With Us or Against Us

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With Us or Against Us Page 14

by Tony Judt


  German relations with America are always connected with the fact

  that the United States liberated Germany from National Socialism

  through war and reeducation. This is hardly the case in the former

  East Germany. There, the discussions over the National Socialist past

  serve to validate or invalidate the winners and losers of reunification.

  Common German ground is only reached in discussions over the

  Allied bombing and the expulsions of Germans from the occupied ter-

  ritories after the war. Anyone who was not in Germany in the summer

  of 2003 would have trouble believing that, after the intervention in

  Iraq, the most-debated public issue in Germany concerned the correct

  interpretation of events that took place six decades ago. Only from a

  distance does Germany’s cultural debate appear enviable. On closer

  inspection, these public disputes turn out to be a way of shifting con-

  temporary social problems unto distant countries and the distant past.

  Uncertainty is the chiaroscuro that distorts reality. What is feared are

  the “American conditions,” in which class predominates. Xenophobic

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  fears are intertwined with anxiety over the end of the welfare state.

  Considered an old-European invention, it was not recognized that,

  beyond its specific forms, the welfare state was a common social devel-

  opment of the “short century.” Without the welfare state, the concept

  of the West as the “abundant society,” as Kenneth Galbraith put it,

  would never have looked attractive. Today, as in the past, the absolute

  oppositions that are presented between America and Europe are actu-

  ally distortions of social differences. This gives the propagandist

  ideologues the opportunity to exploit the ambivalence of the public

  toward social change. As a result, America’s present offers Europe a

  picture of its own future. In the population’s anxieties about the

  future, old fears are reproduced in the new anti-Americanism.

  The social basis of the new anti-Americanism is to be found in the

  middle classes that succeed through education and training. Their

  German spokespersons see themselves in agreement with the

  American anti-Bush opposition, which has grown since the end of the

  direct military confrontation in Iraq. On American campuses, resist-

  ance to the war on terrorism has been expressed in terms of the so-

  called new social movements of the 1970s and 1980s. In Europe, as

  well as in Latin America, the same social and political pink–purple–

  green categories are intertwined with national ones. During the

  protests in Germany against the war in Kosovo, Serb and Greek flags

  could be seen alongside new and old pacifist symbols. Now with the

  anti-Iraq war protests of 2003, a new transnational symbol has been

  found—the word “Pace” written over a rainbow flag—a poorly secu-

  larized version of ultra-Catholicism, a geopolitical St. Peter’s Square.

  The forces of yesterday criticize those of today and that is fine with

  each new sheep that enters the flock, whether the sheep wanders in

  from the youth-oriented, antiglobalization movement or from the

  reawakened veterans of the 1970s and 1980s who have been incor-

  rectly characterized as former “1968ers.” This results in a harsh view of

  an America that appears omnipotent. In a world where America

  defines the rules to which the rest of the world orients itself, it is,

  nonetheless, fitting that it always occupies the number one spot. The

  academic left in Germany feels reassured by the reactions of its

  American colleagues, who for a long time appeared powerless against

  the unilateral course of the Bush administration but who have started

  to attack the Bush administration’s foreign policy. As a result, the

  German academic left does not see itself as anti-American at all. Some

  of the American opposition’s public statements against the policies of

  the Bush administration after 9/11 were rather muddled. On the level

  of domestic policies, however, George W. Bush’s opponents, who

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  already felt slapped in the face by the presidential election, have

  sought a better way to hinder his reelection. The behavior of the

  Democrats in the days leading up to the Iraqi invasion was purely tacti-

  cal in motivation, leading the academic opposition to orient itself on

  the old “Vietnam Setting,” as Charles Kupchan had accurately termed

  it in September 2001. It is for this reason that the peace demonstra-

  tions of 2003 had a nostalgic touch that spanned generations. In

  Europe, however, the demonstrations in London, Rome, Paris, and

  Berlin were celebrated as the birth of a new Europe. This would have

  been completely unthinkable during the anti-Vietnam demonstrations

  in 1968. The new anti-American propaganda has a bit of the illusion

  of a European society, an illusion that is necessary for the acceptance

  of a pan-national entity—just as Ernest Renan pointed out that his-

  torical lies were necessary in order to make the abstraction of the

  nation acceptable.

  September 11 produced strange new battle lines. While the ruling

  coalition in Germany committed itself to “unconditional solidarity”

  with the United States, the activists of the once old, now revived,

  social movements rose up against this solidarity. In the mass media,

  the aversions integral to the convictions of the old left met with the

  new confidence of the recently emerged middle classes. The former

  consider war vulgar, whereas the latter accept “going along with it.”

  The so-called German pacifism of today likes to see itself as the result

  of historical learning processes. Yet, at least since the 1970s, German

  pacifism has been used more as a means of flattering the self-confi-

  dence of the post-Nazi generation. This generation sees itself as,

  above all, superior to a nation of sycophants, which is how they define

  most of the older generations. Class distinctiveness intertwines with

  national distinctiveness. Professional politicians are singled out by the

  new middle classes as objects for contempt, despite the fact that pro-

  fessional politicians generally come from among their ranks—this is a

  phenomenon that Jimmy Carter already encountered in the previous

  generation. Such class-specific biases are now united against George W.

  Bush, Gerhard Schröder, and Joschka Fischer. The antipolitical

  protest stance of the academic American left denies that, in contrast to

  Vietnam, it is possible that, even if a different administration came to

  power in 2004, it would have to remain in Iraq. In German academic

  and mainstream media circles, this protest stance quickly becomes

  tinged with anti-American sentiment. From this perspective, politicians

  look like cynical opportunists and the majority of the population,

  which is not at all spontaneously anti-American, like easily manipu-

  lated fools, who are simply uninformed. In the same way that the

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  arrogance of class distinctiveness feeds on ambivalence toward power,

  so does the new anti-Americanism. This is reflected in the common

  reproach, the “arrogance of power.” Power is always envied and

  this jealousy leads to an exaggerated sense of power as omnipotence, thus

  making it possible to spread blame to everyone. At the same time, the

  powers that be, though hardly populist, look to the middle classes

  in educational institutions and in the media as their opinion leaders.

  The brand of anti-Americanism to which intellectuals subscribe, spans

  generation and stirs up resentment against any exercise of power.

  When contempt for politics becomes a social norm, society’s ability to

  criticize power weakens.

  The attacks of 9/11 underlined the necessity of an international

  peacekeeping organization. The U.S. government reacted to the

  terrorist attacks, however, with a “war on terrorism.” If one takes the

  threat of terrorist attack scenarios seriously, then the logic of this war,

  which seeks to apprehend not only terrorists but also terrorist sup-

  porters, speaks for itself. Destroying Al Qaeda’s training camps, which

  the Taliban concealed, seems only logical. The attention of the inter-

  national community has put pressure on the U.S. government to

  adhere to rules that promote civilized warfare, but those who do

  not acknowledge the threat of terrorism, no longer have the right

  to debate the appropriateness of ends versus means. Supported by

  American Nobel laureates in an attempt to avoid accusations of anti-

  Americanism, German intellectuals damned the campaign in Afghanistan

  with a preachy tone that arose from the loss of this relationship

  between ends and means. Their demands to simply endure barbaric

  terrorist attacks merely mimic pacifism and hinder any recognition of

  the terrorist danger in their own country. Not even limited coopera-

  tion with America was possible under these conditions. As long as the

  attention of the world community is focused on U.S. foreign policy,

  this new form of anti-Americanism will have a great future. One of the

  main functions of this new anti-Americanism involves interpreting

  new developments with familiar tropes. In this way, new aspects of

  international terrorism need not be recognized and acknowledged as

  new developments. Terrorists, acting without regard to national bor-

  ders, are then not seen as independent actors who only reach their

  goal by instilling fear and anxiety within the society. The threat of ter-

  rorism emerges from modern society itself, however. The openness of

  modern societies is precisely what makes them attractive targets for

  terrorists. The terrorists behave according to bin Laden’s image as a

  son of the desert but, in reality, terrorists, such as the ones who car-

  ried out the 9/11 attacks, are children of multicultural societies and

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  like fish in water, they circulate freely in these societies. By no means

  should they be seen as guerillas. What distinguishes them from free-

  dom fighters is their destructiveness. After all, terrorists and freedom

  fighters are not labeled arbitrarily. September 11 left the world com-

  pletely speechless because its violence was completely destructive. The

  relationship between ends and means burst apart. Even the demand to

  withdraw American troops from Saudi Arabia was only a pretext. In

  reality, 9/11 was intended to compensate the Islamic world for its

  imagined humiliation at being a third-rate world power. It is for this

  reason that the attacks of 9/11 are so lacking in perspective. Not faith,

  but willingness to deploy violence in a completely destructive manner

  is what binds the suicide bombers of America and Israel.

  Only when the West recognizes 9/11 as a problem not just for

  America but also for the West as a whole will the new anti-Americanism

  lose the ground beneath its feet. If the modernization of society con-

  tinues to be equated with unwanted Americanization, anti-Americanism

  will maintain its social basis. The middle classes that the new education

  system produced started to look toward the past in reaction to the dis-

  appointments of 1968, when hopes for substantive changes in society

  collapsed in the face of reality. In urban areas, very small groups of

  people then turned to terrorism, which promised to undermine the

  prosaic “reality principle” of parliamentary democracy. The reality of

  this armed conflict left little to be romanticized, however. The conflict

  in Indochina, which had been used to justify violence, came to an end,

  robbing terror of any illusion to legitimacy. Since terrorists could no

  longer look to the present to justify their goals, they would have

  to find some justifications in the past. Once again, developments

  in Europe followed closely on the heels of those that took place in

  America. The similarity of these social processes was hardly noted

  as this change of society was considered, for the most part, to result

  from outside forces. The loss of a socially transforming vision of the

  future allowed the past to appear as a source of self-understanding.

  Corresponding to the need of the new middle classes for self-assurance

  was the discovery of identity as a formula that would explain social

  behavior. According to this formulation, the collapse of the bipolar

  world order and the subsequent disappearance of the Third World

  amounted to a gigantic, global leveling out that has made one’s home-

  land less important. Indeed, the way that discourse is conducted has

  become globalized. Cultural criticism in New York, as well as in Cairo

  or Shanghai, is only a mouse click away. September 11 showed that

  educational institutions are threatening to turn from progressive nursery

  schools into conservative institutions. The turn to the Vietnam

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  Is There a New Anti-Americanism?

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  protests of the past might be a symptom. Outside of the United

  States, this symptom is augmented by the revival of anti-American

  memories. Memory is deceptive, however, as it is difficult to discern

  the difference between fact and fiction. In Vietnam, the intervention

  of the United States hindered the emancipation of the people of

  Indochina from their dependency on colonialism and large landowners.

  Since 9/11, on the other hand, American society has been forced to

  defend itself against the threat of terrorism. Only when the interna-

  tional community acknowledges that international terrorism is a shared

  threat will anti-Americanism recede in strength.

  Only with this social background in mind can the shifting tides of

  public opinion be correctly interpreted. All German and international

  opinion polls indicate that, as of 2003, public sentiment has settled

  on the side of antipathy. The Frankfurt book fair of October 2003

  brought to light a deluge of anti-American literature. Reading through

  this flood would only be worthwhile if it is taken as a model for

  cliched images of the world. Not a singl
e book actually considers

  what anti-Americanism really is—a prejudice, an ideology, a distorted

  view, or an opinion even worthy of discussion? The mixture of anti-

  Americanism with anti-Semitism has had a particularly disastrous

  effect in German debates, since these debates do not take into account

  the special character of anti-Semitism or its particular meaning in

  post-1945 Germany. On the other hand, opinion polls treat both anti-

  Americanism and anti-Semitism as mere opinions. This downplays

  anti-Semitism and stretches anti-Americanism past the point of recog-

  nition. Well-founded rejection of a certain government’s policies

  should in no way be judged as anti-American per se. Likewise, all crit-

  icism of Israel’s government should not be considered anti-Semitic.

  However, it is this fact, per se, that must be emphasized. An integral

  aspect of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism is the way in which they

  are camouflaged as mere opinions in order to garner the appearance of

  democratic legitimacy.

  In this way, public debate seems more of a discussion of ghosts

  rather than of current alliances and conflicts between peoples. The

  public arena resembles show business as public figures jockey for posi-

  tions on the issues. The blinding effects of public relations strategies

  collide with the grassroots voices that lurk beneath the surface of offi-

  cially orchestrated opinion. Most political analysis, however, is satisfied

  with the merely superficial in terms of public and private opinion.

  Poorly designed public opinion polls stand in for empirical evidence.

  Public squabbles over the Iraqi campaign reveal more about the

  decline of the public sphere and public debate in the West than about

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  the way that society thinks and behaves. To this end, polling science is

  too afraid of theory to really uncover anything. One of the rumors

  that will not fade away, even among spin doctors, is the ridiculous and

  unsophisticated assertion that the red–green coalition in Germany

  was reelected against the odds, and that Chancellor Schröder led a

  German-nationalist, anti-American election campaign. This explana-

 

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