Kommentar von Alexander S. Emanuely
Kommentar von Alexander S. Emanuely
A short history of the vision of “America”
Alexander Emanuely rolls out the history of the view of America once again, and follows the traces of former (European) visionaries.
For a long time the USA was the utopia become true for Europeans. What nowadays is taken for granted in Europe, such as democracy, the constitutional state, freedom of the press and religious freedom, in short the civil society, was first tested, discussed and, during the first decades of its existence, realised in the USA. Today it is easier than ever to cross the pond but ideas about politics, morality and culture on either side of it have steadily diverged. Never before have Europe and America been so far apart. But with the expansion of the EU in southeastern Europe an ideological “western expansion” is coming back that is also splitting the EU. For “Report” writer and political scientist Alexander Emanuely rolls out the history of the view of America once again, and follows the traces of former (European) visionaries.
In 1853 Karl Marx wrote in the “New York Daily Tribune”, that he had nothing against American intervention in Europe, as for him America was the “strongest representative of the West” that could put an end to the -“barbarism of the East”. Here he probably meant only Russia and the Ottoman Empire, but Europe at the time was equally backward and despotic in socio-political terms. Instead of awaiting this intervention, most Europeans fled directly to the New World, for everything that in Europe was unthinkable and seemed impossible to achieve had, on the far side of the pond, been fought for in an impressive way and then successfully realised. The USA was a utopia become true and the surface onto which various utopian ideas were projected. Two major waves of refugees, one in the century of the Enlightenment, the other after the unsuccessful revolutions of 1830 and 1848, fundamentally shaped America. But America did not exist solely as a bearer of hope, European anti-Americanism also had its supporters from the very start. Logically they were particularly well represented among the members and supporters of the old feudal and absolutist order that, following the failure of the French Revolution and during the time of the restoration and the Biedermeier period once again shaped the destiny of Europe. The American European history began. The first wave In the USA people still remember today that a number of people from the old world played leading roles in the Wars of Independence from 1775 to 1783. Several towns, parks, memorials and parades are named after European heroes from this period, for example after the Briton Paine, the Frenchman La Fayette, the Prussian von Steuben or the Pole Kościuszko. Typical of this first generation was that its members returned to Europe after the victory in order to continue fighting for “the cause”. La Fayette in 1789 in Paris and Kościuszko in 1791 in Poland, where a few months before the French he established a modern constitution that was thus the first valid one in Europe. And Paine was regarded as the founder of the workers movement in England and in France. At that time people still thought – and fought – in a cosmopolitan way. But who were these people? Why did they first go to America before bringing the revolution back to Europe? In this context, Benjamin -Franklin, who was the envoy of the American Republic in Paris from 1776 to 1785, played a central role. Franklin was a philosopher and friend of Voltaire’s. Franklin did not powder his hair and his face, it was said, was as well known to his French contemporaries as that of the moon. They compared him with Plato, Brutus and Cato. The fact that Franklin came from a lower middle-class background and had managed to become a diplomat and widely esteemed thinker was probably the reason for this unusual admiration. He had behind him a career that at this time would have been impossible in Europe – with perhaps the exception of Great Britain and Switzerland. Franklin also proved that he had a good nose for talent. He discovered an excellent journalist and thinker in Thomas Paine; in the Marquis de La Fayette a wealthy dreamer with good contacts to the court at Versailles, which ultimately were to bring about the American-French alliance against Great Britain; in Baron von Steuben a Prussian officer without whose organisational talent the revolutionary army would not have got far; and in Tadeusz Kościuszko a cultivated fortifications engineer and warhorse. These few names also stand for numerous other people who around this time left London, Paris, Berlin and Warsaw for America not just to find their own happiness there but also and above all the happiness of humanity as a whole. The second wave In the 1820s the ideas of the civil society in Europe were augmented by those of a social egalitarian society. With Charles Fourier, Saint-Simon (who fought side by side with La Fayettes ), and finally with Marx and Engels, socialism was born. In the case of Thomas Paine there had already been a direct relationship to socialism or its predecessors. In Great Britain industrial and craft workers founded the “Corresponding Society”, inspired by Paine, in 1792. After seven years and up until 1825 it was banned, largely because during its heyday it had brought up to 150,000 people out onto the streets. This first organised workers movement immediately declared solidarity with the American and French Revolutions. Although it may sound paradoxical: in the 19th century the USA was the “farmers and workers paradise” at least in the minds of European workers and many intellectuals. Perhaps because the first models of an early socialist utopia were implemented in the USA. This development had certainly been encouraged by the attitude of sectors of the American elite, above all Thomas Jefferson who was to become president in 1800. Such people saw the future of the country in its size, a land where there was room for all kinds of communities based on farming, crafts and small industry. In his travel journal Duke Bernhard zu Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, a close friend of Goethe, was to describe America of the 1820s and this approach. In this report that Goethe refers to mention is made of the generally high level of education and the social balance in many communities and towns in the USA – achievements that were not really preserved over the course of time. At that time, however, Goethe went so far as to say that if he were 20 years younger he would emigrate immediately. In Europe revolutions broke out again in1848. Whereas in France the 2nd Republic remained in existence for a number of years, the republic in Germany was bloodily defeated pretty quickly. Thousands of Germans fled via Paris and London to America and many of them were to leave their mark on the USA. Of mammon and the rabble As soon as it had emancipated itself the New World was, above all for the European elite, a disturbing entity that was far too attractive to their subjects. Not only had an entire part of the world been removed from their control, on the far side of the big pond an alternative social model developed that was to fundamentally question their own model. The “rabble” had suddenly achieved dominance. It was no longer his origins that determined the fate of the individual, but above all his abilities. To counteract this America was first of all discredited in every respect. This criticism had only a limited success because of the flow of information from the New World, whether through the reports of freedom fighters that returned to -Europe from America or through Americans such as Benjamin Franklin quickly painted a different, positive picture. Nevertheless in the pre-1848 era in German-speaking areas with the help of poets such as Nikolaus Lenau, “the man tired of America” or Heinrich Heine a negative image of America was successfully created. Lenau had travelled to America to earn money, but did not succeed and consequently vilified everything there as a “culture without a base” And for Heine America was the country “where the rabble, the most repugnant of all tyrants, exercises its crude domination”. Similar statements came from almost all European countries. They influenced the general mood, which became increasingly reactionary and nationalistic. The Americans were made into uncultured barbarians who had taken on the wild entrepreneurial spirit of the Indians as seen in the imagination. Instead of the security of tradition everyone relied on him or herself and with this picture it was easy to create fear. Hope of insight It was only in 1871 that in Europe France, as a larger state, successfully established a republican model on the long term. After only ten years the young republic presented its sister, who was one hundred years older, with the monumental Statue of Liberty by the sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. And although this statue was to become a symbol and the first image of their new home for many emigrants, it should not be forgotten that originally it was intended to symbolise for republicans on both continents that the USA, despite all adversities, despite its lonely position in world history had carried the torch of enlightenment for so long. The USA showed the world that nobody needed a monarch, aristocracy or a church, which in the 18th and 19th century meant a great deal. And who knows, perhaps without the USA as a utopia become true, now in continuous existence for 231 years, Europeans would never have found the courage for so many, ultimately successful battles against absolutism, dictatorship and, finally, in the 20th century, against fascism. The picture of America today But this utopian élan no longer shape Europe’s view of America. In this picture all the old stereotypes of lack of cultural and inferiority as well as criticism of current American policies are mixed together. Over 50 per cent of the Western Europeans think critically of American and the Americans, more than ever before. Andrei Markovits, states that European anti-Americanism represents “A general and comprehensive dislike that has no concrete reasons or causes”. But this criticism has been mutual for some time now. In “Zeit” Timothy Garton Ash asked: “What about the anti-Europeanism of the Americans? And comes up with a series of trans-Atlantic prejudices. Europeans are “Eurotrash”. “They have lost their values in multi-lateral, trans-national, secular and post-modern games. Instead of spending their euros on defence they spend them on wine, holidays and inflated welfare states, while the USA has to do the difficult and dirty business of taking care of world security – also for the Europeans.“ What is regarded in Western Europe as un-cool, i.e. a pro-American stance does not, however, apply to many new Eastern European states. Europe no longer has a single voice, as far as “America” is concerned. In many Eastern European countries the image of the USA is far more pragmatic and since 1989 America is regarded as the liberator from the totalitarian regime in Moscow. One could say that for many East Europeans who are currently involved in building up their civil societies the USA still represents something utopian and visionary, as does the EU also, of course. But many of the former “East-bloc countries” refuse to take part in this often polarising discussion. It is not by chance that the pro-EU forces in Eastern Europe are also the most pro-American. These countries do not forget that history has shown that the USA is the big sister of the EU, not even the most virulent anti-Americanism can obscure this fact.