I know I have written about this before but some recent remarks from people I like, yes, friends and acquaintances, that I deemed to be foolishly anti-American prompted me to take up the quill once more.
Growing up in Europe during the eighties to be fervently against anything connected with the US was very fashionable. Leftoids everywhere would have you believe that the Soviet Union was much maligned and that the US were just as bad because ‘look at what they did in Vietnam..’ et cetera.
No one seemed to appreciate that were it not for those vast US and British armies stationed in the western part of Europe, we’d all be speaking Russian and standing in the queue for empty shops if we weren’t busy being shipped off to Siberia.
Of course, in Europe as elsewhere in the world we are used to the American stereotype of the rotund dimwit tourist, burger-belly liberally overflowing the belt-buckle, fanny pack, T-shirt with some insipid slogan, the ubiquitous baseball cap. The type of tourist that travels in large packs, ‘does’ fifteen countries in seven days and always seems to talk so incredibly loudly.
I once met an American in Germany who sighed with relief when he found a McDonalds being disappointed with the German cuisine, which, now I think of it, may not be so unreasonable after all. But still.
And then there was the lady from America that we came across when looking around the ancient Medieval galley kitchen that the monks used to cook their meals in at Glastonbury Abbey. Looking at the stone furnaces and pots and pans exhibited this lady turned to us and screeched: “Gosh, can you imagine having to cook without a microwave?!”
And yet, Europe is a diverse continent with all manner of people in a great number of different countries. Many people over here don’t seem to appreciate how vast America is and that it must be a true melting pot, attracting immigrants from around the world.
In the UK and Europe we don’t know how to handle the large influx of immigrants, are squeamish about insisting on integration and assimilation. In the US as in other traditional emigrants’ havens, one is encouraged to become an American citizen with all that that entails. I sort of like that and I think many newcomers do as well.
I think a lot of this must have to do with the fact that for the past decades the US has been the dominant force on the world stage. Envy can play strange tricks on the mind. Now we have the likes of China and India looming large on the horizon, fast approaching and allegiances may be shifted elsewhere.
Some people I know who persist in their anti-American rhetoric have an obvious blind-spot in other respects. They say they hate what the US in their view stands for; isn’t Bush a buffoon et cetera, how dare they support Israel and so on, isn’t Starbucks awful? (which it is..).
On the other hand these very same people love actors such as Johnny Depp or John Malkovich, they may enjoy Scorsese’s films, they think Woody Allen was right-on, oh and of course the Doors were very cool, and the internet isn’t too shabby either. They don’t seem able to realise that what they love so much is also American. Their attitude, therefore, is unfair, unbalanced and illogical.
I have not yet been to see what America is like myself. Now that I can hop over to New York from my local airport I just may go and have a look.
“Have a nice day.”
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