In the postwar world, things were simple. Not that it did not have its own hardships, or a specter — that of nuclear weapons — hovering over it. But, on the one hand, it was bipolar. And, on the other, the boundary between the two poles was geography. On this side, the West; on that side, the East. However a European crossed the Atlantic — by air or by sea, even by hang glider or canoe to raise their adrenaline — they knew that on the other side their American friend was waiting.
The post–Cold War world became even safer. As the East inhaled its first gusts of freedom amid the ruins of its totalitarian regimes, the West experienced a kind of democratic warmth. The only people who continued to be tormented along their most sensitive strings were those in art and intellectual life. Pascal Bruckner, for instance, set aside the fantasies of his heroes in Black Moons of Love to publish, just one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Melancholy Democracy. Milan Kundera, in a capitalist world that seemed to him unnaturally frenetic, called for the joy of Slowness. And while this may not have been exactly the “End of History” — as Francis Fukuyama understood it, or did not — it was certainly the end of political cinema. No more Three Days of the Condor, no The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, no Fail-Safe. Instead: Pulp Fiction, The Big Lebowski, and blockbusters.
Europe, back then, fearlessly frightened itself with American thrillers and — feeling more discerning — was enchanted by Kieslowski’s Three Colors and Trier’s Breaking the Waves. Today, however, it is anxious, with its old quests now resembling problems of luxury. Worse still, and paradoxically for the norms of the postwar world, this anxiety no longer comes only from the East and its authoritarian regimes. The American friend now emerges as a primary source of concern. The very source of security, democracy, and prosperity of the Western world, as a cultural entity, is turning into the main factor of instability for the entire planet.
That is how it is now perceived by the majority of Greeks as well, according to the poll conducted by Metron Analysis on behalf of To Vima. This is not the old-style anti-Americanism which, in our better years — certainly better than those we are living through today — served as safe revolutionary exercise for half the population, while the other half dismantled it as “socialism for idiots.” This is not a canned product pulled from the past. It is the reading of a new, and therefore opaque, reality. Perhaps this opacity explains why — especially among older age groups, who are not tormented by anxieties about their personal future — concern over the country’s internal problems is almost equal to concern over the external dangers we face. Will our children go to war?
In the same poll, Greeks by a large majority choose as their closest ally the family to which they belong. Europe, with all its upheavals, irregular rhythms, and disagreements, is our home — the geographical and cultural space we share. We do not love to hate it, as we once did America. We loved America so that we could luxuriously grow bored of it and complain about it incessantly.
All right — it happens even in the best families. But now we know. We know that it depends on all of us in Europe whether we will become a happy family or an unhappy one — “in our own way.”
