eurotrash

i wish we were more cultured, like the europeans, cuz like, then everyone wouldn’t hate us and stuff.

ah yes, the american college student. (s)he strives to sounds as educated as possible at any given moment – and so (s)he should! after all, a $100,000 diploma doesn’t go as far as it used to. when you’re the 30th psychology major in line waiting to interview for a management position at abercrombie & fitch, you need to set yourself apart from the crowd. and what better way is there to impress a crack team of twenty-something managers (college grads themselves) than to impress upon them your knowledge of world culture? whether it’s an interview, a cocktail party or a funeral, people will always be impressed with words like “multilateralism” and “france.”

but not me. i’m consistently bemused – and somewhat disturbed – by the knee-jerk praise slathered on europeans by american “elites.”

to these multi-degree-wielding sophists, europe embodies what our society once had in its diversity and intersection of cultures, but lost in its national narcissism. americans don’t speak foreign languages; we don’t travel to different countries; and a disturbing number of us can’t point to our own continent on a color-coded map.

of course this country has its weak points, but it does not follow that europeans are necessarily more culturally sensitive or worldly than americans.

do these people mean to say that because we don’t have to dodge castles on the way to the uniprix, we lack a sense of history? true, we may not have the trappings of an ancient society, but what is it that the europeans see that we don’t? there are no monuments to the collapse of the british empire. germany is devoid of tributes to its great, failed socialist experiment. and the french... well, the french just like to smoke and talk about the infinite nature of nothingness. our freedom of expression ensures that we are highly critical of ourselves and appreciate even the pain of our history.

so i highly doubt that there’s any significant difference between their public appreciation of history and ours. moreover, i doubt there’s anything particularly enlightening about a language change on a trip that’s the same distance as baltimore to florida. come to think of it, we already do change languages – even when we’re all supposedly speaking english. and if you don’t think there’s a culture change between states, you should take a drive to oklahoma.

nevertheless, many will give the europeans the benefit of the doubt. but should we?

dutch filmmaker theo van gogh, said to be related to the artist vincent, was a prickly character, to say the least. van gogh was notorious for inflammatory writing that defied social taboos. quips like, “hey, it smells like caramel – they must be burning jewish diabetics,” make one wonder how he even made it to forty-seven.

of course, van gogh’s attacks were not limited to any particular faith, and he had recently enraged the islamic community with his display of passages from the koran on naked women. the piece was part of a larger critique of the sometimes-violent scripture.

so the surprise of the european community to his shooting and attempted decapitation is itself somewhat surprising.

but van gogh is not the focus of this article. what i’d like americans to appreciate is that the next day a bomb blew off the door of a local muslim school and that more than 20 arsons at mosques and churches throughout the netherlands ensued. i want americans to know about the monkey noises that spanish soccer fans shouted at english players of african descent at their international “friendly” last weekend, jeers repeated at a subsequent under-21 match.* i'd love to meet just one person who saw paolo dicanio raise a facist salute (or, if you're grand-daughter of the late dictator and far-right politician alessandra mussolini, a "nice roman salute") to the throngs of lazio fans in rome.

this acclaim by default is by no means limited to the social and cultural spheres. by the aforementioned logic, europe’s leaders must, of necessity, be better statesmen and diplomats than our own. the call for submission to international standards typically rest on the assumption that america is, to quote johnny depp, “like a puppy.” we’re a young nation that needs to be watched. we’re isolated, we’re inexperienced, and we’re naïve. democracy is a dangerous tool in the hands of hicks and cowboys.

so i wish that americans knew that france’s “liberal” socialist party joined with its extreme right-wing party in banning muslim headscarves in government buildings and attempting the same in schools. (note: the latter party’s candidate considered the holocaust “a detail of history” and finished second in their 2002 presidential race.) i wish americans were told that since britain’s 1995 gun ban, violent crime per capita has more than doubled. i wish that americans could appreciate europe’s damoclean sword, its public pension system. i wish that newspapers across the nation blared from their front pages that u.n.’s oil-for-food scheme has been linked to the french and russian governments, and that significant portions of saddam’s $21.3 billion was funneled into financial pools for international terrorists.

meanwhile, americans should take a certain amount of pride in the fact that that 45.9% of our “poor” own their homes, 72.8% have a car and almost 77% have air conditioning, a luxury in most of western europe. plus, even the poor have adequate space to store these trappings in their average 1,200 square feet of living space, compared to europe’s average of 1,000 square feet for both the poor and the rich, alike.

it’s delightfully ironic that if elitists were to take their own advice, they just might find out that europe’s not everything it’s cracked up to be.

------------------------------------

*although i do not condone retaliation, english fans deserve credit for their characteristically pithy response, chanting: “one armada and no world cups!”