http://www.france-amerique.com/infos/dossier/Anti-americanisme/AntiUS1.htm

Crossedlooks of John francois Revel and Emmanuel Todd
Anti-americanism some debates
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A debate between John francois Revel and Emmanuel Todd cannot turn to clash. Not only because a generation separates the two men and that this one presents itself gladly as the disciple of that one. But also, but especially, because The final Fall, essay on the decomposition of the Soviet sphere, the first emmanuel book appeared Todd the year of its twenty-five years, was edited with Robert Laffont by John francois Revel.

Common influences (Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Aron) do not prevent nevertheless the two men to diverge on a number of points. John francois Revel look like a master to think about political liberalism, while emmanuel Todd is known for his renewed vision of the fights of classes in France. They publish the one and the other a book evaluating the place done to the united States in the concert of the nations. It was interesting to propose them a dialog.

THE FIGARO: The two books that you publish today extend and resume certain conclusions of your previous works, Or Marx or Jesus for you, John francois Revel, THE economical ILLUSION for you , Emmanuel Todd. You nevertheless would have written the even deliver without the terrorist attack of September 11?

John francois REVEL : I was writing THE American OBSESSION September 11. The terrorist attack of New York and of Washington evidently gave rise to reactions that reorientated the political American one and the behavior of the other nations with regard to the united States.

From the standpoint , my book cannot be completely it even that this What it would have been. I notably observed that after an emotion instant, a lot of intellectuals insinuated that the Americans were responsible of this that had arrived for them, to say nothing of this mister that wrote a book to explain that it not himself nothing had passed. I myself therefore rediscovered in possession of new elements to analyze the psychology of the antiamericanisme, its demonstrations and its functions.

This is a different matter of emmanuel Todd, that student the reasons for which ones this that it calls the American empire ? notion that I will be brought to protest ? goes little by little to weaken itself and disappear.

This is not necessarily an antiamericanisme proof. His essay contains nevertheless things that fall under the blow of the critic that I do usually antiamericanisme. For example when it talks about the commercial relations of the united States with the remainder of the world while evoking an economy ≪predatrice≫. In a way, the united States would remove a tribut on the remainder of the world. Now a tribut, this is something that is extorted by the force. But the international commerce is not flight!

Emmanuel TODD: I do not claim it. I speak precisely brittleness of the tribut, and I explain in what this sampling operating itself by liberal means is threatened.

J's. -f. R. I HAVE nonetheless the impression that you rally yourself to the old Marxist thesis according to which the market economy is a burglary form.

E. T. Not at all! I do not give in the antiamericanisme civilisationnel or obsessional. My antiamericanisme is political and temporary. Currently, I have a vision differentiated capitalism , and I clearly say in the book that I do not conceive any other possible economy that liberal capitalism with a regulation minimum etatique.

Let uscome back to September 11. Which are according to you the intervened changes in the world to the day following this tragic day?
J's. -f. R. September 11 intensified a certain antiamericanisme form. During the days that followed the attempt, even the more ************ of the members of the French government considered as more inevitable, more necessary and more legitimate than the united States undertake a military operation in Afghanistan to rid Talibans and if possible of al Qaida, this than they did not succeed doing.

But very quickly, this are the united States that look like a aggressors, a little as this that had happened during the war of the Gulf. When you read certain items concerning the war of the Gulf, it seems that this the single united States that provoked the unfortunate Saddam Hussein that not nothing had done.

That this is reproduced to the moment of the afghanistan. After the first emotion period divided by everyone ? not completely since one sandblasted the champagne in the local ones of the national Forehead just as well as in certain suburbs the very day of September 11 ? there was an inversion of the direction of the aggressor that a lot hit me.

Other example: one hears a lot today that the united States are obsessed by the question of the terrorism. If by chance airplanes suicides had demolished to Paris at once the opera, the tower Montparnasse, the triumph arch and a part of the ministry of the foreign Affairs, there would be maybe in France an obsession with regard to the terrorism.

One would have besides wrong to believe that the terrorism uniquely is antiamericain. In 1986, a bomb exploded street of Reindeers in front of the stores Tati, doing around fifteen deaths and tens of injureds.

This did not be Al Qaida, this were Algerian of the FIS that accused the French government to support the Algerian government. That this is reproduced in 1995 to the Holy subway michel, boulevard Richard lenoir and to the Gobelins.

This terrorism kind uniquely is not directed against the united States and uniquely is not inspired by origin elements Saudi. After September 11 , when one put on the back of the alone united States an obsession type with regard to the terrorism, one forgot that there is quantities of other democracies that some were and that some will be again victims ?the Spaniards with the Basques, the French with the Corsican... ones

Has your turn, Emmanuel Todd, in what September 11 he modified your judgement?
E. T. My book, that is a reflection work on the American strategy , results him also of September 11, well as I result finally to the conclusion as September 11 is not so essential as one says it. This that kept my attention, this is rather this that happened in the months that followed. I am not myself besides never felt antiamericain.

Being rather anglophile by nature, I always felt a spontaneous sympathy with regard to the united States. I am favoring economy mixed, I always considered that capitalism a little regulated by the state is the alone forms possible... economy

J's. -f. R. But it always was regulated by the state! pure capitalism, that does not... exist
E. T. of course. But this that changed in my perception of the world, this is that I always had worked intellectually with the idea that the united States were a reasonable power.

One remembers era where I was opposed to the treaty of Maastricht and rather indifferent to the European construction: this is because I had a positive vision of the united States. I thought that the collapse of the Soviet union then Russia did not call the necessary constitution of an European counterweight to the united States.

I believed naively possible peace in a wonderful democratic universe. During the year that flowed itself, I was very hit by the manner of which the united States seized themselves question of the terrorism. I felt to attend the emergence of a semi-bellicisme, of an agitation, of an American feverishnesses that ended up to give rise to a certain worry.

Why this permanent exaggeration of the problems with Cuba, the Korea of the North , the iran, this hysterisation of the concept d'≪ axis of the Evil ≫, this fixing on the iraq?

It seemed to me that one was wrong and them structural ************ in first place to envision the action of the united States as the does an all power. In the continuity of my work on the united States in THE economical ILLUSION, where I emitted big doubts on the dynamism of the American economy, I arrived to conclusions completely opposed. For me, the military agitation of the united States proves that the Americans have not the quiet spirit.

One can interpret the behavior of the nations as the one of the persons: a restless one never is sure of him. And if the Americans did not be febriles, they would not launch themselves in piles of small conflicts without global strategic interest. One not some is realized, but it seem to me that the posture of the united States in the world are in overthrow course.

To the day following the Second World War, the American economy was surpuissante and totally autonomous from the standpoint energetique and industrial, facing a world that needed america.

This construction imperial positive phase during which the united States used necessary counterweight to Soviet and contributed expansionism to the prosperity of the western sphere is taking fine.

Through again demographic and educational parameters, through the development of the democracy, the world is in stabilization course. This is the dream of Fukuyama in some direction, that had good intuitions, even if it a lot simplified the things.

The world is in course of pacification, there is no longer any strategic threat Global. For the first time since the First World War, the world can conceive his stabilization without the contribution of the united States. The Americans are therefore confronted to a symmetrical swing.

To the day following the Second World War, the domination system positive of the western economies that put themselves some places deeply transformed the American corporation and resulted in a certain dependance of the American economy.

The heavy tendency of the world-wide economy, this is the establishment of an exchange relation assymetrical in which the united States become more and more depending on importations than they cannot finance by exportations. Between 1993 and 2000, the American commercial deficit is passed of 100 billions to 450 billion dollars.

A pumping system of the financial capital put itself some places a little by chance , allowing financing these importations without compensation, but the pursuit of this mechanism cannot conceive itself if the Americans more are not perceived as the center politics of the world.

There is therefore an immediate necessity for the united States to seem to be at the center of the world. Here why the Americans orient in a manner completely exaggerated the sphere of the international political acts in a universe of weak powers: the Muslim countries, the international terrorism that, to my knowledge, succeeded only an action, of course spectacular.

J's. -f. R. You exaggerate. There was all the embassies beforehand, more than 1 000 deaths altogether.
E. T. it is true. But this that appears for me important, this is that all the attention of September 11 allowed bringing back the whole tension of the world on this sphere of weak and comparatively powerless powers. The reality of the gulf Persique, this is an influence zone American. Now the bottom evolution of the world-wide power struggles does not be done in the sphere of the gulf Persique, in Afghanistan or in Iraq but in the universe of the industrial powers or real military officers: europe and Japan, Russia.

J's. -f. R . THE IDEA according to which the united States would have behaved in power terrified, becoming a war trigger, is a very old reproach. When the red army invaded the afghanistan, American liberal even the press was filled with items explaining that the true danger, this did not be the Soviet invasion but the risk of an American hyperreaction.

All that did the united States in the world always was considered as an aggression. The left looked at the plan Marshall as an aggression , the arrival of the general Ridgway to take the command of the Nato in 1952 was considered as an American aggression.

Same manner, to the moment of the crushing of the Hungarian revolution in 1956 and Czech revolution of 1968, a lot of people worried about to see the united States to commit a careless act.

In regards to the expressions ≪ worsens Evil ≫ or ≪axis of the Evil≫, one always can in to laugh, but it seem to me nevertheless difficult to consider the Soviet union as the empire of the Good. One can mock oneself Reagan , but without the political one that it took between 1980 and 1990, the break-up of the Soviet empire would not have produced itself also quickly.

This thanks to the defense initiative strategic, said ≪ war of the stars ≫, that the Russians felt surpassed technologiquement. And as said Tolstoi, one lost a war the day where one is convinced to have lost it. I believe that the description that emmanuel Todd does l'apres-11 September has not nothing of nine: she extends an old European attitude according to which this always are united States that comes the danger.

E. T. In regards to the antiamericanisme, I agree with you on the years 1776-1996. The whole question is knowledge if the current period is a period as the others or if one attended a structural change.
J's. -f. R. The politicians tend the hyperbole, and the Americans are not the alone. But I do not find that, in the current period, a year after September 11, the does to put the accent on the anti-terrorist fight be signs it of a special feverishness.

As for your anticipations on the weakening of the empire, I would say that all the empires weaken themselves and disappear. You quote Paul Kennedy. But his theory of the hyperextension comes less than Spengler that of the Montesquieu of the Causes of the magnitude and decadence of the Roman ones.

The thesis of Montesquieu is that the roman empire disappeared because it too was spread territorially and incapable to assure militarily his security. This that is paradoxical, this is that this theory of the hyperextension of Paul Kennedy applies admirably to the Soviet union and not to the united States, that never constituted an empire by military occupation.

American the excessive power is the consequence of the errors and crimes committed by the Europeans to the XXe century. The united States was not elaborated by and for the power. They were brought to the power by the europe bankruptcy.

It is certain that they can be poorly comfortable in the current position, and I not at all been born the interest of the problematic one of emmanuel Todd. But my central thesis, this is that our obsession antiamericaine prevents us from discern this that happens to the united States and in the remainder of the world.

Matters collect by Sebastien LAPAQUE

The obsession antiamericaine of John francois Revel Plon, 20 Euros.
After the empire, essay on the decomposition of the American system of emmanuel Todd, Gallimard, 18,50 Euros.

Has to note soon the parution of a special file of France America: ≪The Americans are they anti-francais?≫.

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