A geopolitical hymn for American enlightenment this Eastertide
aster is a time of resurrection and renewal — of hope, of belief, of purpose, of determination. We all want a better world. Yet man is a radically flawed creature and history shows that he cannot create it alone. He needs help from a metaphysical source. The Easter story of God sending his only son to redeem humanity is especially relevant today. The world order is in ruins and needs renewal. The UN is effectively dead because most people have lost faith in it. Its record in running places is an appalling tale of muddle, incompetence and corruption. The French and their two gaunt and grim co-conspirators, Germany and Russia, hope to use the UN as a cover behind which they can pursue national interests at the expense of the battered, bewildered Iraqi people. They are the vultures, the jackals and looters who move in after the soldiers have done their job. I hope the English-speaking powers, or Anglos, will keep the reins of government firmly in their own hands until we have found Iraqis honest, disinterested and capable enough to take decisions which benefit their people.
This places huge responsibilities on us — particularly on the Americans. Their critics say that they regard themselves as the chosen people with a special duty to lead the world. It is true that John Winthrop, greatest of the early settlers, laid down: We must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are on us.' The eyes of all people are certainly on America today, with a mixture of admiration and alarm, not unmixed with envy and hatred, as well as love. The world needs heroes. It also needs hero states, to look up to, to appeal to, to encourage and to follow. America is, in a real sense, the 'last, best hope' for mankind. Events have allotted it a unique role, given it the economic and military strength to carry it out, and now we wait to see if it has the wisdom and will to play that role over what will certainly be many decades. Abraham Lincoln, shrewdest and wariest of Americans, thought America too tainted by the 'organic sin' of slavery to be the 'Elect Nation', The nearest he would go was to call Americans the almost-chosen people'. What exactly does that mean? He did not explain. But, if cryptic, it is a splendidly apt designation.
People should not curse or envy; they should pray for America. For the foreseeable future, the lot of the civilised world, the world we wish to preserve for law and decency, for sensible progress and fairness, is irrevocably cast with America. There is no one else to lead. America's uniqueness as an economic and financial power, as the generator of globalisation, is likely to grow more emphatic. Its military supremacy will increase as science takes over from soldiers, But America has numbers on her side, too. Population increases in Asia are slowing down sharply. Birth-rates in Old Europe are now well below the replacement level, and Russia and Japan are also wrinkled and aging, shrinking and skeletal. America still has a high birth-rate, and it accepts more immigrants than the rest of the world put together. Its population is now nudging the 300 millionmark, and if present trends continue it will be 400 million by mid-century. What will Old Europe's be by then? It depends on how many of the growing gaps in its ranks will be filled by Muslim imports, to the point where countries like Italy. Spain and Denmark will be predominantly Muslim countries.
America is still a young country an Easter country. It thinks in terms of change and constant improvement, its respect for the past is empirical rather than emotional, it sees the future not through a mist hut in the clear daylight of the day after tomorrow. And what makes it so formidable is its insatiable appetite for learning, for new skills, for miraculous gadgets. It is fashionable in Old Europe to scoff at the 'cludity' and `philistinisni of America, and especially at the `cowboys' and `gung-ho Texans' of the Bush administration. But there is nothing cowboyish about Bush's global campaign to free the world from the rule of terror.
In a year or so he has fought two of the shortest and most successful wars in history by the application of brainpower and knowledge, and by the ability to apply lessons, He is a man who learns. Ask Tony Blair, who has been learning alongside him. Nor is his Texas the cultural desert that the sneering M. Chirac supposes. It could teach the French a good deal about the construction and running of art galleries, for instance, and it has more firstclass universities than the whole of France, though its population is less than half. America is accused of arrogance by Old Europeans. But I see no evidence of it. On the contrary, I see a spirit of self-criticism which has always been present since the Pilgrims — an argumentative lot — and which has never been stronger. A huge debate is raging in the American media and academia on the consequences, for good and evil, of being the sole superpower, and on whether America is acquiring de facto a species of global empire. It is significant that when Chirac decided to adopt an anti-American position on Iraq he did not allow the Prime Minister and the cabinet to discuss his decision, a refusal apparently allowed under the constitution. France is not a democratic country. But America is, and the public debate, in the Congress and the media, within and around the administration, and indeed in the streets, is as fierce and open as ever, and a guarantee that mistakes if made will not be persisted in. A sole superpower which is also a working democracy — indeed a passionate democracy — is a much safer and more responsible step towards world order than a corrupt pandemonium like the UN or a rapacious and blind bureaucracy like the EU.
All the same, this Easter we should pray for America — pray for guidance and wisdom, fortitude and endurance. The Americans need our prayers, welcome them, cherish them; they are praying hard themselves. I imagine it is a long time since Chirac has bent his knee to his maker, and I do not suppose that Putin, designated from birth to join the KGB, has ever done so. But American presidents pray. McKinley told a delegation to the White House that, unsure what to do about the Philippines, 'I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance that one night. And one night later it came to me this way. . . . There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all and to educate the Philippinos and uplift and civilise and Christianise them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died.' This kind of statement gives rise to sniggers in Old Europe (at that time grabbing empire for profit as fast as it could). But it was sincere, and in due course America redeemed her promise to give the Philippines their full independence.
Americans tend to remember what Old Europeans have forgotten: that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And Americans do fear God, as they fear no one else. Lincoln, asked during the Civil War if God was on the side of the North, replied, 'I am not at all concerned about that, for I know the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side.' I suspect this is the spirit in which President Bush offers up his Easter prayers, about Iraq and the many problems he still faces. We should join him.
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