MONEY TALKS:
Many Europeans feel that big business has hijacked America's politicians
Posted Sunday, Jan. 12, 2003; 2.09 p.m. GMT
Scratch a European complaint about the U.S. and it almost always reveals the person of George W. Bush — the "toxic Texan," as one American diplomat ruefully puts it. The President's domestic record embodies things many Europeans find strange, if not repellent, about the U.S.: pro-gun, pro-death penalty, pro-Christian, antiabortion, strongly patriotic. A worldwide survey by the University of Michigan confirms that Americans have basic values that are notably more traditional than Europeans, closer in this respect to those of Indians and Turks than to Germans or Swedes. Particularly offensive to Europeans are Bush's swagger, tough talk and invocations of God and right and wrong, part of his born-again tradition that is attuned to the U.S. mood after Sept. 11. "We don't see the common guy from Chicago," says Gérald Duchaussoy, a 28-year-old office worker in Paris. "We see Bush. And politicians here don't speak with his language."
"It's nonsense to say, 'We're the force of good,'" says Pierre Hassner, an expert on transatlantic relations at the Center for International Studies and Research in Paris. "After all, the religious tradition also includes humility. Identifying your enemy with evil and yourself with good isn't religious; it's part of a certain strand of Protestantism. We're living through the battle of the born-agains: Bush the born-again Christian, bin Laden the born-again Muslim." Reinhard Hildebrandt, a professor of political science at Berlin's Free University, says that when politicians invoke morality, "Europeans assume such language conceals power interests. We don't like to mix up power interests with good and evil." Karsten Voigt, coordinator of German-American relations at the Foreign Ministry, says simply: "Self-doubt is stronger here than in America."
"We're living through the battle of the born-agains: bush the Born-again Christian, bin Laden the born-again muslim"
— PIERRE HASSNER
So is a nagging sense of inadequacy compared to the American behemoth, with a defense budget that's bigger than the next 25 countries' combined — and the confidence to use it. In the two biggest recent challenges to European security, Bosnia and Kosovo, it still took American intervention (after many missteps) to finally put things right. Blair last week chided his fellow Europeans for giving in to the "reverse unilateralism" of "leaving the U.S. to face the tricky issues alone." "Europeans resent, though they wouldn't put it this way, the power, reach, cultural and economic success of the U.S.," says a senior British official. "There's always been this chip on the shoulder, a complex about the big brother." A senior Czech diplomat says Bush's strutting only reflects reality: "It's hard not to have a heavy hand when you are very heavy."
Historically, France has been the European country where America's hand has weighed heaviest. Despite the antipathy, though, the two countries are remarkably similar: both believe their nations have unique missions in the world; both are intensely patriotic; and both believe their way of life is best. "We're a place with pretensions of universalism," says Stéphane Rozès, director of CSA, the polling institute that conducted the Le Parisien survey. "France sees itself as carrying universal values into the international sphere, just as America does. But in this case, the French see the Americans harnessing their superpower status not to the greater interest of the world, but to its own national interests" — something, of course, that other countries think France does very well itself.
Despite resentment of the Bush Administration's bad-cop strut, it has achieved results: getting Russia to accept Bush's missile defenses and encouraging Vladimir Putin to cast his lot with the West, and squeezing the Security Council into its 15-0 vote on Iraq. Though Bush's decision to go through the U.N. had plenty to do with domestic public opinion — a survey by the German Marshall Fund and Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, on which he was briefed, showed that 65% of Americans wanted U.N. blessing for any war — the move nevertheless took considerable diplomatic skill and patience, reflected concern for other countries' opinions and confounds the easy European caricature of Bush. Besides the Iraq vote, Bush also assembled a big coalition for Afghanistan. The most deafening European complaint about Washington these days is insularity: that no one but Colin Powell picks up the phone and that Bush pays no mind to leading opinion beyond his own shores. The U.S. "is astonishingly ignorant about other cultures," says Dominique Chagnollaud, a professor of constitutional studies at the Sorbonne — and at the same time "we have the impression that it is always telling everyone else what to do." Bille goes even further. "The trouble arises when we feel we're not only not being listened to," he says, "but when the Americans make no pretense of even wanting to hear what we have to say."
Archbishop Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace at the Vatican, which opposes war in Iraq as it opposed the Gulf War, uses religious language to describe American self-absorption. "Power is a temptation," he says. "It's like there's one bottle of a drink and you are alone in the room. You are tempted to drink from it now and again, and eventually you get inebriated. And you forget to take care of those others who maybe just want a sip."
