Anti-Climacus

QUOTE: London Spectator on anti-American lunatics in Germany:

"Friends of Germany, among whom I count myself, must hope that the present outpouring of anti-American resentment will be a brief and purifying phase, from which Germany will emerge as a mature and sovereign nation. But certain difficulties stand in the way of such a happy outcome. The Germans consider the Americans to be a backward people with a primitive economic system in which dog eats dog and the state fails lamentably in its duty to direct, protect and organise the life of the people. Yet for some mysterious reason the Americans appear to be a rich, strong, confident, secure, relaxed and patriotic nation. What is more, Germany will only recover its economic dynamism when its dopey political class, among whom the pursuit of consensus long ago degenerated into listless moral cowardice, introduces reforms which give the German economy some of the flexibility and spontaneity found in America. This is a bitter pill to swallow, and the Germans as yet show no sign of finding the stomach for it.

Mr Schröder is a gifted and ruthless opportunist, with an acute ear for the mood of his fellow Germans. But the anti-Americanism which he has helped to promote may prove a force that even he cannot control. There will be official attempts at fence-mending: the Germans are already offering some sort of help in Iraq and will try for a time to avoid making as much of a fuss as they might about Iran, North Korea and genetically modified crops. But there is now such deep and bitter suspicion on both sides, in Washington as well as in Berlin, that it is impossible to imagine a true meeting of minds. The German opinion polls show rapidly increasing support for the idea of a European superpower, to act as a check to American ambitions: 70 per cent of Germans now favour that idea, compared with only 48 per cent a year ago. No matter that they are not prepared to spend the money which alone could give substance to that project. The Germans are going the way of the French, intent on a kind of European Gaullism that puts every possible obstacle in Washington’s way. Unable to bear the reality of American power, they have opted instead to live in a world of illusions."