The Continuity of Anti-Americanism…

One of the main problems in Greece is that we must constantly go back to what we learned in elementary school, by saying that “one plus one equals two.” So, here we go: One person dead plus one person dead, equals two people dead. One American dead plus an Iraqi dead does not equal zero, but it again equals two people dead. According to basic addition, the 22 people who have been killed in Afghanistan plus the 42 people in Iraq and the three in U.S. equals 67 people dead. Not one less. However, they may become more when we’re not free of racial, religious and political prejudice.

Fortunately this time there has been no crudeness such as that recorded in Manolis Vasilakis’ book entitled “It Serves Them Right: Greek Public Opinion After 9/11” (Athens: Gnoseis, 2002), including, for example, the opinions of some Greek playwrights. One stated, “I felt great! I wanted to video the two planes passing through the Twin Towers and watch it over and over whenever I felt sad, to please myself,” and the other wondered, “INNOCENT people? Are there INNOCENT victims?” Some remnants of sick anti-Americanism survived to poison the atmosphere.

Did we learn anything after the outcry over celebrating 9/11? Probably the disaffection of Greek expatriates in the U.S. — among the victims of the Twin Towers were 49 Greek-Americans — has taught us something. Maybe it’s once again poisonous anti-Americanism — attention! not the political kind, but the primitive one, which is the result of being in a recession. It would be even worse if the seed of hatred was planted elsewhere. Let’s hope that we will never know where.

The point is that all these ”anti” prefixes don’t have a place in a society that is barely politically educated. Opposition to political tactics is totally different — anyone can disagree with American foreign policy, German economic policy, etc. But we cannot lump a whole nation together because of their leadership’s policy. The concept of collective responsibility is the foundation of racism. Joy or celebration whenever citizens of other nations are going through tough times is budding fascism.

As we’ve written about in the past (04/13/2003), “The problem in Greece is not anti-Americanism. Anti-Americanism was promoted by the political left after the Greek civil war, but also by the political right, and the junta. That anti-Americanism was political. It had theoretical bases, it had memories and, in particular, it was consistent. It was an intellectual construction that explained reality according to the rules of capitalism and imperialism. Whether this interpretation was right or wrong, the previous anti-Americanism was coherent. It was based on rationality… The new anti-Americanism is indifferent to reality and rationality. It acquires anti-Western touches — not political, but deeply philosophical.” The same thing happens with the “anti-Germanic” feeling which has lately become a trend.