The Ugly anti-American

2005-07-29T11:21:00.000-04:00

Showcase Dresden:

Anti-Americanism and Historical Memory in Germany

[Originally written February 14, 2005.]

I came to Dresden, about as deep inside the former Communist East Germany as one can go, to see what promised to be a major demonstration. Sunday, February 13th 2005 was the 60th anniversary of the Allied firebombing of the city. Tens of thousands of demonstrators were expected to appear to commemorate one of the most infamous incidents in the history of modern warfare. Others came to protest. Others came to instigate. Others came to forget. In the night of the 13th and in daylight on the 14th, 1945, British and American planes devastated with hundreds of thousands of incendiaries and high-explosive bombs most of Dresden’s historic center, built up over centuries as the capital of the Wettin dynasty’s prosperous joint kingdom, which at its height, in the middle 18th century, included both Saxony and Poland. The city’s baroque Altstadt, renowned at the time for its sprawling beauty, was reduced to a rubble field, thousands upon thousands of its citizens buried and burned alive. So it goes.
It is very often that one hears that the Allied attack on Dresden served no conceivable military purpose. Dresden was by no means one of the Reich’s major industrial centers; most of these were to be found in the Ruhr valley, and already lay in ruins or even under Allied control by the time Dresden burned. Indeed, many later argued, the war was already over in all but name. The Red Army was already at the gates of Dresden, having shortly before occupied nearby Silesia, driving hundreds of thousands of ethnic German refugees before them. It is generally assumed that most of these found their way through Dresden, and many of them were surely among the later dead unearthed in mid-February 1945.

But was Dresden so innocent, a city of no military importance? Dresden did possess a reasonably large industrial base, virtually all of which had been converted for military production and taken over by the German Army by the time of the attack. The city was also a major transportation hub, through which not only despairing refugees but also troops and war materiel en route to the Eastern Front or fleeing from Stalin’s vengeful army would be sure to pass. It goes without saying that such assertions are unpopular in Dresden to this day.
Was the war already over? Scarcely six weeks before the attack, the Western Allies were still reeling from Hitler’s final, Pyrrhic offensive of the war. On December 16th, 1944, massive German armored spearheads had penetrated American lines in the Ardennes forest in central Luxembourg and southern Belgium. The ensuing “Battle of the Bulge” soon became the largest land engagement in the history of the United States, resulting in approximately as many American troops killed and wounded in two weeks as were killed in the entire Vietnam War. Combine this with Stalin’s personal request at Yalta that the Allied air forces be employed as long-range artillery in support of the final stages of the Soviet thrust towards Berlin, and it becomes evident that Dresden’s gruesome fate, according to the amoral logic of total war, was sealed.

To make the past even more difficult to deal with, the Cold War led to the attack becoming a propaganda centrepiece and caused massive fluctuations in the estimates of the dead. The East German government made cynical use of Dresden’s fate, citing the experience as only typical of the tactics of American imperialist warmongers, being repeated with reckless disregard for humanity, above all in the schmutziger Krieg—dirty war—in Vietnam. The blame was placed, at different times, on Truman while he was still President (even though FDR was still alive at the time of the attack), and later on Eisenhower when he became Commander-in-Chief. Within twenty years of the attack, “official” estimates of the body count changed from 25,000, to over 300,000, then back to 35,000, when the Communists decided that they didn’t want to tell their subjects that conventional weapons could kill more than atomic weapons did at Hiroshima. After all, the threat that the American tyrants would start a nuclear war was more important to East German (i.e. Soviet) propaganda.

Whether as a symbol of the American lust for war (despite the fact that the true firestorm itself was unleashed by the Royal Air Force) or as a call for peace, the German Democratic Republic left the ruins of the 18th century Frauenkirche—the Church of Our Lady—in the pile of rubble it collapsed into following the bombing. So it remained from 1945 until after the reunification of Germany. In the past decade, however, as the result of a project costing nearly 60 million Euro, the Church stands again. The cries that Dresden was trying to wipe away its past—not only the Third Reich but also four decades of Socialism—resound to this day. The Frauenkirche itself represents not so much the rebirth of historic Dresden as it does the central question of Germany’s politicized past. Can tears be shed for the women, children, and elderly smashed by the Allies’ response to Germany’s bid for control of Europe without marginalizing the Germans’ own innumerable victims? Even if it can be done, should it?

It was in the cauldron of these deep-seated and divisive questions that I found myself last Sunday. The Dresden Police had announced that they expected 7000 neo-Nazis to appear to mourn the German victims of the “Allied Bomb Holocaust.” Another ten or so thousand would descend on the city, summoned by every major left-wing party of Germany, to protest the radical Right presence. The Dresdners themselves, as well as thousands of others from all over Germany, church leaders, and assorted notables from Germany’s former rival nations would take part in official ceremonies expected to stretch well into the small hours of the 14th. The traditional candlelight vigil in front of the Semper Opera, known for attracting tens of thousands, is planned for after nightfall. Riot police have been brought in from all over Saxony. From the beginning it is clear that the city is essentially under martial law. And then there were the people I came with.

They call themselves “Antifa”—anti-Fascists. Among them are those who take their opposition to the radical Right even further, proudly announcing their identity as “anti-Deutschen.” They are a rather diverse grouping of students and other leftists from all over Germany. Most are under thirty. Because of a sudden and unforeseen illness, my friend in Leipzig is unable to accompany me. As a result, I am with people I have never met, and will probably never see again. So it goes.

Shortly after my arrival in Dresden, I find myself at a Kundgebung—the opening address of a day of counter-protest against the Nazi presence. The central podium is bedecked with messages that one only informed by the American media might hardly expect to find in Europe, especially not in Germany. “Attack the anti-American consensus!” “Solidarity with Israel.” Among the five or so hundred demonstrators assembled before the new synagogue—the old one was burned by the Dresdners themselves on the Night of Broken Glass in 1938—several flags flutter in the relatively strong wind. The Hammer and Sickle is one of them. So is the battle flag of the Royal Air Force. So is Old Glory. For these people, the Allies were unquestionably liberators, completely righteous and justified in whatever means were necessary to smash Fascism. Someone had explained to me that some German leftists support America and Israel because they believe that anti-Americanism is most often fuelled by anti-Zionism, which is in turn most often only the same old anti-Semitism with a different name. For them, there might have been arguments against Zionism, but Auschwitz proved them all wrong. Never again Germany. No tears for Krauts, they chant, in English.

As I listen to a speech about what to do if I get beat up by the police, thinking “What have I got myself into?”, a sudden and furious roar tears through the words coming from the loudspeaker. A pair of skinheads had had the bad luck of finding themselves in the wrong part of town, and while trying to find their own ilk on foot, they happened upon our demonstration. Within seconds, probably a hundred of the more “spirited” among us tore off down the street after the two of them. Within seconds, they disappeared down a side street. A few seconds more and they were joined by a speeding procession of police vans, each filled to bursting with decidedly unhumorous looking armored police. I don’t know what happened. Sirens, phalanxes of riot police running at full sprint and ambulances roaring by proved to be a basic part of Dresden’s atmosphere that chilly afternoon.

Shortly, the voice on the loudspeaker wishes us good luck, and the crowd sets off together. Within five minutes walk we find ourselves on the Altmarkt—the Old Market—, where the SS had burned thousands of bodies in the wake of the 1945 attack. Another roar tears through the crowd. Suddenly I am running, but I don’t know where to. One of my compatriots tells me we should wait where we are. He wants a cheeseburger. He says there will be plenty of action later. He was right.

Within a few minutes, the anti-Fascist mob reappears from a different direction than they had disappeared to. A large white charter bus appears in front of us. “It’s full of Faschos!” my new friend shouts. Another roar. People come running from all directions. Suddenly, trash cans start hurdling through the air, striking the side of the bus and spilling their contents all over the street. The Nazis inside try to remain cool. Some of them can’t, and they start yelling at us through the glass. The glass silently restrains their bullshit. It was at this moment that I looked to my left, where I saw a twentysomething German pull something out of his backpack and unfurl it. He holds the flag of Israel wide across his chest, displaying it to the Nazis in the bus. Then the battle-cry, shouted to the point of straining and soon joined by many nearby. “LANG…LEBE…IS-RA-EL!” Long live Israel. Given the grim historical context, something about what was happening before me—fear, grief, guilt, and hate—is simply impossible to explain. Although I could attempt to impose words on it, I will simply say that I will never forget the way I felt at this moment.

It is not long before the police arrive. They line up in front of the bus. They charge at us, and we take to flight across the Altmarkt. It was only the first such occurrence of the day. Though many of the Antifa later complained that the police spent the entire day protecting the Nazis, it is clear that they were there only to prevent violence of any kind. It is also clear that were they not there in such great numbers there surely would have been violence. Skinheads do not seem to me to be the most likely people to react magnanimously when struck with flying beer bottles and trash.

From there I followed as my compatriots tried to find a way to where the Nazi march would begin. Not that they didn’t know where it was, just that the police proved quite adept at spotting people likely to hurl instigative epithets—or solid objects—at the Nazis. The bizarre, seemingly almost Brownian, fluctuations of police barricades were a constant feature. One might find a way blocked at the first attempt, then hear by word of mouth fifteen minutes later that the "Bullen"—the equivalent of "pigs"—had mysteriously disappeared. We could hear vague, angry-sounding gibberish being shouted over a loudspeaker, but it took us a while to find an open route. We eventually found ourselves on the terrace of the Zwinger, a baroque pleasure palace nearly destroyed during the war and then faithfully restored, only to suffer serious damage again when the Elbe flooded in 2002.

From this vantage point we observed the Nazis’ own Kundgebung, but from a distance. Our further progress was blocked by the police. After a few minutes and a sombre playing of Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods, the Nazis began to march. The police again mysteriously disappeared. We made our way towards the group. It was at this point that, if I had had any doubts about how much my companions hated these people, they were quickly dispelled. They all knew a series of chants designed to irritate the Nazis as much as possible, including shouting, in English, “Bomber Harris do it again!”, in reference to the British commander of the RAF bomber force. I followed them up and down the line as they hurled insult after insult at everyone alike. Hundreds of others join in. I just take photographs nearby. Some skinheads notice us while I’m taking a picture of him. One waves at me, then points and alerts his friends. I get stared down by a bunch of them. They might have been trying to remember what I look like so they could find me later on. The police stand in an imposing line between us and the Nazis. They simply look on, some apparently amused, others by no means whatsoever.

Most interesting about this episode was the relative scarcity of skinheads. The demonstrators looked like completely normal people, many of them stylishly dressed teenagers. I even saw a young mother pushing a stroller. Only their banners gave them away. “Dresden: the German Hiroshima.” This particular banner went further: “And the perpetrators keep bombing: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran…” At the head of the column of fluttering, black mourning flags and symbols of the National Democratic Party we find the eye of the storm, a rather well-dressed middle-aged man named Christian Worch. Known as the organizer of the “Free Comradeships” that are the backbone of the neo-Fascist movement, the only thing that would give him away, apart from his presence there, is the throng of rather veteran-looking skinheads that form his inner circle. He listens to what appear to be reports from his top lieutenants, and otherwise watches the scene emotionless. But this moment is a great accomplishment for him. The size and influence of the Comradeships in Saxony helped organize the National Democratic Party’s seizure of twelve seats in the Saxon state parliament in September. They do almost as well in Brandenburg and Saarland, and are expected to make a showing in the upcoming elections in Schleswig-Holstein as well. But that’s all in the future. As for now, Worch and the NPD have organized the largest radical Right demonstration since 1945.

A police officer tells us to scram before it gets “hot.” After all, the Antifa turnout was somewhat disappointing. The Nazis outnumber them at least five to one. We take the officer’s advice, for the moment. Cell phone conversations with other Antifa tell us that we should cross the river to find another open access to the long train of Nazis that has already set into motion. As we cross, we hear loud music echoing through the chasm formed by the Elbe’s wide bed. More Wagner. The Flight of the Valkyries. Slightly eerie. We can see that the procession of Nazis already stretches across a good slice of western Dresden and all the way across one of the long river bridges to the New City in the North. When we arrive there, we find the police already waiting for us. We can’t even get within a half-mile of the march. This doesn’t stop throngs of people from lining up in front of the police and singing their insulting songs at the Nazis who probably can’t even hear them over their own blasting loud Germanic music. The police charge the crowd, it disperses like a flock of birds. Then back again. Another charge, really just bluster. I find myself running several times. At one point, the police charge breaks a raucous chorus of “You lost the war, you lost the war.” I run, only to hear the song break out again while I still think I’m being chased. These people are relentless. They run right back to where they were before, singing again without missing a beat. My compatriots decide it would be best to cross the river again and find a place to shout at the Nazis as they cross the river again.

Back in the old city again, we find ourselves in front of the rebuilt Frauenkirche. Thousands of older people are gathered there, some with candles, some praying. As we come near the crowd, several police approach us and announce that we are being searched. Terror seizes me. I have a rather large Swiss Army knife in my pocket. I forgot I had it. I don’t know whether they’ll take it away or arrest me. Just as they start to search me, their radios all start to buzz. They immediately bolt into the crowd. Less than a minute later, they re-emerge, indelicately dragging with them four leftist demonstrators. One of them has a banner reading “No Tears for Krauts.” Even the girl among them is not spared the rough handling. A female officer drags her out of the crowd in a headlock. One guy gets his face ground into the cobblestone by two large policemen. One of them grunts at the kid: “No placards!” One of my friends, Robert, calls to them: “Name! Name!” The suspects call out their names. Robert gets on the phone immediately, calling “Red Help,” which provides legal assistance for demonstrators who get mishandled by the police. A policeman sees us there. “You’re still here? Raus! You look left-wing.” We start walking.
We come across the Elbufer just in time to find the end of the Nazi procession crossing back to their starting point. Hundreds of people are standing on the stairs, shouting at them. The British and American flags appear again. So do the slogans. Bomber Harris, do it again. The Nazis hold their ending speech. They say there were 8000 of them. I think there might have been between six and seven. The city itself later said five, only three of which marched, but they have as much reason to downplay the number as the Nazis do to exaggerate it. In any case, this demonstration, especially in relatively democratically inexperienced East Germany, is not a good sign.

On our way out we start hearing random reports of Nazis on the hunt for their erstwhile hecklers after the rally disperses. I never saw it myself, and had an instinct to doubt it for some reason, but everyone told me it’s not uncommon. We begin walking, and encounter an equally large demonstration, this one against the radical Right. We decide to merge with it just to be safe. It’s headed for our car, in any case. Along the route, Robert sees a Dresdner woman, identifiable by the white rose on her lapel—the acknowledged symbol for peace and tolerance. He asks her, rather confrontationally: “Where were you all day?” “At home,” she says. “There are thousands of Nazis all over this city, why don’t you Dresdners do anything about it?” She doesn’t know anything about any Nazis. She hadn’t heard. Sixty years later and people still think there are no Nazis in their town.

We reach the car, unwilling to risk sticking around. Apparently even more Nazis are out looking for a fight because one of their busses got trashed, and since we apparently look like leftists, my more experienced companions think it’s not a good idea to stay. All that’s left of the day is the candlelight vigils and the church services. By this point, the center of Dresden is filled with families from all over the country. The US Ambassador is there. So is the British, and the Russian. The portion of the event more extensively photographed by the press went off without a hitch, I later heard. On the Altmarkt, Dresdners had laid out a banner on the ground, with a message spelled out in candles. It read “Diese Stadt hat Nazis satt.” This can mean two things. First, it could mean that the city has had enough of Nazis. It could also mean that Dresden is filled with Nazis. I don’t know which is more true.

2005-07-27T16:05:00.000-04:00

What is Anti-Americanism?

Part I: Soft Anti-Americanism

by Evan Campbell

Since the Vietnam War, the world has seen a gradual but drastic increase in anti-American activity and sentiment. Despite the complexity of the phenomenon and its far-reaching social, political, and economic consequences, it has for the most part received little attention in Western academe, for reasons which will be discussed below. There are many who would seek to lump together the disparate influences and motivations of anti-Americanism under one monolithic banner. However, for analytical and practical purposes, it is useful to separate anti-American sentiment into (at least) two categories. These are “soft” and “hard” anti-Americanism. A possible third category might best be called official or even communist anti-Americanism, though with the fall of the Soviet Union, this phenomenon has become far less important and is a topic for a later date. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the soft and hard varieties have been the greatest challenges of and obstacles to American policymaking. Furthermore, contrary to the anti-Americanism of the former Soviet Union, softs and hards dislike the United States for reasons not always connected to concrete policy objectives–e.g. the Soviet Union’s gambit to usurp Washington’s primacy in international affairs. On the contrary, anti-American publics are often manipulated by political elites for reasons other than the potential benefits of openly opposing Washington in the international system, i.e. instead for purely domestic political gain. Although anti-Americanism very often has concrete political consequences, its strength as a political tool relies on its almost gut acceptance by a broad spectrum of the world public. This project, then, is concerned as much with the ideology of anti-Americanism as with its practical results. In this first installment, we shall examine the roots of soft anti-Americanism.

Soft anti-Americanism might almost be called European anti-Americanism, though it is prevalent in many other parts of the world, including Canada, Japan, Africa, Latin America, and, some would argue, the United States itself. It has its real roots in the nineteenth century, not just in European assumptions of American intellectual inferiority (revealed, for instance, in the contempt with which European general staffs around 1914 regarded the tactical developments of the American Civil War) but also in Occidentalism, the belief, once prevalent among Asian peoples, that Westerners were fat, lazy, lax in their convictions, or what have you (though in the nineteenth century this also applied to Europe). More recently, however, soft anti-Americanism can be traced to the Vietnam era. The generation of student rebels that came of age during that conflict sought to tear down the more or less positive post-war consensus on the democratic West, challenging the United States and its allies for their unbalanced economic policies, their imperialism, and their having pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war. They posited an anti-totalitarian and egalitarian view of the world, one in which the political and economic elites of superpowers could not hold the fates of the peons below them in some sort of precarious balance.

When the United States withdrew from Vietnam, many of these radicals jettisoned their blue jeans for business suits–the “hippie to yuppie” phenomenon so well-known it is almost now cliché. But many of them took positions of influence in the resultant, uneasy consensus of the 1970s and 1980s. Much of the West’s professorate is still dominated by them. But, more importantly, former leftist radicals have now taken the reigns of power, mostly in Europe. In this instance it is easiest and sufficient to take France and Germany as the prime exemplars of soft anti-Americanism.

In Germany, for instance, the consensus of the 1960s generation was, in the words of historian Jeffrey Olick, one of the “moral nation.”<1> Since that generation rejected not only the crimes of the United States but also the heinous crimes of their parents’ generation, it could claim moral superiority over the grievous injustices then being committed around the world, not just Vietnam but also the Prague Spring of 1968. More importantly, however, “ by criticizing the ‘superficial culture’ of the United States, one could easily highlight European and German cultural profundity without stumbling into the taboo subject of German nationalism.”<2> Soft anti-Americanism is not always entirely about opposition to Washington’s policies. Indeed, many Europeans express admiration for American political institutions and affection for Americans as people, and openly proclaim that they only dislike US foreign policy or even just President Bush. Dislike of Washington has a deeper meaning: it enables Europeans (and others) to define themselves positively without resorting to the sort of crass nationalism or vain triumphalism of which they accuse the US. Soft anti-Americanism, therefore, is more a point of reference than a call to action.

Simon Serfaty has noted that what makes the recent surge of European anti-Americanism special is that it “emerged from the bottom up, as public opposition to the use of force in Iraq grew even among countries whose government was openly and adamantly supportive of the United States.”<3> This is indeed true: anti-Americanism is an ideology that comes from the ground up, but today it is also one that figures in the policy decisions of European political elites.
Take, for example, the massive popularity of Michael Moore in Europe. In a way, he represents a bridge between bottom-up anti-Americanism and its manipulation from the top down. His books sell more copies in German than in English. In France, Michael Moore’s film Bowling for Columbine (2002) was showered with accolades, not just the coveted Palm d’Or at Cannes (as though that honor were not enough), but even the Cannes Prix Educational Nationale–the Cannes National Education Prize–which was given to him just hours before the conclusion of the 55th Cannes Film Festival. Each year, one film at Cannes is selected for its educational value. In 2002, this was Moore’s film. Two years later Fahrenheit 9/11 received the same honor. But even before, Moore’s polemic against the excesses of industrial capitalism, Roger & Me, had been made part of the French national curriculum, and screenings of the film occur annually in French schools.<4> Why? Moore’s films have been roundly criticized for confusing events, manipulating chronology, and even falsifying documents. Moreover, these criticisms do not come exclusively from the political right. The value of pure filmmaking aside, are polemics really a viable part of pedagogy? Why would a national education ministry select polemics critical of another nation-state’s policies as required viewing for its citizens? Even the numerous anti-Soviet films produced in Hollywood during the Cold War did not receive this honor from the American Department of Education. The films’ popularity aside, why is it necessary to inject polemical criticism of Washington into official dialogue, let alone education?

The answer is that soft anti-Americanism can sometimes be a call to action. French policy for decades has been one of opposition to Washington’s foreign policy initiatives, and European political leaders frequently play the “Uncle Sam card” to maintain their domestic positions. The key to the success of this tactic is an anti-American public. Most famous is German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s ride to electoral victory in 2002 by outright refusing, unlike his opponent Edmund Stoiber, to cooperate with Washington’s policy towards Iraq. Two and a half years later, Jacques Chirac tried unsuccessfully to drum up support for the EU Constitution by claiming that to reject it would be to support the interests of the US, and, furthermore, that the Constitution was designed to stave off the influence of “Anglo-Saxon economics.” In the end, the French rejection of the Constitution probably stemmed from its economics being too Anglo-Saxon for Gallic tastes, but Chirac’s “Oui” campaign still demonstrates how anti-Americanism can influence internal European politics.

What we have with soft anti-Americanism, then, is a general feeling prevalent among individual citizens that the influence of Washington in the international system is generally a bad one. This criticism, much of it legitimate, stems from foreign policies seen to be destabilizing, American support for Israel against Palestine, the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, the primacy of American multinationals in global commerce and finance, and any number of other grievances. Whatever the reasons for it, on an individual level soft anti-Americanism is usually based on moral criticisms. As has also been noted, the power of anti-Americanism to positively define the self plays a role. But at a higher level, political elites have had great success in manipulating the sentiments of their constituencies. As long as the public opposes Washington, all the regime must do is also give the appearance of also opposing Washington to retain power. This hearkens back to theories of foreign policy as a means of social control, perhaps most lucidly enumerated in the thesis of “social imperialism” in Bismarck’s Germany, whereby historians have charged that the Iron Chancellor pulled at the heartstrings of German nationalism abroad in order to retain control of an increasingly volatile domestic environment.<5>

Soft anti-Americanism can thus be described as an ideology with its roots in the turbulence of the 1960s student movements which, while proceeding from the bottom up, as Serfaty noted, has also entered the higher levels of political elites by means of former radicals entering politics. (Most obvious here are Schröder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in Germany) It plays an important role in national self-definition, and given its widespread nature can serve as a common bond for groups who otherwise have little in common. Opposition to Washington, after all, has helped cement that unlikeliest of partnerships--that between France and Germany. And finally, while at their base many of the grievances upon which anti-Americanism is based are valid, or at least important subjects for debate, the ideology of soft anti-Americanism is repeatedly employed as a political tool--a sort of wedge issue that forces voters to choose between their own government and being on the side of Washington, whose policies so many abhor.

In the end, especially since other governments do not pursue policies that are legitimately alternatives to Washington (at least in terms of the moralistic typesets in which these issues are framed), soft anti-Americanism is an ideology like any other: disobedient of its own logic, not always rational, and often arbitrary. Just as Americans espoused anti-communism for reasons not always connected to, for instance, the human rights abuses of the Soviet Union, so does anti-Americans' opposition to Washington not always conform to their own stated principles.

<1> Olick, Jeffrey. “What Does it Mean to Normalize the Past? Official Memory in German Politics Since 1989" in Social Science History, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Winter 1998), 547-571.
<2> Werz, Michael. “Anti-Americanism and Ambivalence in the New Germany” in US-Europe Analysis Series, Brookings Institution, (January 2005), 3.
<3> Serfaty, Simon. “Anti-Europeanism in America and anti-Americanism in Europe,” in Balis & Serfaty, eds. Visions of America and Europe: September 11, Iraq, and Transatlantic Relations, Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies Press, 2004, 11.
<4> From URL: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2002-05-27
“The day began yesterday with ‘Bowling for Columbine’ winning ‘Best Film’ from a vote of hundreds of French teachers and students from arond the country who each year come to Cannes and award one movie their ‘Cannes Prix Educational National.’ It's the only ‘people's prize’ at Cannes where everyday citizens get to screen the films and vote. It was a wonderful moment and a great honor to receive this award. The Education Ministry in France has made ‘Roger & Me’ part of the French national curriculum and it is shown each year in every school in France. The same will now happen with ‘Bowling for Columbine.’”
<5> The most famous study of “social imperialism” in Germany is Hans-Ulrich Wehler’s German Empire, 1871-1918, Oxford: Berg, 1985, trans. by Kim Traynor. Many level the same criticism at US foreign policy, but given the evidence in the European case, it is possible to say that the phenomenon plays a role everywhere.