Bjørn Stærk is bewildered. The March 11th bombing in Madrid, followed by the long overdue demise of Sheik Yassin, should have created clarity in Europe that terrorism is the enemy of civilization, not just one or two political systems. Instead, the animus toward the US and Israel has increased and newspaper editorials have perversely sided with Hamas against Israel while indirectly blaming Bush for creating the hate that spawned M-11. And these tendencies aren't limited to flaky left-wing intellectuals. They're running rampant and unopposed in the mainstream press.
Why is this? Is there something in the logic of this massive public opinion that eludes us, or have a bunch of statesmen, politicians, and journalists taken leave of their senses?
The psychology of European (or any regional) politics is complicated stuff, so it's hard to say anything definitive. But I'd like to offer a hypothesis.
The European identity is something still in formation. European nation-states have in the past shaped their self-image by being distinct from each other - by "virtue" of language, religion, history, model of state, or any combination of such factors. Not too long ago colonies were conquered and wars were fought in order to assert these differences and prove the superiority of one language (e.g., French), one history (e.g., not Catholicism), one historical legacy (e.g., the English), or one model of state over another. European states sustained themselves on the basis of legacies, not for the sake of their citizens. Alliances were formed and dissolved among European states only for transient political necessity.
Bloody war after bloody war has caused Europeans to ask some obvious questions, such as: why can't we work together toward a common future? And shouldn't that future be as great as anyone else's? Aren't European ideals of liberal democracy worth cultivating?
But there are few answers to be found in Europe's past. All of Europe's great contributions to civilization either occurred before the Middle Ages (i.e., Greek philosophers) or were largely conceived in defiance of nationalism. Beethoven, Piaget, Ibsen, Shakespeare, Mozart, etc., did not primarily identify themselves as Europeans, but neither was their genius particularly German, French, Norwegian, British, or Austrian either. They were cosmopolitan and made their mark precisely because they untied themselves from the pressures of nationalistic conformity. They were more similar to each other - and to geniuses anywhere else in the world - than they were to anything particularly European
And the distinctly European historical legacy is scarcely anything to be proud of. Silly, bloody wars; genocide; fruitless, plundering Empire-building; the Eurovision Song Contest.
The awful truth is that everything Europeans consider uniquely European is being done better elsewhere. The US - for all its faults - is a more robust liberal democracy than any European state. Europe houses no undisputed capitals for arts or sciences anymore. With the exception of the United Kingdom and Germany, no European power has shown any military capability to speak of.
There are three current issues that remind Europe just how far it is between their ideals and reality:
One is the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia. Europeans know that ethnic divisions in the former Yugoslavia are greater (to be sure) but not materially different from ethnic divisions elsewhere in Europe. There are countless regional minorities that want autonomy and feel pretty strongly about it. Bosnia, Kosovo, etc., could conceivably happen elsewhere in Europe.
Then there is the dominance of the US in practically everything. Not only is the US the biggest economic and military power - Americans are doing distinctly European things better than the Europeans. (A possible exception being auto manufacturing). And European consumers are eating it up, figuratively (Baywatch) and literally (McDonald's).
Then there are the Jews. In spite of (at best) discrimination and (at worst) genocidal persecution, European Jews have for centuries, no millenia, defied pressure to assimilate and become European. Not only that, as a collective they have outperformed non-Jewish Europeans in every field they've entered. Israel - for all its faults - can rival most European countries for its cultural scene, its technology development, and even its human rights record. And they've won every war they've ever fought, even against overwhelming odds.
All this is to say that while Europeans desperately want to believe that being European is something unique and good, they are constantly reminded that the good things about Europe aren't unique, and the unique things about Europe aren't that good. If you don't believe me, see if you can maintain for more than two minutes a rational discussion with a European about the differences between Europe and the US.
As grown-ups, we quickly see the fallacy in thinking that way. We learn that it's less important to be unique than to be good, and that we will discover our uniqueness as we pursue what we think is right. Europe consists of liberal democracies that value the rule of law and social justice, that cultivate economic prosperity, and that bring a rich and diverse cultural heritage to the human enterprise. That should be enough, but it obviously isn't. Europe wants to be something more than that and above all something better than the US.
Let's face it: collectives are rarely as mature as individuals. We tend to regress toward the mean, or maybe even the lowest common denominator.
How does this help Bjørn make any sense of the European reactions to M-11 and Yassin's demise?
First of all, let's understand that the Middle Eastern terrorism scares the shit out of most Europeans. It's hard enough maintaining the stability of welfare states through economic cycles, and then on top of that making the EU work in ways that don't invite animosity among the European states. But if Europe attracts a dangerous, murderous enemy, all bets are off. Each country will develop its own policy. France is likely to want to appease the terrorists by offering some of them safe haven; the UK is likely to confront them; Germany won't know what to do; and so it'll go.
But in order to believe that Europe is not a target for Middle Eastern terrorism, Europeans must convince themselves that they don't invite the kind of hatred the US and Israel does. So it becomes important to make clear distinctions between Europe and these two primary terrorist targets. This results in fanciful but persuasive caricatures: Europe favors dialogue where the US favors confrontation; Europe cares about Palestinian human rights where Israel seeks to undermine them. Bush is a cowboy and European politicians are intellectuals. Sharon is a bully and European leaders are compassionate. And it includes some projection that Freudians would relish: Israel is ethnocentric and colonialist; the US is arrogant and belligerent.
The alternative to this model is unbearable for the already frail European ego. It would mean that Europe is just as exposed to terrorist attacks as the US and Israel are, and that there is no choice but to follow American and Israeli policies. It would also mean that Europe must expose itself to danger by siding with the US and Israel.
Of course, the model doesn't hold up well to reality. By all standards, US foreign policy (with all its faults) has vastly outperformed European foreign policy since WWII. The US attracts admiration and envy throughout the world, but European states mostly attract contempt. Even the radicals that hate the US hate Europe only slightly less. Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan by soundly defeating them in war, and the era between 1967 and the Oslo accord will likely go down as the golden era in Israeli-Palestinian relations.
This is a massive case of cognitive dissonance.
But since it would be unbearable to concede that they're wrong, the Europeans must look for ways to "prove" that they were right all along. You can't admit that Spain was terrorized into leaving Iraq, so you perversely claim that the swing in popular opinion following M-11 was a victory in the war of terrorism. You can't admit that confronting and pissing off terrorists by killing their leaders is a good thing, so you decide that Hamas isn't really a terrorist organization and Yassin was only an old blind man in a wheelchair.
And above all, you have to make others responsible for your misfortune. If the US hadn't invaded Iraq and coerced Spain into participating, M-11 would never have happened. If only Israel could give the Palestinians what they want, there will be peace. If the US didn't meddle in foreign affairs, the World Trade Center would still be standing.
It's the only way to make sense of the world - if you're a European, and fiercely proud of it.
You set the link incorrectly in your old website... I thought it looked kind of fishy so I monkeyed around with it until I finally got through to the new site by typying in "/hereticsalmanac/" after the typepad domain.
I enjoy your thoughts and will be sure to check in often. How do you like typepad compared to blogspot? The site sure looks nicer. Does it handle better, too?
Posted by: Greg | March 27, 2004 at 11:11 AM
Regarding "dominance of the US in practically everything ..." Feeling slightly anti-European, are we? The rest of the world isn't emulating the US, especially in cultural matters, because the US is doing things the best. We are not living in a meritocracy. Marketing affects people's perceptions more than quality. Afterall, Unix is a better operating system than DOS, Apple better than PC's but the cheaper, mediocre technology prevailed. In the US, English units prevail over metric. Here are a few categories where the US lags behind Europe:
architecture, control of urban sprawl, craftmanship, vocational education, construction methods, energy conservation (for buildings), recycling (consumer goods), mineral water (despite Perrier's benzene), inexpensive daily drinking wines, regional cuisine variety and quality (czech beer, german sausages - being Kosher, you might not understand, cheese, etc), public transportation, parking garages, equestrian sports and equipment ...
It seems difficult to support that geniuses were created by, "untying themselves from national conformity". To rebel or to conform still requires a cultural and historical framework. Genius implies a transcedence beyond what is already accepted or known. Nothing springs from nothing. I do agree with the tendency for democracies to reduce themselves to the lowest common denominator.
Regarding your main point ... you might find Robert Kagan's "Of Paradise and Power" an interesting read. His treatise is that both European countries and the USA have vacillated in their view towards force as a resolution of conflict. Basically, if you have it, you flaunt it. This argument has less to do with insecure Europeans fighting against US unilateralism than insecure Europeans knowing that they don't have the capability (militaristically or politically) to sustain a forceful campaign in another country. If the US, after 9/11, had taken the stance of pouring the same amount of money used for the war, towards education, infrastructure and consumer advertisements, Europeans wouldn't have rallied against the US to go to war. I do believe that Europeans are generally less likely to form neighborhood groups and have block parties together - which might explain their difficulty in mobilising together for touchy global issues.
Anyway, I enjoy your blogs. Kathy said you would feel popular if people responded to you. Though she says that I am slightly anti-American, I feel that I am more anti-mediocrity.
Posted by: Yungie | April 15, 2004 at 07:25 PM
Hey Yungie - good to "see" you here. Thanks for visiting, and I'm glad you enjoy the blog.
I am critical to much of what is going in Europe, just as I'm critical to much that goes on in the U.S. I don't feel particularly "pro" one thing and "anti" another. I think that Bush's policy is overly simplistic; but I also think that the European response is cowardly and childish in the sense that they seem more concerned about being different from the U.S. than doing the right thing.
Mediocrity, in my mind, is a function of several factors, one of them being pressure to conform and not rise above the crowd. At the risk of invoking Ayn Ran, I'd say that in addition to talent, it takes courage to be extraordinary. Geniuses usually (always?) stand on the shoulders of others, but I still feel pretty confident that most of them defied the constraints their locan environments placed on them. It's no coincidence that the more cosmopolitan a city was, the more it attracted cultural and artistic innovators.
Posted by: Leif | April 18, 2004 at 07:12 AM