Anti-Americanism

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Cover of Anti-Americanism by French author Jean-François Revel. In some parts of the world, the burning of an American flag is a symbolic form of protest against the U.S.

Anti-Americanism, often Anti-American sentiment, covers a broad range of attitudes and actions that are thought to be opposed or hostile to the government, culture, or people of the United States. Contemporary analysis of anti-Americanism typically focuses on international opposition to United States policy, though the concept includes a number of historical trends varying greatly in content and motive.

Interpretations of anti-Americanism have often been polarized. It has been described as an irrational phenomenon that configures the United States and the American way of life as threatening at their core . However, it has also been suggested that Anti-Americanism cannot be isolated as a consistent phenomenon and that the term merely signifies a rough composite of stereotypes, prejudices and criticisms towards Americans or the United States .

Whether sentiment hostile to United States reflects reasoned evaluation of specific policies and administrations, rather than a truly prejudiced belief system, is a further complication. Increases in global anti-American attitudes appear to correlate with particular policies , such as the Vietnam and Iraq wars, criticism of which may be valid. For this reason, critics often claim the label is a propaganda item that is used to dismiss any censure of the United States as irrational . The propaganda thesis has itself been challenged as a form of Anti-Americanism that seeks to frame the consequences of difficult US policy choices as evidence of a specifically American moral failure, as opposed to the unavoidable failures of the immensely complicated foreign policy that any global superpower would be compelled to adopt.

Use of the term

The use of the term anti-Americanism has been catalogued from 1948, entering wide political language in the 1950s . The related term "americanization" (to which anti-Americanism is at least partly a response) has been dated to France as early as 1867 . Labelling earlier attitudes and commentary "anti-American" is thus partly a retroactive exercise, though there are numerous examples of hostility directed at the country from at least the late 18th century onwards.

Contemporary usage is often controversial. The term itself does not imply a critical attitude based on rational objections but rather a prejudiced system of thought and it is therefore rarely employed as a self-identifier (i.e. "I am anti-American...") as this implies bias. Instead, it is often used as a pejorative by those who object to another individual or group's stance toward the United States or its policies. Advocates of the significance of the term argue, for instance, that Anti-Americanism represents a coherent and dangerous ideological current, comparable to anti-Semitism . Yet its status as an "-ism" is a greatly contended aspect: critics who view it as a propaganda term suggest a blanket label has a suppressive function over political discourse by conflating legitimate criticism with hateful rhetoric and prejudice. Certain scholars have also suggested that a plural of Anti-Americanisms, specific to country and time period, more accurately describe the phenomenon than any broad generalization . The widely-used "anti-American sentiment", meanwhile, less explicitly implies an ideology or belief system.

History

Strong feeling against the United States (and at times the North American continent) has persisted since the country's original settlement, with criticisms varying greatly in content and motive.

Degeneracy thesis

Anti-American sentiment in Europe originates with the discovery of America, the study of the Native Americans, and the examination of its flora, fauna, and climate. The first anti-American image ("the degeneracy thesis") saw America as a regressive and culturally bankrupt continent and soon-to-be nation. The theory that the humidity and other atmospheric conditions in America actually weakened its animals and human residents was commonly argued in Europe and debated by early American thinkers Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. This sentiment was expressed in 1768 when court philosopher to Frederick II, Cornelius de Pauw, a chief proponent of this thesis, described America as a bunch of "degenerate or monstrous" colonies and claimed, "the weakest European could crush them with ease". The thesis was extended into arguing that the natural environment meant that the United States could intrinsically never produce true culture. Paraphrasing Pauw, the Encyclopedist Abbé Raynal famously wrote, "America has not yet produced a good poet, an able mathematician, one man of genius in a single art or a single science."

The degeneracy thesis sometimes described America as a threat to the world and as the novelist Henry de Montherlant put it in the voice of a character: "One nation that manages to lower intelligence, morality, human quality on nearly all the surface of the earth, such a thing has never been seen before in the existence of the planet. I accuse the United States of being in a permanent state of crime against humankind." [citation needed] The degeneracy thesis later slightly shifted, focusing on the cultural qualities of the United States and gradually ignoring other American powers.

Romantic hostility

The French Revolution, seen by some as prompted by the American Revolution, created a new type of anti-American political thought, hostile to the political institutions of the United States and their impact upon Europe. Furthermore, the Romantic strain of European thought and literature, hostile to the Enlightenment view of reason and obsessed with history and national character, disdained the American project. The German poet Nikolaus Lenau encapsulated the Romantic view: "With the expression Bodenlosigkeit (rootlessness) I think I am able to indicate the general character of all American institutions; what we call Fatherland is here only a property insurance scheme."

Racialism

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the racialist theories of Arthur de Gobineau and others spread through Europe. The presence of blacks and "lower quality" immigrant groups made racialist thinkers discount the potential of the United States. The infinite mixing of America would lead to the ultimate degeneracy. Gobineau said that America was creating "greatest mediocrity in all fields: mediocrity of physical strength, mediocrity of beauty, mediocrity of intellectual capacities - we could almost say nothingness."

Anti-technology and consumerism

Nazi propaganda poster addressing the Dutch public in 1944 with the words: "The USA are supposed to save European culture". Racism, bombing raids, and the supposedly corrupting influence of black music are recurring themes of anti-American criticism.

With the rise of American industry in the late nineteenth century, intellectual anti-American discourse entered a new form. Mass production, the Taylor system, and the speed of American life and work became a major threat to some intellectuals' view of European life and tradition. Nietzsche wrote: "The breathless haste with which they (the Americans) work - the distinctive vice of the new world - is already beginning ferociously to infect old Europe and is spreading a spiritual emptiness over the continent."

It has been claimed that this thesis transformed into a Heideggerian critique of technologism. Heidegger wrote in 1935: "Europe lies today in a great pincer, squeezed between Russia on the one side and America on the other. From a metaphysical point of view, Russia and America are the same, with the same dreary technological frenzy and the same unrestricted organization of the average man." A strange derivative of the thesis regarding the soullessness of America and its inherent threat to Europe was also used in Fascist rhetoric and in German and Japanese propaganda during World War II. It has been claimed that the Heideggerian critique, incorporated into existentialist (Sartre) and leftist thought after the war, played a central role in the political rhetoric of many Western European Communist parties.

Political hypocrisy

Samuel Johnson hit upon one theme that, in various and different forms, has long defined some forms of anti-American sentiment: the perceived hypocrisy of a supposed freedom-loving people engaged in less than admirable practices. Americans in his eyes were hypocrites in their relations with Indigenous peoples and African slaves: "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" He famously stated that, "I am willing to love all mankind, except an American." Americans, for their part, mirrored this criticism with claims about the treatment of colonial subjects by European powers.

"The Other"

Just as the United States has defined itself against Monarchical and Communist countries during its history and may now be defining itself against terrorism or radical Islam, the use of anti-American ideologies may represent a way for nations to unify the country and bridge political divisions and/or to cover up evident flaws in its political or economic system. Certain forms of social identity theory argue that the existence of "an other" is crucial to the development of group identity. In the case of a claimed European strand of anti-Americanism, it is possible that it partially exists to assist the creation of a coalescing European identity.

Some critics argue that anti-Americanism ideology often correlates with other forms of perceived extremism, such as virulent nationalist movements, radical Islam, or communism. Self-proclaimed French anti-anti-American, Bernard-Henri Levy, described this view: "Anti-Americanism is a horror. ... It is a magnet of the worst. In the entire world and in France in particular, everything that is the worst in people's heads comes together around anti-Americanism: racism, nationalism, chauvinism, anti-Semitism."

Modern Anti-Americanism

Early Twentieth Century and Cold War

As European immigration to the United States continued and the country's economic potential became more obvious, anti-American stances grew a much more explicit geopolitical dimension. A new strand of anti-American sentiment started to appear as America entered the competition for influence in the Pacific, and anti-Americanism was widespread among the Central Powers after the U.S. entered the First World War. Furthermore, many of the anti-American ideological threads spread to other areas, such as Japan and Latin America, where Continental philosophy was popular and American imperialism was increasingly a possible threat. In political terms, even amongst the United States's allies, Britain and France, there was resentment at the end of the war as they found themselves massively in debt to the United States. These sentiments became even more widespread during the interbellum and Great Depression and sometimes tended toward the anti-Semitic: the belief that America was ruled by a Jewish conspiracy was common in countries ruled by fascists before and during World War II, and in the Middle East after the war. The reverse - the belief that Israel was an American puppet state - also became common in some circles during the last third of the 20th century.

During the Cold War, anti-Americanism grew within the sphere of the Soviet Union and spread to some other parts of the world, such as Africa and Asia, that had previously held the United States in higher regard than the major European colonial powers. The Vietnam War boosted anti-American sentiment: here, American critics felt, was naked imperialism at its worst, though supporters were willing to forgive the misadventure given the larger priorities of the Cold War. In addition, the United States' support for right-wing authoritarian regimes and numerous covert operations during this era had been likewise criticized.

Post Cold War era

Paradoxically, the fall of the Soviet Union may have brought an increase in anti-Americanism, because the U.S. was left as the world's only superpower, and people who formerly saw the United States as a bastion against Communism or needed the American security umbrella no longer felt the need to support the United States. Globalization, often portrayed as an American neoliberal project, while improving international contact, has also magnified the visibility of trade conflicts and increased societal insecurity about jobs.

The world at large

The policies of the Bush administration have drawn hostility among European populations. This graffiti is in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Groups currently described as Anti-American are highly diverse, including French intellectuals, Islamist fundamentalists, Latin American populists, through Americans themselves (within the United States the term "unamerican" is as likely to be used). Anti-Americanism in some form has existed across different American presidential administrations, though its severity may wax and wane considerably. George W. Bush's first presidential term, for instance, is widely seen as inducing a major increase in Anti-Americanism , with the 2003 invasion of Iraq and controversies such as the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp and CIA "torture flights" badly affecting global opinions of the U.S..

While the U.S. is not seen universally unfavorably in Europe and other Western countries, feelings of distrust and dislike toward the United States are widespread, particularly in some states in Western Europe. A survey in June 2005 showed that a majority of Europeans have an unfavorable image of America; however, two-thirds of those people opting for the "unfavorable" option declared that this was due to George Bush and his political actions.

In Latin America, anti-American sentiment has deep roots, tracing to traumas of U.S.-supported dictators as well as economic and military interventions. Explicitly anti-American platforms have been adopted by leaders in the region, in part as a populist measure; this has been true in Cuba for decades and in Venezuela more recently.

In Japan and South Korea, much anti-Americanism has focused on the rude behavior of American military personnel, aggravated especially by repeated sexual assaults on locals by U.S. servicemen. The on-going U.S. military presence in Okinawa remains a contentious issue in Japan.

Middle East

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Graffiti on a wall in Iraq referencing the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal.

The Middle East region has been a focal point of much Anti-American sentiment in the latter decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, often blamed on specific US policies in the region. The term Great Satan, as well as the chant "Death to America" have been in continual use in Iran since at least the Iranian revolution in 1979.

According to a Zogby International poll of Arab men and women in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, negative attitudes toward the United States grew from large majorities in 2002 to practical unanimity in 2004 . According to the Zogby poll, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were tied in fourth place on a list of most admired world leaders.

Criticisms of the United States

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A poster in Valencian from the Spanish trade union federation uses anti-American imagery to encourage citizens of Valencia to attend a May Day demonstration

A graffiti in Rosario, Argentina: "In the U.S. liberty is a statue."

Some of the most common criticisms of the United States involve:

• U.S. Foreign Policy - Main article: Opposition to U.S. foreign policy.
  • American military interventions and perceived imperialism, especially in connection with 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Vietnam War
  • Selectivism in resolving various global problems (global warming, disease, wars in Africa)
  • Refusal to sign various international treaties including the Kyoto Protocol, the Ottawa Treaty on landmines, and some proposed agreements to limit the weaponization of space
  • Support for military dictatorships and totalitarian governments during and after the Cold War such as Augusto Pinochet.
  • Criticism of American economic sanctions and embargos toward various countries, including Cuba and Iran, while maintaining commercial relations with countries such as China.
  • Selective favor given to allies of the United States in international institutions, especially involving issues like proliferation

• U.S. Domestic Policy
  • American policies which diverge from those of other developed countries, including the health care, public education, drug, and gun control policies
  • American social problems, including high rates of imprisonment and homelessness
  • The continued employment of capital punishment
  • Claims of continued high levels of racism and discrimination in American society

• Human Rights issues
  • American Exceptionalism regarding international institutions and international law (International Criminal Court) and post-9/11 anti-terrorism laws (see US Patriot Act)

• Economic issues
  • Perceptions that the United States was the key inspiration for globalization and neoliberal free trade policy
  • Criticisms of the ethical behavior of certain American corporations
  • A lack of social welfare and income redistribution policies relative to other industrialized nations

• Criticisms of national character
  • Claims of excessive nationalism, blind patriotism or chauvinism
  • Claims of widespread ignorance of places and peoples outside of the US, and arrogance toward foreigners
  • Stereotypes of obesity and fast food diets
  • Criticisms of excessive religiosity and "Puritanism" or conversely, immorality and vulgarity
  • Claims of frequent use of crude slang or a bastardized version of English language

• Other issues
  • Cultural imperialism through spread of the English language and American popular culture
  • Perceived lack of attention to environmental issues, including various issues related to high use of fossil fuels
  • Criticism of a lack of universal gay rights, or, conversely, excessive acceptance of homosexuality.

For a more detailed breakdown of anti-American rhetoric and sentiment by country, see anti-American sentiment in various countries.

Criticisms of anti-Americanism

Due to the variety of motives for anti-American sentiment, criticism of this sentiment varies with context. Similarly, some motives are viewed as more legitimate by both Americans and non-Americans. Some common points of criticism:

• Some charge that anti-Americanism stems from jealousy, especially from rival powers. This is the traditional argument used to qualify Anti-Americanism in France. [2]
• Conversely, other forms may be attributed to up-and-coming would-be superpowers who wish to unseat the US in status. This is a view of anti-Americanism in China, and the former Soviet Union.
• Some attribute anti-Americanism to radical Islam. By this view, the critics are viewed as objecting to women's rights and human rights, and therefore viewed as regressive or religiously fanatic. This style of anti-Americanism is considered a common motivation for countries such as Iran, and radical Islamists like Osama Bin Laden.
• Some view much anti-Americanism as a left-over effect from Marxism or Communism, and anti-capitalist sentiment in general. Because the United States is a prominent capitalist country (which can be viewed as either a virtue or a fault), it is assumed to logicially follow that many anti-American critics will be motivated by economic philosophies in their arguments. This is often the argument leveled against anti-globalization protesters.
• Some critics hold consistent criticism against American policies, by the Left as well as by foreign critics. The claim often made is "damned if we do, damned if we don't". Thus American intervention in 1999 in Kosovo led to popular protests in Europe, while the UN has criticized America's non-intervention in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. According to this view, no policy by the United States can ever hope to satisfy everyone and all US actions will inevitably be interpreted and presented in a negative way.
• Other critics of anti-Americanism claim that it is a simplistic view or over-generalization, sometimes bordering on discrimination. However, the objection often raised is that since Americans are not a race, it cannot technically be called "racism". It should be noted that early forms of anti-Americanism indeed had racist overtones, such as French naturalists' view that North American flora and fauna were biologically inferior. Stereotypes that Americans are somehow more "fat" or "stupid" than other people are sometimes criticized as prejudiced, and are often center around an assumed image of Americans as a universally WASP people.
• Some critics draw parallels between modern anti-Americanism and the defamation campaign against European Jews during the 1920s and 30s. One example would be a controversy in Germany about a caricature depicting American investment bankers as mosquitos with top hats, labelled "die Aussauger" (the suckers), imagery that in the view of some critics resembles a caricature depicting "the Jew" as a spider.
• Some critics argue that anti-American criticism from the Left is sometimes in line with criticism from nationalist movements, or radical Islamists. They charge that well-meaning critics are unwittingly aiding causes that are not considered "progressive". One example would be in Japan, where both anti-American right wing groups ('uyoku') and Leftists agitate against American military bases, while only the right wing groups also agitate for a rearmament of Japan with nuclear weapons.

See also

• American Empire
• Americanization
• Criticisms of the War on Terrorism
• Hyphenated American
• List of anti-American terrorist incidents
• List of U.S. foreign interventions since 1945
• Opposition to U.S. foreign policy
• Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War
• The Ugly American
• Francophobia
• Anti-Arabism
• Anti-Australian sentiment
• Anti-Europeanism
• Anti-Canadianism
• Polonophobia
• Anti-Semitism
• Sinophobia

References

• Julia Sweig, Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century, PublicAffairs, 2006 ISBN 1586483005
• Brendon O’Connor, "A Brief History Of Anti-Americanism: From Cultural Criticism to Terrorism", Australasian Journal of American Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1, July 2004, p. 82.
• Gerrit-Jan Berendse; "German Anti-Americanism in Context" Journal of European Studies, Vol. 33, 2003
• Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit, Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies
• Richard Z. Chesnoff, The Arrogance of the French : Why They Can't Stand Us--and Why the Feeling Is Mutual, Sentinel, April, 2005 ISBN 1595230106
• John Dean and Jean-Paul Gabilliet; European Readings of American Popular Culture Greenwood Press, 1996
• J. L. Granatstein, Yankee Go Home? Canadians and Anti-Americanism. (1996)
• Paul Hollander, Anti-Americanism
• Chalmers Johnson, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
• Eric V. Larson, Norman D. Levin, Seonhae Baik, Bogdan Savych; Ambivalent Allies? A Study of South Korean Attitudes toward the U.S Rand, 2004
• Richard Pells; Not like Us: How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American Culture since World War II Basic Books, (1997)
• Jean-Francois Revel, Anti-Americanism, 2002
• Philipe Roger, The American Enemy: The History of French Anti-Americanism
• David Strauss; Menace in the West: The Rise of French Anti-Americanism in Modern Times Greenwood Press, 1978
• Charles J. Swindells; "Anti-Americanism and Its Discontents" New Zealand International Review. Volume: 30. Issue: 1. 2005. pp 8+.
• Frank Trommler and Joseph McVeigh; America and the Germans: An Assessment of a Three-Hundred-Year History - Vol. 2 University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990

External links

• Mark Kaplan: What is "Anti-Americanism?
• "Anti-Americanism" Revisited Mark Kaplan
• Understanding Anti-Americanism by Chris Fleming and John O'Carroll; Anthropoetics vol. 9, no. 2
• After the attacks: America's new cold war by Anatol Lieven, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC
• A genealogy of anti-Americanism By James W. Ceaser
• Power and Weakness By Robert Kagan
• The BBC: BNP questioned over US fund-raising
• Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli prime minister, explores the motives of the Islamic extremists hatred of the West and the U.S.
• Guardian article on The Great Divide between Europe and the United States
• Tony Judt about "The Paradox of American Power"
• Newsweek article explaining Anti-Americanism through history
• CBC News special: How do the world's nations relate to the new American Empire?
• Genocide Watch: 8 Stages of Genocide
• Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973
• Views of U.S. Plummet
• Pew Research Center : A Year After Iraq War
• Story and image of the fat Statue of Liberty accompanying Subway sandwiches in Germany
• The historical, cultural, and economic roots of anti-Americanism
• Two books by French authors take a critical look at France's tradition of America-bashing and try to explain its persistence
• Americans Anonymous (The 12-Step Group for Americans Abroad)
• (Didn't Know I Was) UnAmerican
• Blog dedicated to discussing the sources and consequences of anti-Americanism
• Gatas parliament a Norwegian rap group that produced the notorious music video "Anti American Dance" depicting a charity drive for the assassination of U.S. President George W. Bush