Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Hear it straight from the horse's ( frog's ? ) mouth:
What the French don't see across the Atlantic
André Kaspi IHT Tuesday, October 21, 2003
France-U.S.
PARIS uite a few among the French think they know everything about the United States. Some have traveled there, visiting New York or the marvelous national parks of the West. More often they've seen television reports, scanned the press or listened to the tales of a friend or cousin. In short, they know for sure that Americans are remarkable, infantile, obese, imperialist, lacking in culture, generally insufferable and always hostile toward France.
It's true that every country has its stereotypes. But is it not in the best interest of the French to make a better effort to understand others, including the Americans? Is it acceptable, for example, that there are only a dozen historians in France who research the United States, while on the other side of the Atlantic about 2,000 historians patiently and skillfully dissect French history?
Among all the sources of anti-Americanism, the death penalty ranks at the top. While all members of the European Union have renounced capital punishment (France was not in the avant-garde), the states of the American South, and Texas above all, continue to put people to death. This is a deep gulf that separates the two continents. It needs to be explained.
From 1977 through spring of 2003, 852 people were put to death in the United States. In 2002, there were 71 executions, and 3,700 men and women are currently on death row. It is legitimate to be indignant. On the condition, however, that we understand the functioning of the federal and state judicial system, that we understand the role of lawyers and public opinion, that we understand that racism is not the one and only explanation for the death penalty, that we take note of the countless appeals and other legal avenues open to the condemned, and that we appreciate the debate about the death penalty within the United States.
There are so many questions the French don't ask, as if the answers are obvious, as if they are totally familiar with the history, laws and sociology of the United States.
Whatever sympathy or antipathy we feel for America and the Americans, there are a few truths that need to be repeated again and again.
First, the United States is growing more and more removed from Europe. This is related to demography. There was a time when Americans were, for the most part, daughters and sons of Europe. Today, they are increasingly the daughters and sons of the entire world. Out of a million immigrants who enter American territory each year, two-fifths come from Asia, two-fifths from Latin America. This is a reality that is weighing more and more on attitudes, ideas and foreign policy.
Second, a recent investigation reported that religious convictions are weakening at an astonishing rate in Europe, while maintaining their strength in the United States. The rate of religious observation is at more than 40 percent on the other side of the Atlantic, four or five times higher than that in France.
Third, the French have not sufficiently analyzed the strong measure of U.S. patriotism that has surged in the aftermath of Sept. 11. The multicultural American society, which we had regarded as Balkanized, has better integrated newcomers than a centralized France. The United States, on the other hand, is having difficulties understanding a Europe that is more interested in commercial deals than in its own defense, that is loosely united and that has trouble defining its own identity.
It's tempting to extend the list of differences. They explain the tensions and the frictions. America and Europe are not coming closer; they grow farther from each other day by day. If we, the French, want to understand the Americans, we will have to make an effort. Do we have the will?
The writer is a professor of U.S. history at the University of Paris I (Sorbonne), where he directs the center for North American history. He has just published "La peine de mort aux Etats-Unis."
What the French don't see across the Atlantic
André Kaspi IHT Tuesday, October 21, 2003
France-U.S.
PARIS uite a few among the French think they know everything about the United States. Some have traveled there, visiting New York or the marvelous national parks of the West. More often they've seen television reports, scanned the press or listened to the tales of a friend or cousin. In short, they know for sure that Americans are remarkable, infantile, obese, imperialist, lacking in culture, generally insufferable and always hostile toward France.
It's true that every country has its stereotypes. But is it not in the best interest of the French to make a better effort to understand others, including the Americans? Is it acceptable, for example, that there are only a dozen historians in France who research the United States, while on the other side of the Atlantic about 2,000 historians patiently and skillfully dissect French history?
Among all the sources of anti-Americanism, the death penalty ranks at the top. While all members of the European Union have renounced capital punishment (France was not in the avant-garde), the states of the American South, and Texas above all, continue to put people to death. This is a deep gulf that separates the two continents. It needs to be explained.
From 1977 through spring of 2003, 852 people were put to death in the United States. In 2002, there were 71 executions, and 3,700 men and women are currently on death row. It is legitimate to be indignant. On the condition, however, that we understand the functioning of the federal and state judicial system, that we understand the role of lawyers and public opinion, that we understand that racism is not the one and only explanation for the death penalty, that we take note of the countless appeals and other legal avenues open to the condemned, and that we appreciate the debate about the death penalty within the United States.
There are so many questions the French don't ask, as if the answers are obvious, as if they are totally familiar with the history, laws and sociology of the United States.
Whatever sympathy or antipathy we feel for America and the Americans, there are a few truths that need to be repeated again and again.
First, the United States is growing more and more removed from Europe. This is related to demography. There was a time when Americans were, for the most part, daughters and sons of Europe. Today, they are increasingly the daughters and sons of the entire world. Out of a million immigrants who enter American territory each year, two-fifths come from Asia, two-fifths from Latin America. This is a reality that is weighing more and more on attitudes, ideas and foreign policy.
Second, a recent investigation reported that religious convictions are weakening at an astonishing rate in Europe, while maintaining their strength in the United States. The rate of religious observation is at more than 40 percent on the other side of the Atlantic, four or five times higher than that in France.
Third, the French have not sufficiently analyzed the strong measure of U.S. patriotism that has surged in the aftermath of Sept. 11. The multicultural American society, which we had regarded as Balkanized, has better integrated newcomers than a centralized France. The United States, on the other hand, is having difficulties understanding a Europe that is more interested in commercial deals than in its own defense, that is loosely united and that has trouble defining its own identity.
It's tempting to extend the list of differences. They explain the tensions and the frictions. America and Europe are not coming closer; they grow farther from each other day by day. If we, the French, want to understand the Americans, we will have to make an effort. Do we have the will?
The writer is a professor of U.S. history at the University of Paris I (Sorbonne), where he directs the center for North American history. He has just published "La peine de mort aux Etats-Unis."
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