I left my home country of England behind in 1991 as I joined my American husband in my new life here in the United States. I left behind a country that I felt greatly admired America and considered the country among the top countries in the world to visit or even to live in. With recent events, I began to hear murmurings of a change in attitude. It saddened me to think that the two countries that I consider home could be being wrenched apart. I emailed a close friend who lives in England, whom I have known since 1988, and asked her views on this subject. Vivienne Hudson lives in Rochester, Kent, and spent eleven years in the Royal Air Force. Since 1996 she has been employed in London as a Legal Secretary and Personal Assistant. She spent nine months in 1998 traveling and working in South America, where she taught English as a foreign language.
Activist : Do the British feel animosity towards the Americans?
Hudson: No, not at all. People may have issues with Bush and his government, but to suggest that we include the entire nation is an invention of media. For people of my parent’s generation, Americans will always be thought of very highly because of all the Americans that gave their lives to liberate Europe. For the younger generation here, the U.S. is a country where we love to holiday, and we appreciate a lot of their film and music culture. Nearly everyone has relatives or friends in the U.S., so we have close ties with the people.
Activist: How do they view the relationship between Bush and Blair?
Hudson: It is viewed very much as Blair being Bush’s poodle. Blair should probably have appointed a “special envoy,” because to us it seems demeaning that he is constantly running backwards and forward to America, seemingly at Bush’s beck and call. Also it was quite offensive to us as a people that George Bush needed 14,000 policemen to guard him on his visit here, when if we get robbed you are lucky if you get one, but again that is a fault of our government, not of George Bush.
Activist: How did you feel the television coverage was preceding the election?
Hudson: Here it was quite excessive. The BBC sent several hundred journalists and cameramen to cover it, so did most of Europe’s media. Surely they could just as easily have bought rights to show a U.S. company’s coverage much more cheaply, with a few journalists in key places? As foreign journalists they would not be deemed worthy of audiences with key people in the election (and rightly so), so it was very much a case of overkill.
Activist: Do you see a difference between the countries in the last few years?
Hudson: I see a difference in the way America is portrayed in Europe and the way our “special relationship” has also been portrayed in Europe. I do feel that antipathy towards the U.S. is convenient for much of Europe, the U.K. included–almost a case of a common enemy uniting divided peoples. Governments here and in Europe are happy for the population to concentrate on the “growing threat” of Americanization, because this means that voters are overlooking a major issue, namely the increasingly corrupt and out of control monolith governing Europe–the E.U. parliament.
Activist: What do you feel are the real concerns of the British with regards to America?
Hudson: One of the major concerns is that we have involved ourselves with them in another Vietnam, with no end in sight and no way out, but for our part in this we can only blame Tony Blair. He took our troops to war without an Act of Parliament and without consulting Parliament. We cannot blame the U.S. for the actions of our Prime Minister; we have to blame ourselves for voter apathy. Despite this, there is a tendency here to blame George Bush for warmongering and blaming him for our part in that. Tony Blair is getting the best of both worlds–behaving as an autocracy and ignoring the wishes of our Parliament and our electorate and yet hiding behind his relationship with George Bush–as if Bush is making the decisions for him–Teflon Tony!
Aside from the war, many of the negative parts of U.S. culture are increasingly common here, which is seen as detrimental–the gun culture; street gangs; too much emphasis on body size and looks at any price; driving everywhere rather than walking; and the increasing focus of politics on personalities rather than issues. The point that we have to keep reminding ourselves is that the U.S. has not exported these ideologies to us; we have voluntarily adopted them.
Activist: Should Americans be wary of travel in England?
Hudson: No, nor to Europe. Travel has never been easier and staying away is a victory for the minority of bigots. Tourism is a big part of the global economy, and both the U.S. and Europe are currently suffering from a deficit in tourism. It is a great way to experience other cultures first hand and form our own opinions, rather than have the media make up our minds for us.