America, the Arrogant?

MADRID—Strolling around Spain, it is not uncommon to overhear jokes like these:

Q: How are a Whopper and the Twin Towers similar?

A: There’s meat between the top and the bottom.

Osama bin Laden says to President Bush, “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.”

Bush: What’s the good news?

Osama: I’m coming to turn myself in.

Bush: What’s the bad news?

Osama: I’m coming by plane.

These are rather disturbing, but here in Spain, they are just two of many bin Laden and Twin Tower jokes that have been circulating since Sept. 11. I think that their insensitivity can be attributed to the Spanish sense of humor—they don’t take anything, aside from their food and wine, too seriously. But though the Spanish are probably the most gracious and welcoming people I have come across (besides the Irish), there is also an undercurrent of anti-American sentiment here, as in all of Europe.

I only came to realize from living abroad that the rest of the world pays so much attention to what America does (in some ways, the same as other colleges watch Harvard as an example), but America doesn’t reciprocate. This is part of what frustrates people on the eastern side of the Atlantic—there is a pervasive feeling that America is a bully in the playground, and that although the European Union has 300 million people and a booming economy with the richest culture and history in the world, America generally ignores it. And in terms of politics, America, at least in recent years, has flaunted its wealth and ability to ignore what the rest of the world is doing far too many times. Europeans have come to dislike the American government, and by extension, the American people.

Everyone to whom I spoke, young and old, wealthy and working class, perceive President Bush to be an ignorant farm boy, sort of a drifter, and they can’t understand how he got elected. I’ve had many of the same feelings myself, except that it’s perfectly clear to me how the Republican machine got him selected by the Supreme Court. When I explain to Europeans that he was a heavy drinker until the age of 40, that before he was president he had never visited Europe, that he rode into office on the shoulders of his daddy and the rest of the Bush clan, they are dumbfounded. Many people have laughed and said it is like a monarchy.

And the Bush administration’s policies—against the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Protocol and countless other global accords—have done little to help America’s reputation. Steel tariffs, the death penalty, the reluctance to support the U.N. and to fight AIDS in Africa: these shock most Europeans. When I explain that most liberal Democrats (myself included) support changing these policies and signing these treaties, the Spanish are much more friendly. They are relieved to know that not everyone in America is ignorant, or insane, or selfishly turning their backs on the world’s problems.

But I soon got sick of making excuses for my country and its appalling behavior. When I met Europeans in Paris and Pamplona, I introduced myself as an Irish citizen going to school in America. While I wasn’t ashamed of this, the truth is that aside from being born in Ireland and holding an Irish passport, I’ve spent the majority of my life in America. So why be deceptive about my background? Europeans seem to hold a lot of stereotypes about Americans; saying I’m from Dublin rather than Pittsburgh is like saying I’m from Boston rather than Harvard. The difference, of course, is that by saying you’re from Harvard people might resent you because they think you’re a workaholic, a social outcast or an elitist; saying you’re from America makes people think you’re fat, ignorant, rude and full of money.

Being Irish seems to carry a much more positive stereotype than being American, and indeed Ireland sets a good example on the international stage. In addition to ratifying the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol, and consistently supporting the U.N., Ireland gives a much higher percentage of its GNP as foreign aid—and recently announced a new initiative to help fight the nutrition crisis in southern Africa. When I was leaving the Bastille in Paris at 2:30 a.m., cabs were very hard to get, and I begged some rather drunk French men who were getting out if I could have theirs. They asked if I was from Holland, and I said Ireland, after which they all started shouting, “Robbie Keane, Irlanda, Robbie Keane” and immediately offered me the cab. My two British companions were baffled, as they knew a) I don’t speak a word of French and b) the French hate Americans. Of course, I’m not positive the French reaction would have been negative if I’d said American, but I doubt they would have started chanting “Roger Clemens, América.”

The Spanish citizens and media, regarding the Middle East, are much more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than Americans are. When I discussed the situation with my Spanish teacher, she referred to the Israelis as invaders, who have a huge army and endless support from the United States, and the Palestinians as victims with no way out. She said she can’t justify the suicide bombings, but she asked, “what other options do they have?” In Europe, the atrocities committed by Israel’s army are more widely reported than in the United States. American Middle East policy doesn’t have much support over here either; as far as they are concerned, Sharon is just as bad, or worse, than Arafat. And why, they ask, should we tell the Palestinians that Arafat can’t be their leader when we preach democratic leadership and we ourselves have a moron like Bush in office?

The Spanish also share my perception that America wants to attack Iraq not to secure democracy in a country ruled by an evil tyrant, but to get to more cheap oil and improve the Bush approval ratings come election time. They, like almost everyone else in Europe, are very wary of an attack and don’t think another war would help anyone. I was very impressed that my Spanish teacher had heard about the time Cheney—on behalf of the oil company Halliburton—held secret discussions with the Taliban about running an oil pipeline through Afghanistan. She also knew that the CIA had trained many of the Taliban and supported bin Laden in the past.

If people in Spain—one of America’s NATO allies—hold these feelings, it is not difficult to imagine how people in other areas of the world feel about America. This last joke about America’s current hawkish government is being told on the streets of Madrid, but its echoes are heard across the globe.

In 2065, a child asks his father, “Daddy, what were the Twin Towers?”

The father says, “The Twin Towers were enormous office buildings destroyed by the Muslims.”

The child is quiet for a moment, and then asks, “Daddy, who were the Muslims?”

Nicholas F. B. Smyth ’05, a Crimson editor, is a government concentrator in Dunster House. He holds dual Irish and American citizenship; this summer he has been working in Madrid and taking weekend trips to Segovia, La Rioja, Pamplona and Paris.