I am gratified by the
reader response to my book review of Jean-Francois
Revel's Anti-Americanism (In defense of the Stars and
Stripes, Apr 3).
Obviously, it is a
pleasure to read letters like those from Hugh J
Pavletich (Apr 8) and Mehran Sharmini (Apr 6). To be
honest, I have to admit that reader Dr Toby Mottram (Apr
8) is correct when he says "I hope Parker feels better
after getting all that phlegm off his chest" - yes, I
do. In fact, for a long time, I simply found the antics
of the anti-Americans amusing, a pathetic acting-out of
their irremediable inferiority complexes. This changed
on September 11, 2001, when I began to understand that
the constant, vicious demonization of Americans in the
global press was a major contributing factor in the rise
of movements like al-Qaeda, whose glassy-eyed members
believe with total sincerity that murdering random
American office workers will instantly transport them to
paradise, where they will be eternally entertained by 70
virgins. Whatever its effect on others, September 11
made me aware that Americans need to defend ourselves,
rhetorically as well as militarily, against fanatical
idiots who would make us the scapegoat for all the
world's complex problems. In defending the United
States, too, we are also defending human progress as a
whole, since civilization has never advanced by branding
certain minority groups - whether they be Americans,
Jews, Chinese, African-Americans, Muslims, Protestants,
or Irish - as inherently wicked and evil.
I am
especially flattered, and a bit surprised, to be praised
by Muslim readers like Mr Bilal Saqib (Apr 8). Rational
and perceptive voices like his must be heard, and heard
often, if the Islamic world is to escape its current
predicament. I have never been, and never will be,
against Muslims or their religion. In fact, there are
many Muslims whom I deeply admire - men like the Iraqi
dissident Kanan Makiya, the Malaysian oppositionist
Anwar Ibrahim, and even Iran's President Mohammed
Khatami. (The fact that I would single out Khatami, who
leads a member of the "axis of evil", as a personal
hero, should put to rest any perception that I am
somehow a "Bush lackey".) Of course, these men are very
different with respect to their nationalities,
professions and respective political roles. What they
have in common, besides a truly noble and courageous
character, is their refusal to participate in the
unfortunate practice, so prevalent in the Islamic world,
of blaming one's problems on others.
I was
gratified to read Mr Saqib's letter for another reason:
he is from Houston, a city I love, and lived in for
several months in 1996. That city, by its very
existence, disproves almost all the accusations of
Islamic extremists and their Western apologists: it is a
teeming, polyglot commercial center, carved out of fetid
swampland in only 150 years, that hosts representatives
of virtually every nationality on the globe, living and
trading in prosperous, busy proximity - Lebanese
bakeries, Indian sari stores, Vietnamese pho
restaurants, and Jewish delis can be found in the same
neighborhood. It is, in other words, America as it
really is, not as the fanatical anti-American cultists
try to depict it. Muslim Americans have been prominent
in Houston for almost as long as it has existed:
Lebanese immigrants, such as the famous Jamail family,
played crucial roles in its early commercial
development.
I wish that we lived in a world
where Mr Saqib's recommendation to "exude civility"
could be universally followed. Regrettably, I think that
the time for civility is long past when it comes to the
anti-American cult. If Americans do not defend their
country and (when appropriate) their government's
policies in the strongest, most articulate terms
possible, our conviction in absentia in the court
of global opinion is inevitable. Writers who present
unpopular ideas, like Charles Darwin and Mr Revel, have
no alternative to marshaling massive, indisputable
evidence and presenting it in the clearest and most
forceful manner imaginable; otherwise, they have no hope
of making a dent in their vastly more numerous and more
unscrupulous critics.
Dr Mottram has many
thoughtful comments to make. His point about American
unwillingness to act against Irish Republican Army
supporters is surely well taken; of course, this had a
great deal to do with the political weight of
Irish-Americans, as he is no doubt aware. I am also
sympathetic to his perception that he cannot influence
the actions of President George W Bush. I would respond
to this in several ways. First, Bush is indeed the
president of the United States - not the president of
the world. Is it reasonable to expect him to act as the
latter? Would anyone want him to do so? And would any
other world leader be held to this standard? ("President
Vladimir Putin, you haven't paid attention to the
Jamaican people's needs!") Second, whether Britons
realize it or not, they in fact have far more ability to
affect US policy than any other nation. This is not only
because of Prime Minister Tony Blair's careful
maintenance of a place at the White House table - a
policy that was obviously the correct one in terms of
protecting British influence in Washington, regardless
of how virulently British America-bashers may excoriate
Blair for it. Rather, it is primarily because ordinary
Americans innately respect Britain, its culture, and its
political traditions, and will usually listen to a
British critic in situations where they would
instinctively tune out, say, an Arab or Latin one.
Having said that, the increasing prevalence in UK
journalistic circles of writers who assume the United
States to be inherently evil is destined to decrease,
not increase, British influence. (This a point made more
generally by Revel, who also points out that Europeans
themselves are largely responsible for their lack of
influence over US actions.)
The good doctor also
brings up the dreaded bugbear of "unilateralism". I
would like to respond to this by recommending he read
Chris Hitchens' article Multilateralism and unilateralism: A
self-canceling complaint, which appeared
December 18, 2002, on Slate. No one who has read this
article will ever casually accuse any nation of
"unilateralism" again. Hitchens' main point is that the
word is inherently tautological when applied to policy
positions. For example, if one regards the US invasion
of Iraq as "unilateralism", then the solution is simple:
support the US position; then it will become
multilateral, by definition. If, on the other hand, one
takes some other position, such as "Iraq should continue
to be run for the benefit of a psychopathic crime
family", then it becomes clear that the disagreement is
actually one about policy, not about unilateralism vs
multilateralism. Of course, the anti-Americans are most
reluctant to acknowledge this, because then they would
be saddled with the tedious duty of defending specific
policies. This is unthinkable, since dreary arguments
about pros and cons would get them bogged down in the
boredom of the real world, a place they avoid at all
costs, preferring as they do to dwell in the
bizarro-fantasyland where Everything Is Always America's
Fault.
Do I exaggerate? Not in the slightest; in
fact, this instinctive recoiling from inconvenient facts
can be seen clearly in the letters that were unfavorable
to my review. Usman Qazi (Apr 6), Steven Jarvis (Apr 5),
and Lester Ness (Apr 5), for example, all disliked my
article, but were somehow unable to come up with a
single specific objection to any of the points that it
makes. Thus, inadvertently, they have provided helpful
additional evidence for the main point of my review (and
Revel's book), which is that anti-Americanism is mostly
the result of psychological obsession, not objections to
specific US policies. In actual fact, the fundamental
cause of anti-Americanism is the implacable resentment
of those with superior status by those with inferior
status, a primal force that is not even unique to human
beings: the beta wolf in a wolf pack hates the alpha
wolf not for his errors in leadership, but for his
existence, because by existing he consigns the beta wolf
to inferior status. (Ironically, inasmuch as I believe
in the inherent equality of all humans, the
self-perception of the anti-Americans that they are
inferior is one that I would heartily disagree with.)
What points these three writers do make are all
flawed. Mr Qazi thinks that I believe all criticism of
US government policy to be the result of
anti-Americanism, which I clearly never said. An entire
paragraph of my review was devoted to a discussion of
Revel's scrupulous acknowledgement of the legitimacy of
criticism, and I have made it crystal-clear that I agree
with this position. Indeed, having frequently criticized
US government policies myself in the past, I would
hardly imply such actions were illegitimate. This also
applies to the letter of Mr Zihan, who makes essentially
the same point - I certainly did not claim, nor would I
ever, that the United States is "pure and innocent";
rather, I would say that the US is about as "pure" as
everyone else, which is to say, not very. Mr Jarvis
describes Anti-Americanism as "deeply flawed" but
doesn't bother to explain why. Because it isn't
anti-American, perhaps, Steven? Finally, Mr Ness
describes my review as a "hymn to Bush", which leads me
to wonder if he actually read it, considering that the
entire article contains not a single phrase directly
praising either Bush himself or any Bush administration
policy. It does depict critics of the Bush
administration as being more concerned with obsessive
denunciation of the US itself rather than objecting to
specific US policies. At the risk of stating the
obvious, attacking critics of a politician, on whatever
grounds, is not the same as praising that politician. Mr
Ness might be interested to know that I voted for Al
Gore in the 2000 election. I am no fan of George W Bush.
Rather, I am against the ludicrous and deranged
demonization of the man by individuals who deliberately
choose to remain ignorant of his actual character and
beliefs, while clinging to a silly stereotype of him
promulgated by the anti-American cult.
As to
Laurie from Seattle (Apr 5), who complains about my
using the review to op-ed: if she had ever read, say,
the New York Times Book Review, she would know that book
reviewers frequently use the format to comment on the
issues of the day. Regarding her comment on not all
anti-Americans being communists, of course they are not
- the Islamo-fascists, who despise communism, being only
the most obvious example. In fact, when I noted that
many anti-Americans had advocated totalitarian communism
(however irritated some people may be to have this
pointed out publicly, it is factually correct), I
carefully qualified this with the parenthetical note "in
many cases" to make it clear that this was not true in
every case. Laurie also asserts that "most Americans
support universal health care" - a debatable statement
to say the least, which the failure of former president
Bill Clinton's health-care plan clearly shows. In
actuality, the level of support probably depends on how
the poll question is phrased. She also repeats the
frequent claim of the ultra-left that Americans who
supported the war in Iraq only did so because they were
gullible dolts who were intimidated by nuclear-weapons
scare stories. Sure, all the nuclear-weapons stories
were fiction - that's why a uranium separation
centrifuge was found buried in a Baghdad back yard after
the war. Uh-huh. Of course, far be it from me to suggest
that the fellow-travelers who chained themselves to
sites in Iraq to prevent bombing were at least as
gullible as this, in risking their delicate skins to
protect a fascist terror state.
My favorite
"anti" letter, undoubtedly, is that of AP from the
United Kingdom (Apr 9). I really must thank Mr AP (or
should I call him Mr P?) for proving my points about the
obsessive bigotry, profound hypocrisy, deliberate
ignorance, and thinly veiled anti-Semitism of the
anti-Americans so well, as he displays all these
qualities in great abundance. AP has obviously been
drinking deeply from the well of anti-Americanism 101;
he hardly misses a single one of the usual allegations.
The most hilarious of his many factual howlers is his
claim that "the native American tribes ... have been
reduced to mere hundreds". This is a superb example of
the deliberate avoidance of contrary facts, since it
took me all of 20 seconds on Google to find out that the
native American population of the USA, according to the
2000 census, was 4.1 million. Of these, 2.5 million
reported themselves as American Indian/Alaska Native
alone, with the remainder being of mixed-race ancestry
(in fact I would count myself in this latter group,
since I have an American Indian ancestor). Of course,
one could go on to point out that the main factor in
reducing the native American population from its
pre-Columbian level was diseases introduced by the
Spanish and Portuguese, well before the 200-year period
mentioned by writer Hugh J Pavletich, but this would be
pointless with individuals like AP. Indeed, there is
really nothing to be gained in responding to fantastical
statements like "World Wars I and II were instigated by
the international monetarists" - at least he avoids
saying "Jews" - except perhaps to suggest that these
days, clozapine is the preferred drug for dispelling
paranoid delusions, and AP really ought to speak to a
psychiatrist about getting himself a prescription. AP's
doctor could also gently inform him that Gavrilo Princip
(the Serbian nationalist who initiated World War I by
assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand) and Adolf Hitler
were, technically, not Americans.
Without
beating a dead horse, it is chilling that AP is (or
claims to be) a lawyer - given his absurdly one-sided
recitation of alleged US crimes, it seems he must have
missed the law-school lesson that discussed the
adversarial nature of the legal system, whereby both the
prosecution and the defense are allowed to speak.
Besides beautifully proving my point about
anti-Americans being engaged in an endless show trial,
his letter also makes one fear for the future of the
British legal system, if ignorant cretins like himself
are in charge.
John Parker (BS, MS) is
a freelance writer based in Vietnam.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
Apr 15, 2004
No
material from Asia Times Online may be republished in any form without written
permission.
Copyright
2003, Asia Times Online, 4305 Far East Finance Centre, 16 Harcourt Rd,
Central, Hong Kong
