinion of the Daily Mail reviewer, Quentin Letts (2004). Interestingly, the playwright declares that ‘if [he] wanted to effect political change, [he] wouldn’t choose the theatre as the most efficient way of doing it’ and that ‘[his] opinions have nothing to do with [his] art’ (BBC 2011), probably anticipating the accusations of anti-American propaganda . In truth , one is hardly able to say that the play is a piece of speculative agitprop, altho
ugh this label was actually applied to it in an unsigned review published in The Economist on 16 September 2004, which posed the question as to whether the play would ‘mean anything in ten years’ time or even five’. The fictional behind doors aside, the play is ‘authenticated from multiple sources’, the author having been assisted throughout by an expert in the field (SH, author’s note).
‘I feel that the world is changing so quickly in the twenty-first century that I’m almost having to resort to documentary because I’ve got no time to do some of the deeper processes of fiction ’ (BBC 2011). This is David Hare’s argument for his mixing facts and verbatim quotes with fiction , in his denial of writing drama with another purpose than simply (re)creating worlds on stage. But since what the author claims is not always congruent with what the author does, one may well look into Stuff Happens and see a powerful political statement there, one that raises questions about war ethics, about the British subservience before the ‘American cousin’, and about the Americans’ hegemonic pretences, disregard for the Other and display of power. The anti-Americanism of the play is not targeted at the American people, and this is a point of difference with Iain Banks , who suggests that the Americans are partly responsible for their more or less democratically elected leadership. Focus is laid on leadership in Stuff Happens , a chronicle play of the war on terror in the vein of the most grandiose ‘histories’ of English literature concerned with royalties, ministers and high clergy. Politics is not for the masses, as may be inferred from the cast made up almost exclusively of political figures, but is brought on stage for the masses to grasp something of its intricate games. As novel as Hare’s mixing real with fictional statements may seem when compared to twentieth-century documentary theatre proper, a brief look into the weavings of Renaissance chronicle plays (the so-called ‘histories’ of the lives of one monarch or another) points to the propensity of the contemporary playwright to use their specific devices, as outlined in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays edited by Michael Hattaway. The Shakespearean scholar draws a comparison between modern historians who ‘critique their sources and write discourses that are evidence-based’ and Renaissance historians who ‘made few distinctions between historical figures and fictive characters […] writing speeches they deemed such figures on particular occasions might have made, or ought to have made’ (2002, 11). Hare actually acknowledges this lineage with the ‘Elizabethan dramatists, including Shakespeare, [who] regarded it as normal artfully to mix facts about people who had really existed with what these same people inspired in the author’s imagination’ (qtd. in Claycomb 2011, 95). In this context , Hare’s opening statements that ‘scenes of direct address quote people verbatim; when the doors close on the world’s leaders and their entourages, then [he has] used [his] imagination’ and that ‘nothing in the narrative is knowingly untrue’ (SH author’s note) draw him away from objectivity and ‘historical truth’ and near to distorting cultural propaganda . It is difficult to accept the British author’s claim to be simply recreating worlds of unreality, a form of ‘art for art’s sake’, since this is something that he actually rejects.10 Instead, a more rewarding approach seems to be that of attempting to understand whether his play targets Tony Blair for his much commented submission to the bellicose wishes of the American administration, whether it conveys a powerful anti-war message, or is simply a literary exercise in anti-Americanism . As a matter of fact, these readings seem to be in direct relation, and it is rather difficult to separate one from the others.
For the measure of British discontent with their government on the Iraqi question, it is worth quoting a lengthy paragraph from Rebecca Carpenter’s chapter, ‘We’re Not a Friggin’ Girl Band—September 11, Masculinity and the British-American Relationship in David Hare’s Stuff Happens ’, in Keniston and Follansbee Quinn, Literature after 9/11:Tony Blair’s unequivocal backing of the Iraq War has touched a nerve in British public opinion […] because Blair’s unequivocal fidelity to U.S. foreign policy has been widely perceived as transforming the ‘special relationship’ from one of partners—albeit senior and junior partners—to one of superpower and satellite. That some British journalists have employed terms as provocative as ‘adjunct,’ ‘51st state,’ and ‘client state’ to describe the current relationship between the United States and Great Britain shows how dramatically they feel the ground has shifted. Even harsher language has been employed to describe Blair himself , including the nearly ubiquitous ‘poodle’ and ‘lapdog.’ Novelist John le Carré has even gone so far as to describe him as ‘a minstrel for the American cause’. Many Blair critics believe that British prestige in the world has perhaps been irreparably harmed by Blair’s dogged loyalty to Bush’s foreign policy. (2008, 143)
Without arguing against the idea that the dramatic text bears implications of anti-Blairism, which is quite self-evident, and which is documented by the article quoted above—although from a gender studies perspective which imagines a battle of the sexes with America playing the part of the powerful, oppressive male, and the United Kingdom that of a submissive female—it is contended further that sufficient textual evidence exists to label Hare’s text as anti-American , reiterating the caveat that the antagonism does not address the American people but the American government. However, at least one instance of anti-Americanism addressed to the common American does exist, in the eighteenth scene; this is a soliloquy uttered by one of the unnamed characters , ‘a Brit in New York’. Although it might be worth quoting in its entirety, suffice it to mention that the speech attacks the American idea that only the Americans could really understand the magnitude of 9/11 , which gives them the right ‘to go against anyone they like on the grounds that they’ve been hurt by somebody else’ (SH 93). In the character’s words, ‘if you’re not American , you can’t understand’ is an ‘infantile psycho-babble of popular culture grafted opportunistically onto America’s politics’ (SH 92), an entitlement appropriated by all ranks, from the president to a simple American saleswoman who rejoices at the news of Baghdad being bombed. Wondering whether centrality and exceptionalism/exemptionalism used as justification only apply to Americans or whether they can be extended to other nations—‘You don’t understand. We’re Palestinian, we’re Chechen, we’re Irish, we’re Basque’ (SH 93)—the Brit in New York concludes unequivocally: ‘On September 11th, America changed. Yes. It got much stupider’ (SH 93).
All the other instances of how the Americans regard their own hegemony over the world and/or how dismissive they are of their European allies or opponents are rendered either by quoting officials’ statements or by imagining what they might have said behind closed doors. For illustrative purposes, here is the character of the Secretary of State Collin Powell addressing the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dominique de Villepin , with regard to the latter’s concern that Americans might try to force the UN to give the resolution required to attack Iraq . At first, the American official plays the card of fairness and equity among the 15 member states of the UN Security Council: ‘this is a negotiation. Genuine. With equal partners. There are fifteen countries on the Security Council. We want fifteen votes. Freely given. We’re in good faith’ (SH 74). The true entitlement is, however, revealed later in the conversation:Yes, America is a great power . The only great power . You may see this as the moment when America has to submit to the international will. And you may be relishing that prospect. […] But I don’t see it that way. […] I think it is Hobbes, isn’t it? Who says ‘Covenants without swords are but words.’ […] So. For the moment, America has the swords and is therefore—whether you like it or not—the enforcer of covenants. In France, I don’t know, you may wish for the day when that’s no longer so. But, with the best will in the world, I don’t see that day arriving in the next few months. (SH 77)
Although the fictitious speech is along the lines of what an American official might actually say and believe, the fact that it is rendered in a European-authored literary text suggests two di
mensions of European anti-Americanism : on the one hand, the traditional European powers’ spite against America for its prevalence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and on the other hand, their knowledge of the fact that the former colony looks down on them and, though diplomatically, treats them as disposable and, more importantly, interferes in their internal affairs. This latter aspect is even more apparent in the scenes which exclusively feature American officials as characters , especially when the alliance with the United Kingdom is discussed in the most condescending of terms: ‘we don’t need him [Blair ]. And as of this moment he’s bringing us nothing but trouble’, says Cheney (SH 104), while Bush points out that the British prime minister needs America to keep his government in power : ‘Blair wants to keep on the right side with us. If he’s not pro-American, he’s nothing. He’s staked the House. He’s not going to quit. On the other hand, his government can fall. That’s a real thing. It may really fall’ (SH 105). Hare introduces, using a contrapuntal technique, a discussion between the members of Blair cabinet, in which Alistair Campbell, Director of Communication and Strategy, tells the Prime Minister bluntly that the Americans cannot be influenced, regardless of Blair’s good intentions:CAMPBELL: We went into a coalition with the Americans, for influence. For influence, you said. What influence? We couldn’t get them to change the colour of their fucking bathroom curtains! Bush has used you. Bush doesn’t want your fucking views. He only wants your name on the notepaper, that’s all. (SH 111)
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