James Wolcott writes,
We are quite willing to stand by our British brothers and sisters, as long as we can stand a good safe distance and still do our shopping.
To me, the greatest insult to the British and their losses was delivered today, all the more insulting because it was thoughtless and unintentional.
I was watching the news of the two minutes of silence held for the victims of the London bombings, a silent vigil held not just in London but across Europe.
"Britain's Queen Elizabeth stood in silence at Buckingham Palace. In London's Trafalgar Square, a giant banner declared 'One City, One World.'
"Taxis and buses pulled over, workers left their offices to stand in the street and financial markets paused to remember the dead.
"In Italy, government offices, railway stations and airports paused while television stations cut into normal broadcasting to honour the London dead.
"In Paris, President Jacques Chirac's annual Bastille day television address was put back so the French could mark the moment. Chirac stood silent on the steps of the Elysee Palace."
Has the United States or even simply Washington, DC held a silent moment for the victims of the London bombings? Has any national gesture of solidarity been proposed?
If so, I haven't seen or heard of it. We're just going about our business while insisting that the world perpetually acknowledge our scars and trauma from September 11th as our justification to wage whatever aggressive action we deem necessary to ensure it never happens again.
For months, we've been hearing and reading that Brits no longer discriminate between average Americans and the policies of our government--that the reelection of Bush has made them hold us in something of the same contempt they hold him. Well, they have good reason, and we keep furnishing them with better reasons all the time.
A Moroccan friend told me something similar just prior to the US elections last November. He maintained that most North Africans generally viewed Americans favorably despite the US having elected W the first time around -- the administration and the American people were held to be separate entities worthy of separate judgments. But if W was reelected, my friend had said, this view was going to change. Now, this is purely anecdotal information. But for many worldwide, the reelection was a genuine surprise and a kind of realization that Americans really do support American aggression abroad. We're not just stupid; we actually are aggressive. In addition to the real, concrete damage caused by administration policies, this view is not to be underestimated in terms of its long-term damage to the image and international policy-making of the US. Legitimacy is crucial at the international level in all kinds of ways, including getting what one wants, and it is largely a matter of perception of a global power as legitimate. The collapse of American legitimacy in its benign sense then entails a malignant form in which a state must take what it wants through sheer economic or military force. And the US is a wanting and self-regarding state.
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