Airstrip One

Is Anti-Americanism in Britain increasing in strength? - 23rd January 2003, 22.05

Carol Nahra, a journalist for the Globalist for fifteen years, certainly thinks so. Most of her journalese is the usual mishmash of remembered comments and amusing stereotypes but two themes do ring out. One is the increasing Americanisation of British culture that leads to a view of the 52 states that no longer conjure any reality:

The British, conversely, have spent the last several decades bombarded by U.S. culture and observing the increasing U.S. dominance of global politics. As a result, they seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make sense of their wayward child. All in all, their conclusions are not kind. To much of Britain, most Americans are overweight, gun-toting, bible-thumping trailer-living fat people.

Their political views often seem to be more anti-Bush than anti-American, but this is shaped by an unconscious sense of foreboding, an awareness of Britain's vulnerability and unease at where Blair might lead us.

“America is like a teenage adolescent on the world stage that we just have to wait to grow up,” my friend said. “But in the meantime, they might blow us away.” And in this argument, I feel his grievance is an entirely understandable one. It stems from the most basic of instincts: fear. For if the U.S. attacks and Saddam fights back, Brits know that it’s a lot easier for the missiles to reach London than New York. That’s the geography that is currently bothering the British

Quite