In response to Stephen's question

Submitted by nickie (Italy), Jan 14, 2003 at 16:39

I'd like to add a reply to Stephen's interesting question on whether anti-americanism is ideologically transmitted or a spontaneous reaction to the superpower status of the US - in my view and experience as a European, it's both. The ideological part is due to the presence of communist parties in the past history of european politics, and to the extremization of the seventies (both of far right and far left), when marxist groups were using terrorist methods and sharing the "revolutionary" ideologies also of Islamic militants and terrorists (for instance in Germany, the Beider-Meinhof group went and trained at PLO camps). Today, there's anti-globalization movements which often actually focus on real issues but also sometimes tend to end up with the same anti-capitalist fervor - ie. anti-US. But like I said there's distinctions to be made there.

I'm not exactly sure what Stephen means by "Islamicism is influenced by left-wing anti-Americanism in this sense", I don't see the connection and I don't think anyone should take bin Laden's ramblings as representative of anything. Even the most hard-left attack against "the imperialists" is different in origin, character, aim than fundamentalists preachings. Then again, Colonel Gaddafi has made up its own combination of the two; and there's a certain tendency to understate the dangers of Islamicist preachings amog the left wing, especially the hardcore left.

Still, I think a lot of it is the spontaneous part - and here it's got to do with more than politics, but also daily life and culture and traditions. In countries like France and Italy, the specific local dimension is very important, and the invasion of global companies and trends is seen as threatening particuarly in specific sectors - I think you'd find the French are a lot more prone to be really anti-american about food and wine than about politics. The Greek have no good feeling whatsoever for their Muslim neighbours (and that's an understatement), yet they also resent the US as a superpower, more than any other nation in Europe actually. Then for the British there's a whole complex of superiority/envy, admiration/resentment, snobbery/attraction etc. which is also more about history and mentalities than politics alone.

And again, all this is a lot more complex (and interesting) at the level of people's attitudes at least than simple "anti-americanism". It's important to distinguish criticism from hate, politics from cultural differences, otherwise we're using extremist language when we define everything as either pro- or anti- with no other options. "With us or against us" may be necessary in political alliances, but it's deceptive as a paradigm for people's reactions.

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