A Global Coup, page 20
However, an increasing number of Americans are choosing to learn Spanish, a language that gathers 50 % of all foreign language learners. In some schools located in California, Arizona and Massachusetts, lessons are virtually no longer conducted in English! Due to the Clinton decree, school administrations are under the obligation to provide people with bilingual brochures. In Las Vegas and Phoenix, the police officers who elect to learn Spanish receive a monthly bonus of 100 dollars. Moreover, Spanish is gradually becoming the main US business language. Additionally, Hispanic spending power is expected to experience a 315 % growth between 1990 and 2007. There is, however, a more worrying development for American anglophones: from a total of 35 million Hispanics, a mere 4 million speak English fluently; simply because they do not need to… The number of Spanish-speaking TV channels and advertisements keeps increasing. There are several pressure groups currently attempting to impose English as the sole official language in the US, just like French is in our country. They are all fighting a losing battle. Domenico Maceri, a language professor in California, predicts that by 2020, ‘the USA will be as bilingual as Belgium’.
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Concerning the ‘Mexican invasion of the US’, an invasion that has been denounced by American nationalists, but does not appear to trouble current American leaders, who are more preoccupied with conquering Mesopotamia and its oil reserves, The Washington Times published the following information on the 2nd of February 2003, as a follow-up to the figures released by the INS (Immigration and Naturalisation Service):
During the past decade, the illegal alien population has, according to a report published yesterday by the INS, increased more than twofold, reaching a total of more than 7 million people, most of whom are Mexican. Every year, an estimated 350,000 illegals enter the US, primarily from countries whose residents arrive with a visa and then remain here. […] This represents an increase of 75,000 people compared to the previous decade. Steven A. Camarota, the research manager at the Center for Immigration Studies, explains: “The basic fact is that America has lost all control of its borders. This does not arouse any confidence in these times of war, when terrorists are attempting to enter the country to blow us up”. He adds that “the scale of illegal immigration can only be described as enormous”.
In the very same newspaper, Republican conservative Paul Craig Roberts stated without mincing his words:
At a time when President Bush is about to violate the Iraqi borders, ours are being crossed by people who are legally defined by our federal government as “favoured minorities”. This designation means that, due to their skin colour, these new immigrants enjoy preferential treatment compared to White natives in various fields such as university admittance, federal job contracts, private sector employment and promotions, regardless of whether they are here legally or not. This unconstitutional policy of inverted discrimination targeting White natives has been gaining momentum for almost two decades now, and no administration has ever undertaken anything to contain the process.
Fortunately for Mr. Roberts, MRAP9 and LICRA10 have no counterpart in the USA.
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Illegal immigration to the US is faring well and does not seem to trouble Bush and his neoconservatives, who are more intent on conquering the Near-East than on containing this invasion. According to the information published by Audrey Hudson in The Washington Times (01/02/ 2003):
[T]he alien population on US soil has, according to an INS report, increased more than twofold during the past decade, thus reaching 7 million individuals, most of whom are Mexican.
Based on the overall population, this figure seems greater than that of the European Union.
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The current American power is highly temporary in nature. The reason for this is that the USA is neither a genuine nation, nor a real empire, but a merely ephemeral economic and social structure. Unlike China, for instance, a country that rests upon an age-old ethnic and civilisational foundation, the USA has only been established on the basis of a materialism that is supported by a rather sketchy sort of Christian religiousness. The American nation is quite the opposite of a ‘long-lasting people’ (to use Raymond Ruyer’s expression); instead, it is akin to a ‘short-lasting’ civilisation.
A parallel can be drawn between the Roman Empire and the American imperial republic. Owing to the very same causes, the former is now long defunct and the latter shall soon meet its own demise. As demonstrated by André Lama in Gods and Emperors, the Roman Empire was initially erected around a bloc of ‘old Romans’, before being diluted in ethnic chaos and unmanageable military adventurism as the centuries went by. The essential difference between the two imperialisms, however, is that the Roman Empire was attacked by its foes on all fronts, while the American imperium is rather prone to attacking others.
The notion of an empire is, in itself, untenable as long as it is not rooted in a minimal amount of homogeneity among all encompassed populations, which presupposes the rejection of ethnopluralism, meaning the dismissal of any and all excessive population intermixing.
No empire is viable if it does not rest upon ethnocentrism, a mutual understanding between kindred peoples that share the same civilisation and ethnic globality. A cosmopolitan type of empire, as nowadays embodied by the American republic and previously by a perishing post-Caracalla Rome, both of which attempted to impose their own worldview on extremely diverse peoples (I mean, American democracy and Islam?!), could never last. On its part, the Roman Empire conveyed, at least, a very enriching ‘civilisational message’, which is not the case of the US. The 21st century will not be an ‘American century’, as typically formulated by the neoconservatives, but rather a Chinese one…
Chapter X: In Favour of a European Response
A. ‘Euro-America’
As already stated, the central difference between the NAI and traditional imperialism is that Washington has now taken heed of the fact that even a weakened Europe lacking political will (as is the case today) may turn out to be a threat. In the past (since the days of Jean Monnet, in fact), America had supported European unification, for better or for worse. Europe was considered to be an American extension, a submissive and likeable vassal that served as a ‘buffer zone’ against the USSR.
However, the moment Europe’s unification process began to gather pace and the Euro currency was created, it was suddenly a wholly different matter. In Le Figaro (24/04/2003), Baudoin Bollaert points out that ‘after initially supporting the construction of a European union, Washington opted for a complete change of direction’. So as to resist the French and German position at the start of the war against Iraq, ‘two Yankee-inspired “letters” have sufficed to spread discord among the 15 member-states, as well as between the “old” and “new” Europe’. The NAI’s main ambition lies in dividing and conquering the European Union, thus neutralising it. It is of course Great Britain that acts as America’s principal accomplice in this endeavour, with Central European countries playing the part of American supporters and Spain and Italy losing their nerve as usual. It was Tony Blair who, towards the end of April 2003, rejected the ‘multipolar world’ advocated by France. He expressed, instead, the following delirious wish: ‘What we want is a unipolar power encompassing a strategic partnership between Europe and America’. From Blair’s perspective, Europe should, in other words, dilute itself in the American ensemble and relinquish its own will and interests. Under no circumstance must Europe embody an independent power pole, even in the shape of a submissive ally. What it should do instead is inhabit the American abode, so to speak. Declaring unthinkable any rivalry or divergence of interests with the USA, Blair has almost explicitly formulated what not even American theoreticians have dared express openly: Europe must cease to exist and become a ‘Euro-America’.
Washington is taking advantage of the fact that Europe is changing from a union of 15 members to one of 25 (not to mention Turkey) in order to dilute our continent and transform it into a simple united economic zone that remains open to the outside world and lacks any diplomacy and Defence policy (other than submitting to the American will). It is meant to be a European Union that reflects the current British situation in a most faithful fashion: Europe would thus not even be a vassal state, but a protectorate. For the NAI is now following an interesting anticipation strategy (resembling that of ‘pre-emptive war’): sensing the threat of a rising rival power, the Americans ‘anticipate the emergence of any competitor with the ability to contest their power’, says Harald Müller (in The Chaillot Notebooks, number 58).
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There are those who, just like Eddy Marsan, analyse the facts in a Hegelian manner, believing that the importance of actions transcends that of the agents who perform them and that the latter merely obey some sort of historical reason which is beyond their own understanding, without ever becoming fully aware of it. The theory expressed by Eddy Marsan in his Letter is that the American war against Iraq has prompted and awakened a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis. Although this constitutes a wonderful surprise, words must still be reflected in actions. Germany’s official pacifism, for instance, prohibits the birth of any specific axis of power. The French-Russian military accords dated May and June 2003 are, by contrast, more interesting, albeit very limited. So as to respond to the American challenge, let us rather discuss a Paris-Moscow axis, one that embodies Finkielkraut’s pet peeve. This Atlanticist thus proceeds to vilify it in his work entitled The West Versus the West.
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Fortunately, the methods to which the Bush administration has resorted in order to impose the Pax Americana have destroyed every notion of the latter. The Pax Americana was founded upon the Roman concept of protective sovereignty and implied that US hegemony was a factor of peace and collective security. However, the whole world is under the impression that it is rather a factor that leads to unnecessary military conflicts and our planet’s global destabilisation, which is a truly grave development in the eyes of the NAI, whose leaders are as callous as they are naïve. Indeed, for the first time in US history, the Americans now come across as being trouble-makers and a source of disorder; at a time when they define themselves as the White Knights that combat the ‘Axis of Evil’, they are, instead, seen as an incarnation of this very ‘Evil’. This paradox and boomerang effect are a logical outcome. What Soviet and Communist propaganda once almost accomplished (especially during the Vietnam war), namely designating the USA as a ‘fascist power’, the Bush administration and its NAI are actually succeeding in as a result of their supreme stupidity.
After tarnishing its own image during the ‘Vietnam years’, America enabled its reputation to make a complete recovery, beginning in the 1980s. Anti-Americanism started to recede on a global scale. The world’s ‘progressive’ intelligentsias began to bask in the warm waters of Americanism. The public opinion world war seemed to have been won. However, things were to turn awry, as the cowboy was too hasty in pulling out his gun. The Iraqi campaign, combined with the calamitous manner in which the response to the 9/11 attacks was handled, led to the collapse of America’s world image. It is, in fact, not a matter of chance that, due to its awareness of this unpleasant development, the American administration is putting together a massive and desperate propaganda (or counter-propaganda) apparatus, mirroring the now defunct KGB. Anyone who longs to impose a reign of imperial order can only do so by skilfully arousing his potential subjects’ sympathies. The Romans understood this back in the day. Should the pacifiers ever be hatefully perceived as foes, as is currently the case with the ‘American imperial republic’ (an expression coined by Raymond Aron), their dominance will no longer be guaranteed.
Only Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the sole intelligent members of the Bush government, seemed to be conscious of this serious issue. And yet, no one chose to listen to them. Whatever the case, the neoconservative and Atlanticist dream of geostrategically integrating Europe into the Empire’s ‘close circle’ in the shape of a ‘Euro-America’ has been terminated by the very clumsiness of those who had previously theorised it.
B. Economic Warfare
Those who protest most boisterously against the openly military form that American imperialism has adopted often forget that it does not represent a greater threat at all. The gravest issue from the European perspective lies in America’s economic and technological supremacy. Just like in the military and strategic fields, the NAI has altered and harshened its domination methods, especially by freeing itself from the free-trade principles that govern international commercial law and that the Americans themselves had previously established. The new rule is now as follows: the world is to embrace an open (ultra-liberal) economy, while the US adopts a protected and controlled economic system.
In this regard, the NAI surpasses all previous forms of American imperialism in its use of the economic weapon. It is no longer merely a matter of dominating commercial fluxes or preserving America’s industrial hegemony, but a question of destroying both Europe’s autonomous cutting-edge industries (in the military field, as well as that of informatics, aerospace, etc.) and its techno-scientific innovation capacities. The ones who bear the sole responsibility for the current state of affairs are obviously the Europeans themselves, since they choose to neglect any and every effort in the research-development sphere and lack the courage to defend themselves against this new kind of American economic imperialism. Paralysed, they do not dare to use the weapon of their own will, nor that of aggressive cynicism, which lies at the source of the American success. The USA is actually compensating both for the frailty of its own speculative economy and for the frightening deficit burdening its commercial and financial balance by targeting its domestic economy with a kind of technological doping, one that attracts the world’s brain power and its capital. It also wields the weapon of intelligent dirigisme, which transforms the state into a pillar of American techno-economic aggressiveness, despite the presence of a hypocritical sort of liberalism.
The Internet embodies the most striking example. This communications system, created in the USA and experiencing an annual growth of 25 % per annum, is almost entirely under American control. Marie Dewavrin, a specialist on the issue, writes:
The Internet may well become the decisive driving force towards ensuring the political and strategic domination of all the nations which control it. […] The Internet is now at the heart of the ever more intense rivalry between “ancient Europe” and the proponents of the “Pax Americana”. (Le Figaro économie, 14/04/2003.)
David Nataf, author of La guerre informatique11 has made the following remark: ‘No one can contest the fact that the internet acts as an equality tool under the yoke of the dominant American culture’.
Indeed, from the American perspective, the economic-technological offensive and the cultural one are necessarily related, an attitude that Europeans have never implemented on their own behalf. On the other side of the Atlantic, the fact of imposing linguistic and mental reflexes, as well as American points of reference, is considered a primary means towards achieving hegemony, and rightfully so. The internet is actually at the core of this strategy, thus equalling, if not surpassing, Hollywood, Disney amusement parks, musical styles and sodas. Not only is the entire planet expected to sing and entertain itself in the American manner, but also to think the American way.
In fact, the Department of Commerce considers the means of controlling the Internet to be virtual state secrets. The USA has grasped the fact that the Net is destined to become the new global circulatory system; and it is therefore necessary for America to appropriate its guardianship. There are several methods to achieve this: the English language has succeeded in imposing itself as the Web’s hegemonic language; a major part of intra-European liaisons must be conducted through the USA, since 10 out of a total of 13 global ‘root servers’ are located overseas; the same is true of the so-called backbones or ‘information highways’ and of access providers, in addition to all address, protocol and domain name management. Techno-economically and culturally speaking, the solution does not lie in any anti-American invectives, but, once again, in Europe’s enormous effort to counter this situation. The weapons industry is slowly becoming aware of this fact.
C. Anti-Third-Worldism: The NAI’s Sole Positive Aspect?
There is a field in which the NAI does deserve to be praised: its reinforcement of Washington’s traditional tendency to be wary of European Third-Worldism, and especially the French one; this is particularly true whenever the latter takes on delirious proportions, as advocated by Africanolatrist Jacques Chirac. Here is a recent example:
For several years now, our French President has had a specific fad: that of suspending all agricultural subventions in the North so as to rush to the aid of his beloved Africa and thus allow it to cheaply export its products towards developed countries. What does it matter that this behaviour is harmful to French agriculturalists? Such economic altruism is part of a Third-Worldist utopian ideology according to which it is only by means of international charity and subventions that one can ‘save’ Africa, despite the fact that Bernard Lugan has already demonstrated, to the great displeasure of the self-righteous, that Africa is not ‘salvageable’ due to its structural inability to integrate itself into a global civilisation that has neither been conceived by the black continent, nor for it.
On the 29th of April 2003, at the OECD, Robert Zoellick, the American negotiator for commercial matters, rejected the ‘French commercial initiative for sub-Saharan Africa’. Zoellick’s argument was of a highly skilful nature: ‘Why limit this proposal to Africa? Such an attitude seems rather neo-colonial to me’. In other words, by making Africa the (sole) beneficiary of a sort of ‘affirmative action’, the French create the impression of disdaining it. The sophism comprised in this statement is enormous and very much in line with American style and the USA’s habit of resorting to ‘candid lies’.
