Thorn in the Side
By Stefan Baron

"The Democrat," the Columbian writer Nicolás Gómez Dávila observed, "is able to sacrifice even his interests to his resentment." It is not necessary to be, like Gómez Dávila, a disparager of democracy to find much truth in this observation. The elections for the Bundestag two years ago, for example, can be held up as evidence for this, as can, quite topically, the most recent presidential election in the United States. Never before, arguably, has an election campaign in a different and distant country fascinated the Germans as much as the competition between George W. Bush and John Kerry.

This is only puzzling on the face of it: There was much at stake in this election -- although not in the sense that most Germans understood it to be. Their opinion was summed up most pointedly by the filmmaker Wim Wenders on Sunday evening's Sabine Christiansen talk show. Wenders sketched out the nightmare vision of a "totalitarian" America, spoke of a "powder keg" that would "blow up" within the next few years and "take us all with it" should Bush be reelected. The studio audience applauded mightily, the resentment was palpable.

The German's concern, bordering on hysteria, over the results of the presidential election in the United States and the antipathy, barely distinguishable from hatred, toward George W. Bush expose an alarming mental state. They show a country as self-righteous and dogmatic as it is disoriented. And they show -- as did the successful mobbing against the Catholic-conservative candidate for commissioner, Rocco Buttiglione, in the European Parliament -- a frightening un-liberalism.

Of course it is no coincidence that, of all places, the Anti-Bush emotions resonate so deeply in this country. For many Germans, the traditional values nation, family, and religion no longer offer bearings by which to orient themselves. A man like Bush, who after many wrong turns has established his identity in just these values, must seem to them like the thorn in their side. He is the evil American. John Kerry, on the other hand, is the good one. Because he is as you are: noncommittal, fickle, without deep convictions.

The Germans feel that the Americans have struck out on a wholly different path from themselves. And they chalk this up to Bush, even though he only increased the march's tempo but did not determine the direction. While the Germans continue to think in ideological right-left patterns and to close their eyes to the looming clash of cultures, America is apparently determined to lead the fight and to take its role as the leading nation of western civilization seriously. This frightens the aging societies of Europe. They fear the inconveniences associated with it and would rather save themselves through these times with compromises: After us, the flood!

However, "In the clash of civilizations," warns U.S.-political scientist Samuel Huntington, "Europe and America will hang together or hang separately." On their own, neither Europe nor America will be able to preserve western civilization and its advances.

Much as George W. Bush and the America he represents are disliked therefore, we must realize where our interests lie. America, for its part, must recognize that without Europe, the cradle of its civilization, it cannot remain America and must rein in its unilateral-imperialist tendencies. "The main task of western leaders," according to Huntington, "is not to try recreating other civilizations in the image of the West but rather to preserve, protect and renew the unique quality of western civilization."

The appeal is aimed at Europe and America both. There is too much at stake for us to allow our resentment free reign. Those who are ready to accept Islamic Turkey into the Christian EU for geo-strategic reasons might as well turn the European Union into a transatlantic one.

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Stefan Baron is Editor-in-Chief of the German economic magazine WirtschaftsWoche and a member of the AICGS Board of Trustees.

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This essay originally appeared in German in Die WirtschaftsWoche Nr. 46, November 4, 2004. It appeared in the November 12, 2004, AICGS Advisor, translated by Sarah Fichter.

For the original German version, please click here.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) alone. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies.