WALTER LAQUEUR
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reaction in even the most tolerant European countries such as the
Netherlands and Denmark against too many immigrants (most of
whom are not political refugees at all) cannot surprise anyone. These
are densely populated countries that want
to
preserve their traditional
way of life. American pressure
to
bring Turkey into Europe, however
politically justified, is bound to face stubborn opposition because of the
fear of being swamped not by members of the Turkish secular elite but
by Islamists from Anatolian villages.
European newspapers such as the
Guardian, Le Monde,
and
Sued–
deutsche Zeitung
(and quite prominently also British and German tele–
vision) have featured during the last. two years damning, sometimes
scurrilous, contributions and manifestoes about the United States, often
by American writers, academics, and artists of whose existence even
usually well-informed people were often unaware. But it has been an
elite phenomenon. As far as sales are concerned Oriana Fallaci has been
doing far better-there seems to be a chasm as wide as in the United
States.
If
there is a great fear in Europe it is not of being swamped by
McDonald's and inferior movies and pop culture, it is the fear of being
mugged-not by Americans-when walking the streets of their home–
towns.
It
is the fear, justified or not, of becoming a minority in their own
neighborhood. And it is for this reason that in the long run, despite
valiant attempts by European and American intellectuals (with some
help from India and the Middle East and the protagonists of the Third
Way), anti-Americanism has no great future in Europe.
COME HOME, AMERICA: The advice to mind one's own business in for–
eign affairs sounds eminently sensible, but it is not always selfless and
disinterested.
Who wrote the following?
What the American people lacks is the remembrance of its own
destiny which most certainly is not the responsibility for world
order. The world creates its own order, America is only part of it,
even though an important one. The role of an international police–
man fits America remarkably badly and it is incompatible with its
own best traditions. American interventionism into the affairs of
other nations is economically ruinous. The U.S. government per–
manently confuses causes and consequences.
It
boasts that the
American people has to pay a price for maintaining its freedom and
democratic institutions.
In
fact, the American people pays a great,
too great a price for the follies of its government, for blindly fol–
lowing its leaders. The American people has no interest
to
impose
