Wednesday, June 30, 2004 |
11:00 - Why They Hate Us
http://www.hudsonreview.com/BawerSp04.html
|
(top) |
Joshua sends along this very worthwhile (and long) article by Bruce Bawer that delves into the very heart of European anti-Americanism.
That this was, in fact, a crucial question was brought home to me when a travel piece I wrote for the New York Times about a weekend in rural Telemark received front-page coverage in Aftenposten, Norway’s newspaper of record. Not that my article’s contents were remotely newsworthy; its sole news value lay in the fact that Norway had been mentioned in the New York Times. It was astonishing. And even more astonishing was what happened next: the owner of the farm hotel at which I’d stayed, irked that I’d made a point of his want of hospitality, got his revenge by telling reporters that I’d demanded McDonald’s hamburgers for dinner instead of that most Norwegian of delicacies, reindeer steak. Though this was a transparent fabrication (his establishment was located atop a remote mountain, far from the nearest golden arches), the press lapped it up. The story received prominent coverage all over Norway and dragged on for days. My inhospitable host became a folk hero; my irksome weekend trip was transformed into a morality play about the threat posed by vulgar, fast-food-eating American urbanites to cherished native folk traditions. I was flabbergasted. But my erstwhile host obviously wasn’t: he knew his country; he knew its media; and he’d known, accordingly, that all he needed to do to spin events to his advantage was to breathe that talismanic word, McDonald’s.
For me, this startling episode raised a few questions. Why had the Norwegian press given such prominent attention in the first place to a mere travel article? Why had it then been so eager to repeat a cartoonish lie? Were these actions reflective of a society more serious, more thoughtful, than the one I’d left? Or did they reveal a culture, or at least a media class, that was so awed by America as to be flattered by even its slightest attentions but that was also reflexively, irrationally belligerent toward it?
I don't know who would benefit more from reading this: Americans oblivious to just how much adolescent ire is directed towards this country from people we think of as "allies", or Europeans who might be chastened to see themselves in the mirror?
I have a friend who, though born in Michigan, travels the world and lives in Scandinavia as often as he can, where I know he spends much of his time guffawing in Swedish with his tall, ponytailed friends over how awful America is. I think he might be an excellent candidate for having this forwarded his way.
|
|