THE HARRUMPHING CURMUDGEON
Am I at war with the Guardian? That's what a reader charges. My indulgent, long-suffering girlfriend, who has had to learn to live with the fact that the sound of my rustling Guardian usually heralds a string of inarticulate harrumphs and grumbles, has raised the same question: "if you don't like it, darling, why do you read it?" The fact is, I do like it. Perhaps I even enjoy the harrumphing. The Guardian is, in fact, a very entertaining paper, and, like other British newspapers, it provides more actual information on international matters than any US daily that I know of. (Readers of the San Francisco Chronicle may be puzzled at the notion of turning to a newspaper for "information," but that is nonetheless a clear advantage; the disadvantage is that in order to read it cover to cover you need to allot more than fifteen minutes.) Of course, it has a pretty severe anti-American slant, particularly on the editorial page, and that's what causes the all the harrumphing. I think they see themselves as fulfilling their traditional role as the "voice of the opposition," and that they must play devil's advocate and run against what they see as the prevailing current, whatever that may be. (They hate Tony Blair, too; they hate just about everyone who isn't losing.)
Anyway, in happier, easier times, I always preferred reading the Guardian because of its relentless snide, withering tone, which is tremendously entertaining. (And the English do snide cum withering better than anyone-- and better than anything else they try to do, for that matter.) When it comes to less frivolous matters, however, the constant drumbeat of anti-American sarcasm and dry ridicule gets a bit wearing.
This is true even outside the quirky pages of the Guardian. It's strange being an American in England during this war, as Chelsea Clinton discovered. The British public as a whole supports the war in Afghanistan, and indeed seems to feel a degree of warmth and an affinity for America and Americans. However, you can hang around in London for quite awhile and never meet any of these people. Anti-Americanism hangs heavily in the air, and, among the "educated classes," expressing anti-American sentiment is a mark of hip sophistication. It can range from relatively benign college-campus fluff like "killing is bad-Bush is an idiot-war never solves anything" to the more extreme "you're just as bad as the terrorists-now you know what it feels like to be the victims of your own tactics." It's similar to home-grown college campus anti-Americanism in some ways; in other ways, it has a slightly different flavor (more later on this, I promise, Moira.) The notion that this war might be a just and honorable cause against an evil enemy that threatens Western civilization itself, that America had no choice but to pursue the perpetrators, even that our victory would be preferable to our defeat-- this notion is not allowed even the ghost of legitimacy.
The success of the Afghanistan campaign has dampened, though not eliminated, the once-ubiquitous predictions of military disaster and impending doom; but the suspicion of American motives, the pessimism about the chances of success, the distaste for American patriotism itself, remains. The Guardian reacted to the fall of Kandahar with one astonishing pro-war editorial (almost Churchillian, as such things go) before returning to what they do best the very next day. The audience demands it, you see. And so it goes. More harrumphing to follow.
Posted by Dr. Frank at December 18, 2001 07:12 AM | TrackBack