Against anti-Europeanism

[gravity]

Apr 26th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Anti-Europeanism is a bad response to anti-Americanism

APRIL 26th found the Oxford Union debating the motion that “This House regrets the founding of the United States of America”. A silly motion supported by unrepresentative people: the proponents were to include a member of the Communist Party and a member of the Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir. But anti-Americans do not possess a monopoly on idiocy. You don't have to spend much time with American conservatives to find them discussing the coming collapse of Europe, sometimes with glee. One of the opponents of the Oxford motion, Jonah Goldberg, did much to popularise “The Simpsons'” labelling of the French as “cheese-eating surrender-monkeys” in the run-up to the Iraq war.

...

Let's stick together

Yet the case for learning to live with each other again is overwhelming. America and the European Union are still the world's two biggest trading entities. The Atlantic relationship has been the foundation stone of world peace from 1945 onwards. The EU, for its part, has at least as much interest in defusing Muslim terrorism as the United States, because of its large Muslim populations and proximity to Turkey and the Middle East.

And the current French election gives the lie to anti-Europeanism. France is the great Satan for American anti-Europeans—remember “freedom fries”? Yet the first round of the French presidential election went to a man who boasts of his admiration for American dynamism and popular culture. Nicolas Sarkozy is a frequent visitor to the United States and hob-nobber with American journalists and policymakers. He propounds American-sounding solutions to France's economic problems, such as tax cuts and ending the 35-hour week. His critics have dubbed him a “neoconservative with a French passport”.

The rise of Mr Sarkozy coincides with a growing determination in America to defuse global anti-Americanism. Even George Bush has tried to do this a little in his second term. But post-Bush politicians—particularly Democratic ones—will put this at the top of their priorities. Hillary Clinton has promised to make her husband an “ambassador to the world, because we have a lot of work to do to get our country back in the standing it should be”. Barack Obama, the other Democratic front-runner, stresses his ability to rebrand America, as a son of Kansas and Kenya whose father was born a Muslim. Curing global anti-Americanism primarily means repairing America's relations with the rest of the world; but it also means uprooting the anti-European weeds that have flourished in America in the past few years.

More: http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9084422