A common language

A POINT OF VIEW By Harold Evans

In his new weekly opinion column, Harold Evans wonders if the UK and US will find common purpose in their responses to terrorism.

It is, I realise with a shock, 50 years since I climbed the gangway of Cunard's SS Franconia in Liverpool harbour, bound for New York, exactly as Alistair Cooke had done in 1932.

I, also, was blessed with a Harkness Fellowship for two years of travel and study. He disembarked in the gloom of the Great Depression. I set foot in a syncopating city in the middle of the Eisenhower boom years. But I had a similar cultural shock.

Maybe 7/7 Londoners will come to see themselves as blood brothers of 9/11 New Yorkers Interview with Harold Evans

I had been told I would find the real America in Chicago. I went to the window at the elevated railway to buy a ticket. As the transaction was completed, I said : "Thank you, thank you, thank you very much."

And the burly man behind the grille snarled at me: "Did you say sumfin Wise Guy?"

It seems he just wasn't used to frills in the urgency of daily discourse in Chicago. When he understood that I was rather too effusively expressing gratitude he beamed. "Oh, Yore welcome."

I had many encounters on my American journey where subtly different cultural conventions - we're famously divided by a common language - masked the great good feelings Americans had for Britain.

As Robert Benchley once noted they liked to call England the mother country even when they were from Transylvania. But now it seems the warm good feelings are not reciprocated as much as they used to be.

Animosity

Indeed, I have it on good authority that the special relationship between Britain and America is on life support. Pollsters at the reputable Pew Research centre in Washington told us this June that for the first time only a bare majority of their British cousins approve of the United States.

I've no doubt myself that much of the international animosity for America arises from resentment of a president whose original idea of diplomacy was to shake hands with himself. But it can't explain everything.

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Now the pollsters did their interviewing before the London bombings and heaven knows what the psychological ramifications of that evil brew might eventually be on British perceptions.

Maybe 7/7 Londoners will come to see themselves as blood brothers of 9/11 New Yorkers - which is the weight of American sentiment.

That identification and warmth of feeling is tinctured, I have to say, with awe and not a little irritation at the level of tolerance there has been in Britain for firebrands making mischief in the mosques.

Americans certainly are watching with fascination how Britain keeps its values in the face of fear. There is a parallel here, not so much to post-9/11, as to the years of the Cold War - which happen to be the years I first got a seat at the American movie.

Back story

Since I will be commenting mostly about America for next three months for A Point of View, I had better explain where I come from.

I was a schoolboy in wartime Manchester - one ear attuned to the whine of air raid sirens and the Ack-ack guns, the other pressed against the vibrating cloth of the family radio for the sound of Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.

My father was out many nights driving ammunition trains through the darkened industrial areas of the north-west while, when the air raid sirens sounded, the rest of us - Mum and my three brothers - took refuge in a tin shelter in the garden. I was scared.

My dad, who was left-inclined, didn't find any comfort in Churchill's rhetoric but when the war was going very badly he had a deep abiding faith that American strength would come to the rescue.

Senator McCarthy: Unscrupulous swaggering genius

Eight years after the end of the war, the entire Evans family of six still had to spend Sunday morning prayerfully on its knees on the carpet - trying to sort, sift and count hundreds of tiny bits of coloured paper spread over the carpet.

Prayerfully because the bits represented the ration coupons for fractions of butter, meat, eggs and sugar for the customers registered with the little corner shop my mother had started just before the war.

Without the coupons we'd not get next week's supplies. By 1957 Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was telling us "You have never had it so good". But what was a patriotic Brit to think when he first entered the command module of American family life, the high-tech kitchen with dishwasher, four-slice toaster, deep freeze and spin dryer when everyone back home was still washing clothes in the sink?

To wander down the aisles of the newly invented supermarkets felt like being a Visigoth in imperial Rome. Gallons of orange juice. Tectonic layers of T-bone steaks. Forty varieties of ice cream.

Destitution

At the same time, with the seductive prosperity I saw unhappier sides of America. I lived on derelict Indian reservations in the West and recall the solemn recitation of Cherokee history and Cherokee oppression by a chief who throughout our conversation of an hour or so sat with great dignity on an upturned bucket as water fell on his head drop by drop from a hole in the roof.

The paranoia about Reds was palpable - but the fear was not quite as ridiculous as Europeans like me believed at the time

In the cotton fields and bayous of the Deep South, I spent time with destitute black families in tumbledown shacks who had never been allowed to vote - and in town later was told I must be some kind of Commie for doing so: "Didn't shake hands with 'em did ya?"

In Lexington, Mississippi, I met a newspaper owner Hazel Brannon Smith who was similarly suspected of Red sympathies because she decided that her newspaper would extend to blacks in the community the courtesy title of Mr or Mrs.

In the 50s, the paranoia about Reds was palpable. In the South it was mostly an excuse for suppressing protest - but the fear was not quite as ridiculous as Europeans like me believed at the time. There is plenty of evidence now that there was indeed a serious Communist underground in the US taking its orders from Moscow to make as much trouble as possible

Still, the Communist bogey never justified the witch hunts of the extreme right notoriously led by Senator Joe McCarthy.

How does the Red scare era compare to the post-9/11 era? I'd say the Cold War 50s were much more fearful than today, much more menacing, and the intrusion on civil liberties more widely accepted than they are today.

Suspicions

For heaven's sake by 1955 more than half the American public polled were of a mood to jail every Communist they could find. Joe McCarthy may only have been a "ten cent Robespierre" but his unscrupulous swaggering genius paralyzed the country and moved millions to suspicion of fellow citizens guilty of nothing more than perhaps a subscription to a leftist publication.

But the clouds lifted. They lifted long before Communism collapsed altogether and they lifted because through all the years of intimidation, belligerence and repression there was an under-reported sustained, constructive and imaginative opposition that drew strength from the Constitution.

The country can go off the rails in an alarming manner, but then gradually it always gets back on track and more splendidly than before

It was not a coalition, just a random, spontaneous movement of many individuals and group. It included judges up to the level of the Supreme Court who built on the bulwark of the First Amendment to the constitution which protects free speech. They ruled that only actual incitement to lawless action could be prosecuted and they threw out no less than 90% of the prosecutions of people who had refused to take the so-called loyalty oath.

I ventured into Joe McCarthy's own frozen state of Wisconsin to talk in Madison with one of his fiercest critics, the editor of the long-established Progressive magazine. Honestly I didn't give much of a chance that this beleaguered editor and a few like him could slow or still less stop the steamroller of the Red scare.

But the one-time liberal New Deal official David Lilenthal had a better grasp of what was going on. McCarthyism, he said, invigorated the counterforces of decency and fairness, like the antibodies in the blood stream that a minor illness activates, so that when another threat to health came along the antibodies would be prepared to do their work.

This happens time and time again in America. I would contend that there is a clear historical pattern. The country can go off the rails in an alarming manner, but then gradually it always gets back on track and more splendidly than before.

I think of the phenomenon as America catching up with its highest ideals through the antibodies provided by the free flamboyant discourse. The American political system, with its checks and balances, seems always to require melodrama for momentum. It's like trying to spot the movement of a glacier - but it does move.

America did not regress as I feared it would in the 50s. It renewed the promise of the American dream to its minorities, and a measure of well-being to millions through successive traumas, through the ill-judged war in Vietnam, through the Watergate corruptions, through the civil rights struggles and I think it will find its way again I think through all the travails of terrorism.

My guess is that America and Britain will come to speak a common language again.

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Add your comments on this story, using the form below.

I do not share Harold's optimism. The liberalism that gave America her revolution, constitution and ended America's last major war has been indefinitely marginalised. Yes, Americans are generally affectionate to our small islands. But as far as the ¿special relationship¿ is concerned, it has always been one sided; America, as we are constantly reminded, saved our hides in two World Wars but in the process twice doubled their wealth. The pressure to decolonize Europe left the US with the largest and most powerful (economic) empire the world has seen.
Hugh, Istanbul, Turkey

With all due respect Sir, I keep hearing of 9/11 and 7/7. Madrid suffered a terrible terrorist attack but does anyone allocate the date so dramatically to it? Egypt suffered a traumatic terrorist attack on July 23. does it get its own number? Nobody can deny that the event of 9/11 and 7/7 as they are now infamously known, were absolutely dreadful. But the other attacks were no less dreadful. But I guess you have to be part of the Boys Club to get noticed and get things moving. I'm afraid that's terribly sad.
Rasha , Cairo

The American people are often unaware of the fragility of the mechanisms that protect or destroy their freedoms and it is most valuable, especially from the historical perspective that you have chosen to illustrate your opinions, to understand that an instance like the Red Scare wasn't an episode so much as it was an iteration of the constant dialectic between centralized power and security and the enjoyment of the single greatest gift granted to members of a liberal society: the right to dissent, contradict and defy.
Loren, Seattle, WA, USA

What about Spain? Russia? Australia (Bali bomb)? Kenya? Tanzania?... We are all victims of terror. This is not only about London and New York.
Mark C, France

"America and Britain will come to speak a common language again." I hope so - but while America may hold firm over its political ideals, we have no equivalent of the Constitution or Supreme Court to enforce those values on demagogic politicians, or hold in check the attacks on personal liberties that seem increasingly frequent and severe.
Alex Swanson, Milton Keynes, UK

I really hope you are right but from where I am the glacier moves exceeding slow while the body has its high fever! I suppose we can see an antibody or two struggling forth in Washington, just hope its enough for the vaccination to take!
Penny, US (Brit)

Refreshing to 'hear' Alistair Cooke's successor, Harold Evans. His clear balanced views will not be immediately popular with many in England and Canada who, at the moment, with good reason, criticise much that is America. Upon reflection however, Mr Evans' words will resonate on the subconscious and in time the good sense of his comments will help us become more tolerant, once again, to America's world views. Loved the Manchester Second World War references, especially pressing an ear to the vibrating cloth of the family radio!
joan peacock, Oakville, Ontario, Canada

A balanced opinion, but failing to note the real difference between our countries. We stopped imposing our will on other nations some time ago and the US has taken up that cudgel not simply implying, but ensuring through force of arms that they have the right to change the governments and ideologies of those who not agree with their version of democracy. Seems familiar somehow!
Dennis Goldberg, London. UK

The future of Britain lies (hopefully) in forging closer ties with the rest of Europe. A stronger Europe would be in a better position to pressurise America over a raft of issues including global warming, third world debt and free trade. Currently America feels it is above reproach on everything!
steven, Swansea, Wales

Nice to read but sadly flawed. The main opposition from your average Brit with a brain is to USA's president. Also, the average Brit is not a Londoner. Saddened and scared definitely, but not at one with the 7/7 and 9/11 survivors. I am more against the USA's unscrupulous prosperity and the reaction it brings in terror groups.
Steve Martin, Midlands, UK

There is much to admire about both countries, and there is much we can learn from both. Our shared history, culture, language, beliefs, those will always be the basis of such a special relationship, sure it might wane at times, but like best friends, America is there for Britain and just as recently Britain has been there for America. My friends and I all admire Tony Blair, because he stood up to the doubters in his country and like a best friend he was there for America in Iraq, I hope President Bush is there for Britain too.
Daniel Spivak, Dekalb, IL USA

I believe that we are the beginning of the end of the American empire. This is something that Britain and America will have in common, perhaps more so than the language. The Americans however, are more adaptable than the British and I think they will be able to partner with Asia in the long run and find their place in a some what more multi-polar world. The British I think will continue to be seen by Americans "fondly" and nothing more.
Harmit Kamboe, Burlington, Ontario, Canada

I think Britain and America will come to speak a common language again. At the deepest core we always have. After all, America's founding fathers did not invent their key ideologies like liberty; they inherited them from Britain. The difference was and has been the interpretation of those ideals. I see the relationship between America and Britain as a familial one. There are arguments and disagreements at times, but the ties remain.
Karen, Walnut Creek, CA, USA

America seems to have a sense of purpose that other countries have lost. It also seems to have pride in itself. I wish that we were allowed to fly the Union Flag on, and in, every government building in the UK. However we cannot as it might offend someone..... We might be older than America, but they have observed and learned from our mistakes and formed a well organised society framework, and been more responsible than we have been in spreading the English language worldwide. Whenever I have been to the USA, I have found a beautiful country and open friendship, and a deep sense of service to country and citizen - and I respect that. I have a claim to fame... I think I introduced the word "knackered" to the southern USA . I heard friends using the expression when they were tired in the hot humid summers of the Deep South!
Phil W, Swindon, UK

Thank you for an eloquent view which I happen to agree with. I have mentioned to friends not to get too upset with the present, in my opinion fascist, leaning of the US at present. Looking through history, society in the US has been a constant swinging of the pendulum from right to left and back again. The roaring 20's to the stifling 50's back to the "make love, not war" 60's. The tog-of-war continues and will eventually swing back to a more accepting and open society. The positive is that President Bush can't run for president again...
Chris, Philadelphia, PA USA

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