Campus Life - Letters from Oxford University

Understanding anti-Americanism

By Wahei Aoyama

We hear it on the news, we feel the tension in the air, we see it on the faces of the masses: War is approaching, and the world is protesting. Feb. 15 was phenomenal: People around the world were united in showing their opposition toward the Anglo-American eagerness for a war against Iraq. Allegedly 1.5 million people gathered in London's Hyde Park, making the anti-war protests on that February weekend the largest public demonstration in British history.

Many students at Oxford also seem to oppose the war. Hundreds of students did join in the demonstrations in Hyde Park. Almost every day, I see protesters outside, trying to gather signatures for petitions to be sent to the government. However, although antiwar sentiment may be common within many democracies, another form of resentment grows stronger by the day in Oxford, as well as in much of the European Union. Anti-Americanism is that resentment, and its rise adds fuel to anti-war sentiment, just as the anti-war sentiment adds fuel to an even greater anti-Americanism.

The first time I came across America as a target of resentment was perhaps three months after Sept. 11. Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former Oxford student and U.S. President Bill Clinton, achieved notoriety for disrupting a peaceful anti-war demonstration held in Oxford. Rumor has it that the meeting, held in a conference hall, came to a halt after Chelsea barged into the room with several other American students, waving American flags and shouting slogans in favor of U.S. action in Afghanistan. This triggered a strong animosity toward American students who supported military action. Often unfairly, the Americans were labeled as warmongers and imperialists who want to maintain U.S. hegemony over global politics.

As the year progressed, I noticed that many Americans at Oxford were clinging together in groups much more often than before. Being American in a foreign country has never been more difficult. While British students increasingly condemned any sort of American pro-war action on immoral grounds, the condemnation itself seemed to become engulfed in a form of pan-anti-Americanism that criticized the Americans for just about anything the Americans did.

Americans were criticized for being both disengaged from the world and for being too interventionist. Americans were branded as uncivilized, non-intellectual and belligerent, and the image of Americans as trigger-happy cowboys was used as a rallying cry by many anti-war protesters. The Bush administration's arguments for war based on a "good vs. evil" approximation have disenchanted many students at Oxford and around the world. And so the growing animosity towards America has led many Americans to stick together at Oxford for comfort, in order to feel a little more secure in an increasingly hostile environment.

Yet I regard with apprehension any sentiment that tries to justify anti-war sentiment through blind adherence to anti-Americanism. Often the arguments are based on flat statements of empathy and not reason. Such arguments are hardly beneficial to achieving greater understanding between cultures and peoples.

At Oxford, two American students have formed "Americans for Informed Democracy" (AID), a group that tries to understand anti-Americanism and inform Americans of global views toward themselves, as well as trying to paint a fairer picture of the United States. This is a welcome step in the right direction. Constructive argument should be encouraged in the hope of a rational and impartial understanding of differing viewpoints. AID's task has just begun, and it is a daunting mission. Yet I believe AID will help to deepen the discussion at Oxford, and this in itself is much to be lauded.

Shukan ST: March 21, 2003

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