Opinion
July 17, 2003
I side with the Yanks: my beautiful relationship with Europe has been marred
Magnus Linklater
I think of myself as a fully paid-up European. Studied in France and Germany; modern languages at university; favourite film hero, Alain Delon; favourite actress Romy Schneider; favourite holiday destination, Andalusia; favourite food, vitello tonnato; just about capable of holding my own on subsidiarity; a veritable bore on the merits of German motorways and the French TGV. I had assumed that, whatever the political impediments, my own journey to the heart of Europe would be simple, straightforward and, above all, enjoyable.
But my beautiful relationship has been damaged. A splinter of glass was blown into it last week in a fine hotel, high on a Swiss mountain, looking out over Lake Geneva, with views towards France on the other side, and Italy hovering in the distance. It was as close to the beating heart of Europe as I needed to be. The sun shone, the water sparkled, and from below us, in Montreux, the sounds of the annual jazz festival floated gently upwards. Around me swilled an international, but largely European, group of well-intentioned souls debating the future of the media. Among us also, were several distinguished Americans.
It was, I suppose, to be expected that the war in Iraq should loom large in our discussions. What I had not anticipated was that this single event should now so clearly define European attitudes, that opposition to the war was more or less assumed and hostility to Washington was held to be synonymous with informed opinion. The Americans were defensive, the British divided. The issue was debated many times, but it took shape, for me, in the course of a lengthy and brilliant discourse on the future of the market economy, from a French speaker. While outlining thoughts on financial regulation that would have sat perfectly well on this page, he devoted one section of his speech to the “symbolism” of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre. It was of course, he said, an evil act, but the twin towers, as symbols of Western capitalism, had become an almost inevitable target for terrorists; their collapse had something of the Old Testament about it — the razing of a monument to untrammelled power. If we were to counter future threats, we should create different symbols — a form of capitalism that would be less divisive than the American version.
It slipped in so neatly, so rationally, that no one, not even the Americans, listening intently through their earphones, thought to challenge it. Indeed, it was only as I considered it afterwards that I realised what had been said. The implication, not openly stated, was that US economic power was, in itself, a justification for terrorism, that if it was not modified, then it might expect more of the same, and that Europe, if it was wise, should adopt a different model if it was to avoid similar attacks. No mention of 3,000 lives lost; no condemnation of the worst terrorist act of our age; instead, the unmistakable whiff of compromise hovering in the air.
I felt a twinge of Anglo-Saxon resentment. I realised these views were widely held on the radical Left in Britain, but if they were now part of mainstream opinion in Europe, things had gone further than I had imagined. As it happened, I had been in Italy on the day of the attacks, and had been overwhelmed by the spontaneous demonstrations of sympathy for America and outrage against the act. Those expressions of solidarity seemed now to be distant memories. In the aftermath of the war in Iraq, they had been succeeded by a rejection, not just of military action itself, but of US values as well. I asked an American journalist what he thought. He was more puzzled than angry. “What have these guys against us?” he asked.
If this was a criticism of America, then Britain, presumably, was included as well. As a good European, I remembered my French: “Cet animal est méchant. Quand on l’attaque, il se defend.” This animal is very bad. When it is attacked it defends itself. I decided, on this occasion at least, to line up with the Yanks. I yield to no one in my muddled confusion over the war — I was in favour of military action, pleased at the fall of Saddam Hussein, angry at being conned over WMD, appalled at what has happened in Iraq since then. But I cannot leap nimbly on to a European bandwagon if it so lightly brushes aside a terrorist outrage.
Many Americans confess to being traumatised by what happened — just as much as we Europeans might be if the planes had flown into the Vatican, or the Elysée Palace, the Reichstag or the Palace of Westminster. If we are incapable of understanding that, then we have lost the essential ingredient of humanity that I once understood to be inseparable from the European ideal. And if we cannot regain it, then I, for one, will count myself out.
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