April 10, 2003
LEFT MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY (via Brian Boys):
So, will the left apologise? (Janet Daley, April 10 2003, Daily Telegraph)I have this delightful fantasy of left-wingers throughout the Western world putting their hands up and saying: "Well, actually we got that a little bit wrong." And maybe even deciding that, since their analysis of the war was mistaken, their diagnosis of the peace might be open to question too.But I'm not holding my breath. Those for whom America is always wrong will not be slowed down by this momentary setback. Rather like Mr al-Sahaf, they will not even appear to notice the tanks in the streets of their ideological neighbourhood. They will look away from the welcoming crowds of Basra (yes, they really did cheer, once it was safe to do so) and just move smartly on to the next American "crime against humanity".
I am off to Washington at the end of the week, where a think tank has invited me to discuss European anti-American attitudes. What shall I say to them? That the obvious truth - America is resented because of its enormous power - is only a fragment of the picture? That the foundation of anti-Americanism lies deep in the pathology of a Europe that has never recovered from its own guilt and self-loathing over the two great wars of last century?
How to make Americans, most of whom are descended from the most despised and wretched of the populations of the Old World - poor southern Italians, landless Irish peasants, ghetto Jews of eastern Europe - understand that much apparently political resistance to them is grounded in pure snobbery? The great American virtues - self-improvement, ambition, individualism - are, in European establishment eyes, the characteristics of vulgarity.
The reason that all this is so hard for Americans to process is because we can't wrap our minds around the idea that the French feel they have sufficient stature to look down on us. They look in the mirror and see Gulliver, we look at them and see Lilliputians. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 10, 2003 4:09 PM
As Americans, we want everyone to like us. Our open society is made up of people from across the globe who think of themselves as 100% American while maintaining pride in the heritage of our immigrant forebearers. Because of this we find it hard to digest the condesension some European sophisticates hold toward us. In fact, most of the time we simply won't believe it. The assumption we make is that regardless of the sacrifices we have made for the sake of Europe, they would do the same for us.
The attitude of the French, Germans and Belgians will change that attitude.