[ALBSA-Info] Fwd: European Communities, a report from Greece and Albania. JAY NORDLINGER//The National Review

[Agron Alibali]

 FORUM <forum at sanx.net> wrote:From FORUM Mon Nov 11 09:46:48 2002
X-Apparently-To: aalibali at yahoo.com via 216.136.172.36; 11 Nov 2002 16:03:41 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: 
Received: from 207.241.174.34 (EHLO san1.san.com.al) (207.241.174.34)
by mta620.mail.yahoo.com with SMTP; 11 Nov 2002 16:03:23 -0800 (PST)
Received: from pdr ([207.241.174.7])
by san1.san.com.al (8.9.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id VAA28802;
Mon, 11 Nov 2002 21:20:25 -0100
Message-ID: <038801c289c1$11387000$6db9fea9 at pdr>
From: "FORUM" 
To: 
Subject: European Communities, a report from Greece and Albania. JAY NORDLINGER//The National Review
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 18:46:48 +0100
Organization: FORUM
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_02D2_01C289B2.B248E1A0"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200
Content-Length: 10406

 European Communities, a report from Greece and Albania 
JAY NORDLINGER, The National Review

Greece is said to be the most anti-American country in Europe, and Albania the most pro-American. As it happened, my itinerary included both countries. I was to speak on 9/11 and the ongoing war, and to mix it up a little with local journalists and intellectuals. Anything learned? Many things, among them that there is really no such thing as a European: The continent is not a monolith, no matter what the grandees in Brussels might wish. Also, that anti-Americanism is something of a house of cards, ready to collapse with a breath of reason and explication. Of course, you can do nothing about the die-hards. But what can you do about die-hards anywhere, including on an American campus?

The first thing an American is told in Greece is, “Don’t say anything about terrorism”—meaning, domestic terrorism, with which Greece has had a problem. The Greeks are very sensitive to criticism on this score, particularly coming from Americans. Recently, government authorities rounded up the terrorists of the November 17 group, which has wreaked havoc for the last 25 years. In the course of their work, they murdered five Americans, and the Greek political establishment did not seem especially sorrowful or alarmed. In light of the current American-led war, and the coming of the Olympic Games to Athens in 2004, the Greeks were feeling extra pressure to do something about terrorists in their midst. Good for them. I was certainly not going to mention it, even to laud it.

But a young journalist in Thessaloniki (or Salonika, as we once called it) was quick to spring it on me: Why are you Americans so sensitive about this terror group, since merely five of your people died at its hands? This attitude—rather bristling and callous, actually—reminded me of something that had just been reported in The (London) Spectator. The magazine’s editor, Boris Johnson, interviewed the Saudi ambassador to London, one Ghazi Algosaibi, notorious for penning poetic homages to Palestinian suicide-bombers. The ambassador, in an obvious effort to flatter his interviewer, said, “The American psyche is unlike the British psyche. . . . You have two prime ministers almost killed, and you say, Oh, well, some things are fated, some are not. The Americans say, We are going to go and get them.”

This is a typical criticism, certainly heard in Greece: American overreaction (to go with American arrogance, bullying, ignorance, and all the rest). I, for one, found it helpful to cite Donald Rumsfeld’s line, which is that the present war is not a war of revenge, retaliation, or retribution—those are the three wrong R’s. No, it is a war of self-defense, because unless our enemies are subdued, they will kill many more, as they have vowed. Recite this argument, and heads are likely to nod; at least there is a willingness to consider.

After the 9/11 attacks, there was an unseemly amount of gloating in Greece, as well as outright celebration. “Serves them right” was a too-common sentiment. Greeks, and not all of them on the hard left, offer the usual complaints against the U.S., not forgetting to cite Kyoto, the International Criminal Court, and globalization (seen as an assault on the Third World rather than a boon to it). Terrorism has a “root cause,” and that is “international poverty,” which America does too little to address. The country is a glutton for oil, which is all Washington cares about in the Middle East, no matter what it says about security, stability, peace, and freedom.

An idea of how far the scales are tipped against America among the Greek elites may be seen in the comment of a journalist—the same one who badgered me about sensitivity to November 17: During the Kosovo war, his position was that Milosevic was a brutal dictator who deserved removal, but that the American action was contrary to international law. This, he explained, with a certain twinkle, made him a pro-American apologist in the eyes of many of his friends and colleagues—even to suggest that the goal of restraining the Serbs was just. If this is what passes for a pro-American toadyism in Greece . . .

But condolences for the dead of 9/11, expressed over the recent anniversary, were numerous and heartfelt. A moving ceremony was held at the U.S. consulate in Thessaloniki, involving both local and national officials, and including the chanted prayers of black-hatted Orthodox clerics. Indeed, moving ceremonies were held all over Europe. And this raised a point that is slightly awkward to make: Some in Europe, as elsewhere, are perfectly happy with America as a victim nation, brought low by mass murder. They may be slightly less happy with America as a self-defending nation—a people willing to do something about it. Jacques Chirac’s eyes fill with tears when he remembers the dead of September 11; his expression turns harder when it comes to steps designed to prevent future September 11s.

Even so, a little talk—a little arguing, insisting, and cajoling—can go a long way. Take the U.N. (please, our conservative Henny Youngmans might say). At every turn, Greeks are quick to mention the U.N., and, more particularly, the insufficient American deference to that body. They seem unused to hearing a well-grounded skepticism about the U.N. You can make the old Solzhenitsyn point, that this body is not so much the united nations as the united governments, or regimes. It is only as good as the governments that compose it. Furthermore, the U.N. is an organization the head of whose human-rights commission is Syria; the next head is scheduled to be Libya. Can you forgive a person, or a country, for being less than reverential about a body like that? And really, when you get down to it, Kofi Annan and the U.N. are not responsible for the safety and security of the American people; the president and the American government are. No American would begrudge any other country—Greece, for example—the right to defend itself, however it could. And you say it is illegitimate to go it alone? Can any civilized nation or person be sorry that Menachem Begin went it alone, in 1981, when he took out the Iraqi (and French) nuclear reactor, much to the displeasure of the entire world, including the United States—the Reagan-led United States, at that?

Again, heads may nod, and a certain understanding dawn, even if persuasion is not complete. It seems a sad fact that many of the Americans whom Greeks and other Europeans encounter are on the left. They are a parade of professors, journalists, and others, who may share the very assumptions and prejudices of local anti-Americans. Susan Sontag seems widely read, and she is distressingly widely quoted. Before arriving in Greece, I was told that if I, as a National Review editor, showed up without horns and a tail, that itself would be a victory. It is surely salutary for a European audience to hear a forthright, Republican-leaning American voice every now and then—if only to understand how such as Reagan and George W. Bush can be elected in the Land of Sontag (and Chomsky).

It should be remembered, too, that, even in a robustly anti-American country like Greece, there are reservoirs of support (or even dissent, you may call it). A friend of mine pointed out that there is a “red-state” Europe just as there is a “red-state” America—a population whose views withstand the contradiction and censure of the dominant classes. It was remarkable to see an older Greek man rise at a forum to say, “I’d like to show you the greatest gift I have ever received in my life.” He then reached into a bag and jammed on his head an “FDNY” cap (representing the Fire Department of New York). To be rather Agnewesque about it, this might not have gone down well with the professors and editorialists; but it brought at least one grin.

‘THE ISRAEL OF THE BALKANS’

On the northwestern border of Greece is Albania, a country that experienced the worst that Communism had to offer. For 50 years, it was a virtual dungeon, a kind of European North Korea, with no one coming in and no one getting out. So pure a Communist was the dictator, Enver Hoxha, that he broke from both Moscow (in 1961) and Peking (in 1978), judging them dangerously liberal. In the last years, Albania suffered near-famine.

Now, however, it is struggling to rejoin the world, and the country is as good a friend as America has in Europe, if an unfortunately powerless one. Albanian fondness for America is longstanding, going back to at least 1913, when Woodrow Wilson declared that the country should go its own way, have its independence, instead of being carved up by its neighbors. Albanians speak of Wilson as if he had been president yesterday.

Shortly after Communism fell in 1991, Secretary James Baker made a visit, and he was thronged by cheering, weeping, practically delirious Albanians in the main square of Tirana, the capital. Some even kissed his car. Adding to the regard for America was the U.S. role in the Yugoslav war. Whereas Greeks are likely to decry American intervention—anywhere—Albanians are likely to plead against American withdrawal or disengagement of any kind, seeing U.S. forces as the only thing between humanity and the beast. In the present war on terror, Albanians are so supportive of America that other Europeans have sneered at them, “You’re the Israel of the Balkans!” I suggest, using a trite American political phrase, that the country ought to wear this as a badge of honor.

Albania is often cited as a Muslim nation, and it is true that a majority of its citizens profess Islam. But this is misleading. For one thing, Balkan Islam is apt to be nominal, and if it is not, it is of a distinctly non-Saudi, tolerant style. For another, the main “religion” of Albania is something called “Albanianism,” a national feeling or devotion intended to thwart clashes among Muslims, Orthodox, and Catholics. The Saudis and other Gulf Arabs, however, are doing their best to radicalize and thus destabilize the country. They spread money around, virtually bribing mothers to veil their daughters, and to send their sons to Islamic schools, often far away. If those sons do go, they come back changed, frighteningly. Throughout Albania, Gulf Arabs have refurbished madrassas long disused: The price for such physical refurbishment, of course, is an adherence to Wahhabist ideology.

Most local analysts do not believe that Albania will be sucked in: Their Islam is too different, and they wish desperately to be integrated into Europe. If all goes well, Albania will have its EU membership in 20 years. Right now, it is the poorest country in Europe, “except possibly for Moldova,” one journalist notes. (This reminds me of the old saying in Arkansas: “If it weren’t for Mississippi . . .”) In truth, Albanians would rather deal with Americans than Europeans, on the grounds that Americans are more straightforward, more direct, less slippery. Certainly the Albanian intelligentsia—and, yes, there is one (as more people will realize once Ismail Kadare wins the Nobel Prize in literature, as he almost undoubtedly will)—is with America, and baffled at the anti-Americanism in other parts of the continent. One Albanian journalist recounts to me his experience on a panel with an editor for Le Monde. Wide-eyed, shaking his head, he remembers that this man was not only pro-Castro, pro-Chavez, but perilously close to pro-bin Laden.

It is becoming axiomatic that the U.S. should hunt where the ducks are—should seek its friends where they exist. In Europe, those friends are readily found in the formerly Communist countries, where an appreciation of America is keener. One Albanian suggests that the very concept of “the West” needs adjusting. Consult a map. To begin with, Prague is west of Vienna. (This is one of the great party questions having to do with geography. The favorite in America is: Which is farther west—Reno or L.A.? The answer, of course, is the unexpected.) Athens has always been considered a Western capital, a NATO capital: It is east of Sofia, Budapest, Warsaw, and all three Baltic capitals, just to name a few. There is every evidence that George W. Bush grasps this. This president is no fan of state dinners, which perhaps keep him up past his bedtime, and in an annoying tuxedo. He has only held two in his entire time as president: the first for the president of Mexico, and the second, last summer, for the president of Poland. That is “no accident,” as the Marxists say.

This country has friends in Europe, even where those friends are outnumbered, or outshouted. They should be encouraged; others should be engaged. “Public diplomacy,” to use the going euphemism for old Information Agency work, can only do so much. But it can do something. Anti-Americanism can be muted, and pro-Americanism can be emboldened. “Don’t scuttle the Pacific,” MacArthur liked to say. There is no need to scuttle Europe. Divide it, perhaps. Talk to it, coax it, bat it around a little—definitely. And whenever you are feeling low about our European cousins, remember the Double-Headed Eagle—the symbol of the Albanian nation. They remember you.



---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site
-------------- next part --------------
HTML attachment scrubbed and removed