Democratic demagoguery

Dawn Ritch, Contributor

Having little regard for America could be described as anti-American snobbery I suppose, as Mr. D. Callum from New York so did in a letter to the editor last week. But that somewhat trivialises my point.

Even though it was the successor to the control of Western Civilisation, America was a fifth column within it. Treachery such as this is only supposed to be found among barbarians.

Jealous of Europeans, and in particular its aristocracy, the United States through its President Woodrow Wilson, forced the collapse of its royal houses through the Versailles Treaty which concluded World War I. He destroyed Europe's constitutional monarchies, most notably the Hapsburgs.

Financed by American usury, and won with U.S. military help, World War I saw the decimation not only of unheard of numbers of the European populations, but the vast majority of the sons of its aristocracy as well. They also died on that long muddy line of misery known as the Western Front. The aristocracy led the armies themselves from the frontline of battle. To the tragic loss of their sons was therefore added the loss of their stately homes and rule once the treaty was concluded.

It was a vicious act by the U.S., prompted by democratic demagoguery. President Wilson personally just couldn't stand the thought of royalty, and countries being ruled by kings and emperors instead of presidents. It is difficult to accept, however, that the subsequent state of the Mid-East and Balkans is an improvement upon the time when the Ottomans and Hapsburgs ruled these disparate peoples.

After the First World War ended in 1918, America stepped up its anti-European propaganda. Its officials went all over the globe stoking the fires of nationalism and saying that they had never been imperialists nor colonised any of the world's peoples. This created the global perception of Americans as generous, strong, and fair.

But that image wasn't entirely accurate as the histories of Caribbean and Latin American countries demonstrate. More fundamentally, Americans conveniently forgot to mention that the European colonisers acquired these lands and peoples by conquest, not assimilation. And that when the world was long free of slavery and independent, the U.S. and South Africa were the only former colonies still practising the legal segregation of blacks from opportunity and the fruits of their labour.

Although blacks were denied human rights in his own country, U.S. President Wilson had no qualms whatsoever about destroying the aristocracy of Europe. And saw no moral inconsistency nor hypocrisy in doing so on the sole grounds that these institutions were undemocratic and oppressed people's right of self-determination.

Never let it be forgotten, however, least of all by the Americans themselves, that it was the royal houses of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy which gave the colonies and therefore the world common law, civic administration, public libraries, public infrastructure and opera houses.

Sad irony

It is a sad historic irony that today with almost more money than all of Europe combined, the U.S. has yet to make a similar contribution.

English is the language of the Internet and so I suppose that Mr. Callum is right when he reminds us that "...the sun will never set upon the British Empire". Last month the U.S. conceded that future development and innovation in bio-tech and bio-tech stocks will come from Britain and Germany.

To sit at the apex of something as great and as astonishing as Western civilisation is a tremendous responsibility. Any admirer of the progress the world has made in the last 500 years must wonder how in 50 years alone so much came to be concentrated in the hands of a country that had nothing to do with it - barring financing and tipping the balance on the side of the Allies in two recent world wars fought in Europe.

It is early days yet. Perhaps Americans will eventually do something noteworthy for the peoples of the world as the Europeans did in their last 150 years of global power.

The U.S. will find it difficult. They may have a few Ivy League universities of recent vintage, but no real historical tradition of leadership. Yet the U.S. without a second thought destroyed the royal houses of Europe which were bred for leadership like race horses for the furlong.

Such a pathological dislike of aristocracy can only be born of a profound incapacity to acknowledge one's betters. Hardly an effective position from which subsequently to try to rule the world. Custom and convention were trashed and with it the rules that governed civilised behaviour.

Indeed the so-called American Century has been the most murderous era so far recorded in history, estimated at 187 million people slaughtered from 1914 to 1990.

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