This week, after a little playful goading, I feel it is time to
broach a subject that has become a phenomenon in the political
discourse of right-wing America: the ideology of supposed
“anti-Americanism.”
On Tuesday, a contributor to the Daily Bruin wrote that it was
“high time that Matthew Kennard explain why he is in this
country when he obviously cannot stand its policies and
politics.” I interpreted this and the rest of his letter as
saying, “if you have the temerity to criticize the Bush
administration and support working people, then you are profoundly
anti-American and should leave.”
It’s an interesting premise because it displays an
attitude that is typical of a set of uniquely ideological
neo-conservatives who attempt to define what it is to be American,
and posit that any departure from that definition is antithetical
to “American values.”
In my experience, “anti-American” has been used
merely as a lazy pejorative that’s thrown at any foreigner
““ or American for that matter ““ who makes reasonable
objections to the Bush administration and its radical agenda.
It’s no coincidence that it’s a phrase most frequently
seen in the literature and discourse of Bush Republicans while
liberals rarely use the term.
It’s just a very effective way of shutting down dissent. I
mean, what do you say to it? It’s like being accused of being
racist; what can you say? “I’m not a racist”?
There is simply no way you can respond to such a vacuous
accusation.
I love America and American people, but do I have to say that
every time I reproach the Bush administration for its greed and
warmongering?
Having said this, there is undeniably a rise in enmity toward
the American government ““ and maybe, by association, the
American people ““ across the world. It’s sad because
there was rightly a massive outpouring of sympathy and grief for
the United States after the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001. But it is
not hard to pinpoint where this current animosity comes from, and
it has nothing to do with the American people or their culture. It
has to do with the destructive and violent policies of Bush and
Blair. It’s not anti-American or anti-British to say so; in
the words of the famous slogan, “peace is
patriotic.”
Internally the United States is, as I have said before, the
greatest country in the world with wonderful diversity, tolerance,
culture and freedom. The vast abyss between the rhetoric and
actualities of its foreign policy is what gives it a bad name in
the world. Britain is exactly the same. It is up to the citizens of
both countries to make our leaders live up to the enlightened
words.
The second strange argument from the conservative quarter is
along the lines of, “If you hate the leadership, why do you
come here?” If people listened to that ludicrous assertion it
would mean a trip to Mars. There is not one regime on this planet I
can think of that is perfect enough to be immune from
criticism.
When Bush came for his state visit to London, Thom Yorke, the
lead singer of Radiohead, told the National Music Enquirer that
Bush was a “religious lunatic” and “liar”
who was “putting our children’s future in
jeopardy.” Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay and
husband of Gwyneth Paltrow, said at the Brit Awards in London,
“We’re all going to die when George Bush has his
way.” Do these people think Radiohead and Coldplay
shouldn’t come to tour in America because of their disdain
for Bush?
Only last year, the mayor of London said that George W. Bush was
“the most dangerous man on the planet.” Does that mean
that no Americans are welcome in London? Of course not.
This idea that the inhabitants of a country are somehow
synonymous with their leaders is ridiculous. It’s also very
totalitarian. Those who flippantly use the term
“anti-American” might be surprised that they are
uncomfortable bedfellows with their arch nemesis, Joseph Stalin.
During the Soviet police state, any of the brave dissidents who
departed from the party line were condemned as
“anti-Soviet” because the commissars equated the party
line with the Russian people ““ a harebrained and dangerous
proposition but one that doesn”˜t seem to have died.
Would these same people, after all, call the hordes of critics
of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi anti-Italian? What
about the innumerable critics of Blair, are they anti-British?
The term “anti-American” also instantly turns the
United States into some sort of monolith, which it certainly
isn’t. There has always been a long and illustrious history
of anti-war and humanitarian dissent within the country.
When Mark Twain founded the Anti-Imperialist League in 1898 to
protest the U.S. occupation of the Philippines, was he going
against the principles that this great country was founded on? I
would say he was doing the opposite and bringing out the best in
American liberalism. So these specific totalitarian conservatives
can continue to believe this absurd notion that any criticism of
the Bush administration is just visceral hatred of the United
States and, as Bush puts it, “our freedoms ““ our
freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to
vote,” or they can ask a more rigorous “why” like
a lot more serious people are now doing.
I love this country and its people but ““ like most of the
world and a lot of Americans ““ I hate the Bush
administration. Is there a contradiction here? I don’t think
so.
Kennard is a third-year history student. E-mail him at
mkennard@media.ucla.edu.