EUROPEAN/AMERICAN RELATIONS: WHO LEADS?
669
modernity inside those countries. The resentment against the current
bearer of the moral values of liberal modernity has always been con–
nected to anti-Semitism . The carriers of those attitudes are the national
intellectuals and their audiences. Of course, the problem is that moder–
nity has spread through native intelligentsias, through native intellectu–
als. Anti-American and anti-Israeli Arabs are not the regular Falashas
believing in Allah. In fact, they are totally secular. That allows them to
abuse their religion in the interest of their secular aims. They are the
ones who are drawn by the promises of Western modernity and, at first,
made themselves a model out of it. They were the greatest admirers of
Britain, France, later perhaps the United States. Maybe the United States
didn't make it in the time frame of Arab nationalism's growth. They
adopted those national identities and then understood that as Arabs
they were not equal to the Western nations they admired. Because of
that, they developed envious resentment. They wanted to eliminate
them so that they wouldn't constantly be reminded of their own inferi–
ority. Now one finds those unholy alliances among European intelli–
gentsias. Also, the European intelligentisias are probably only the
second best among those whom they hate, because first place is taken
by the United States and Israel. They still are the leaders in the struggle
against the very best. While America is the liberal light in the eyes of the
world, American intellectuals are not. They are their nation's worst ene–
mies. These intelligentsias are their own gravediggers, like the prole–
tariat was supposed to be earlier. It is unfortunate, however, that while
digging their own graves, they are also digging graves for others.
Peter Wood:
It's a little after four, so I am going to call this session to a
close. Fifty years ago, "Our Country and Our Culture" was on the rela–
tion between European high culture, European intellectuals, and what
was becoming a more robust American culture. So here we are, fifty
years later, talking about much the same things. But how things have
changed! There seems to be no doubt amongst the panelists that Amer–
ica leads, that we are dealing with a fai led European culture.
If
Liah is
right, we are dealing with an America that leads despite its intellectuals,
and we are leading a world which may not be too willing to follow,
according to Conor Cruise O'Brien. That seems to be very different
from the way things were in
1952.
We've covered a lot of ground in two
days. This has been a very successful conference, and may I thank the
audience that has so patiently stuck with us. Thank you very much.
