The Americans of today and of tomorrow - Visions of a Newropean (I)
Written by Franck Biancheri
Thursday, 23 February 2006
This particular article was finished only a few days before the September 11th attacks. The author chose to keep it as it had been written knowing sthat it can provide elements of clarification on the current reactions and their consequences. It constitutes a truly European view, open and friendly, but far from any fascination, on the people and country that have been at the centre of History since the beginning of the 20th century. This view is not that of a passive spectator, but of someone curious to identify what tomorrow is made of, as much for the sake of the Americans themselves, as for the sake of this Europe with a future so uncertain.
The future Americans : Growing diversity and growing ignorance of the outside world - Why the Americans … and not America ?
Because it is a choice : to talk about the Americans , and to forget America for a while ! Because it is easier : indeed, the word, the concept " America " conveys such a mass of clichés, prejudices, images… that it results in more opacity than clarity Because it is lucid : America is diverse, a lot more diverse than we, Europeans, want to admit. Therefore talking about the people renders the task easier while stressing the fact that the subject is multiple.
Because there is this profound conviction gradually gained by the author : America is the creation of the Americans (and not of God Himself, as many Americans prefer to believe !); and just like any human creation, it is in constant evolution. And this evolution is all the more unpredictable that the history of America is so short. Moreover it is strongly shaped by immigration knowing that the demographic evolution of the US can record important changes in 2 or 3 decades.
Therefore these Americans of tomorrow, who will they be ?
Americans less white, and a lot less " European "
Of course, they will in the first place be yesterday's and today's Americans. If we look towards 2020, we shall find the same ethnic components than in 2001 … but in very different proportions. The human cocktail that America is will have a colour, a flavor and therefore a relation to the world, fundamentally different from that of today. Whites, Afro-Americans, Asians, Native Americans, Latinos, Arabs…. ; catholics, protestants, jews, muslims, buddhists, members of all sorts of sects. All of them will be there … but nothing will be like the mythical America as it has been fixed by the images dating back to the 1950's-1960's, and that we, as much as most Americans, still bear in mind.
The last census (Census 2000, http://www.census.gov ) clearly states these trends : the Latinos precede the Afro-Americans in percentage of population, the Asians continue to grow and belong increasingly to the richer category, California has lost its white majority. Here are three examples of a trend that has already begun and that will most certainly carry on and intensify.
When you look at the immense space of the United-States on the map of a world that is more and more " full ", you can not but suppose that the migration pressures coming from Asia, Africa and Latin America will increase. The Europeans occupied the American space namely because their populations were in full expansion and poor ; but for the last few decades already, it is no longer Europe which has a problem of population " surplus " … and it is rich now, mostly. The American West Coast already records a growing Latin and Asian (mainly Chinese) presence ; the South-West is practically " reconquested " by the Hispanics. Florida has become the " gate of Latin America " (Miami is de facto becoming the capital of South America) and no longer belongs to the " WASP " cultural model. By addressing the Hispanic community in Spanish, candidate George W. Bush proved that he was more adapted to these Americans of tomorrow's American than candidate Al Gore, incarnation of the East-Cost, WASP, culturally European model that now belongs to the past of this country (not as an individual of course, but as the incarnation of a future America).
These trends are dominant and growingly present. These populations whose political, cultural, economic influence grows rapidly, carry a vision of the world where the importance of the transatlantic axis is more relative. The United-States were conquered/constructed by Americans from Europe. In 20 years-time, they will predominantly be in the hands of Americans from America or Asia. From a Newropean's point of view, this means that the EU/US relation will be more complex, more fragile and will require to be founded on new bases in order to reinforce the historical foundations of a community of values and culture : something which in the coming years will be incumbent upon the Europeans and their descendants in the United States. This key-population, dominant but declining, must absolutely start thinking about how to handle these evolutions … rather than cling to this sense of immutability of the United States (see next article on the political system).
Americans ethno-geographically more divided
… in a European way, so to speak
It has always been possible to identify certain geographical areas in relation with certain ethnic groups : Scandinavians in the Middle-West, Afro-Americans in the South… But in the last few decades, this identification has become more acute due to the decreasing will of certain groups to assimilate to the dominant WASP model, sometimes even rejected (Hispanics and Asians, namely). This tendency is reinforced by the "politically correct" movement, which in the end aims at dividing the " minority with a majority tendency " (non-WASP and white catholic) into myriads of sub-minorities competing with one another, and results in legitimating a multitude of identity claims from which the territorial aspect can not be excluded a priori. It is striking to hear a "chicanos" leader explain how the Hispanics of Arizona and New Mexico managed to build the instruments of their cultural autonomy through the development of small community funds, schools, companies, media and universities … exactly like Quebec did it 50 years earlier.
The South-East region of the United-States is also characteristic of another "very European" phenomenon that does not correspond to what the Europeans tend to believe : the true conquest of New-Mexico, Texas, Arizona, California … through a war over Hispanic local populations. A war of territorial conquest … here is another very European feature. And here again, as History changes, the demographic and economic data can bring surprising processes of questioning of what was taken for granted yesterday … the Europeans know this very well - we shall come back on this aspect.
But it is certain that one of the important factors of territorial unification (scarcely populated spaces, associated to a unique and powerful dominant cultural model) is fading away with no obvious replacement in sight.
This may seem paradoxical but it can it be seriously considered today that, under certain cultural or ethnic aspects, the Americans are more diverse than the Europeans. When driving from a "dry-county" in Arkansas (where reigns a complete prohibition on alcohol, and where churches are more numerous than shops, a region that wavers between 17th century-Puritanism and 1920's-prohibition) to a metropolis like Denver, Las Vegas or New-York; or when living in a 2000-inhabitant village amidst Wyoming surrounded by cow-boys and guns, and 300 miles away from the first 50.000 inhabitant city, a whole range of cultural, religious and ethic values is experienced. Behind the radical uniformity, rather oppressing for a European, of the " material " standard and cheap way of life (food, cars, equipments of all sorts, TV programmes), there is an " immaterial " galaxy surprizing by the scope of its diversity.
In Europe, it is no longer possible (since WWII) to find such radical expressions of difference (or even divergence) between the founding values of a modern society. In the middle of Kansas, it requires an immense effort to remember that there is "another" world, somewhere far (Westward or Eastward, the first foreign frontier is over 10.000 miles away; Southward it is 1.500 miles away, and Northward … well, it does not even really exist / In Europe, a frontier is always less than 300 miles away). The Americans of tomorrow bear an extraordinary diversity that can become explosive if the transition between Golden-Age-America (which ended in the 60's) and tomorrow's America is not anticipated today by the ruling elites
The mix between " geographical insertion " and " growing ethno-cultural diversity " will result in a radical questioning of the common unifying fact, if it continues to be solely handled by the dominant group/model. This will be increased by the double religious trend which polarizes society around increasingly diverging groups : those who continue to consider that God is the only master America can find for itself (including in the school programmes); and those who think that God's place is not at the heart of the political and social system.
Americans less and less able to understand the world that surrounds them
A world which begins in their own country. In the last decade, I was struck by a gradually increasing double-process concerning the new generations
On the one hand, there is the general and overwhelming statement regarding the drift all along the last 2-3 decades of the primary and secondary educational system.
On the other hand, there is the flagrant lack of intellectual curiosity of the young Americans.
These two aspects must be related to a major fact : for the elder generations, the statement is the reverse, i.e. presenting good quality of education and a real intellectual curiosity, particularly when it comes to the “foreigner".
Something has therefore happened, or is happening, which modifies radically (in the wrong sense) the level and quality of education of the new generations of Americans.
We shall come back more in detail on the difficulties of the educational system in some next article. At this stage, let's concentrate on the result : an important part (the poorest one) of the growing generations of Americans have a very weak level of education (confirmed by American and international studies), reaching close to 25% of illiterates. Moreover the international approach is so much ignored that President Clinton had to place international education as a priority of "national security" in an "Executive Order" in 2000. At the centre of the global exchequer, the Americans educate their children to ignore the rest of the world.
Worrying for them … worrying for us ! It could be useful that the Europeans bring some active support to those in Washington or in the various networks of teachers and economic leaders, who try to counter this dangerous tendency.
Educated by "Multiple Choice Items" rather unlikely to develop intellectual curiosity and autonomous thinking, without any external reference enabling the comparison, fed to the ideal image of Golden-Age-America, intellectually anaesthetized by a system that favours systematic encouragement and political correctness, the American growing generations are in fact the great unknown in the landscape described before. One thing is already certain : the America of multinationals will increasingly draw their executives from non-American human resources. It has already began.
Moreover one of the main factors of opening to the outside world that had affected generations of Americans since 1942 gradually disappeared in the 90's, and that is the presence of numerous American troops all over the globe (and Europe, particularly). This phenomenon enabled millions of young Americans from various social backgrounds to discover something else than their own country … today, this "window" on the outside world is closed, already affecting those generations which were 20 in the 90's. While the " family window ", that of the family links of the white majority from Europe, is closing now that the time of massive migrations is that of the grand-parents and even great-grand-parents.
And it is not the recurrent problem that Afro-Americans are confronted with in their effort to appropriate American history (which they were forced to join … contrary to the other ethnic groups that reached the US following their own will) and identity, which will lead to a better opening to the world. Between the fascination for a completely made-up history (in which Egypt is a black mother-civilization of all following civilizations, or where the "blackitude" of Jesus is a basic fact - I witnessed edifying diatribes in this respect during the meetings celebrating the Black History Month in Cleveland), and the feeling to have been trapped by the integration offered by the Whites in the 60's-70's (brilliant Afro-American lawyers, children of the civil rights, recommending to the black students of the Stillman College not to integrate with the whites, and taking as an example of the problems African-Americans face the persistence of racism within schools even in the richest and most liberal areas). The myth of a dreamed-Africa, in the end ignored, and the rejection of the European axis, provide no perspective in the short- nor in the middle-term.
The Internet appears de facto as the only means to attract the massive attention of the younger generations of Americans to the rest of the world … under the condition that in the US as well as in Europe, the awareness is raised on the risk that there is that whole generations from the most powerful country in the world become totally alien to everything that is not themselves. For the moment, it seems that some American officials (State Department, Ministry of Education/FIPSE, academics) try to act (like in the organisation of the International Education Week in November) ; but the internal inertia is heavy while outside there is no awareness of the importance of these challenges whatsoever.
To make it short, we must imagine the Americans of tomorrow profoundly different from those that the world knew in the 20th century.
They will also be submitted to new constraints that yesterday's Americans could afford to ignore, but that will weigh over that of tomorrow*. Their common heritage is only partly common and their collective appropriation is not yet given. It is a population in transition towards a new model yet to be defined, which shall be marked by the end of the classically dominant WASP model. Let's hope that the transition will be handled smoothly. But there again, nothing is certain.
Finally and that's the most worrying point, the younger generations of Americans are today among the most ill-prepared to confront and understand globalization, its constraints, and consequences. Contrary to a general idea among the younger Americans, globalisation is not the "americanization" of the rest of the world, but rather it requires to understand better diversity and different cultures; and paradoxically, this implicates an increased influence of the rest of world over the United-States themselves. Internal ethnic diversity could contribute to widen their horizon but only if the sollicitations exist.
As a Newropean, it is clearly this aspect which appears to me as the most likely to convey negative consequences for Europe and for the rest of the world, and which requires an original action from the Europeans in particular. Indeed the problems of transition (not only demographic) that this country is about to encounter could bring very prejudicial over reactions.
The responsibility of the ruling generations as well as of the coming one (the 40 years old) is crucial. Making education a priority as President Bush is doing, is essential ; but the historical challenge is to do it, not only to try to do it.
Franck Biancheri
President of Newropeans
President of Tiesweb
This series, online namely on the TIESWEB derives from the very concrete experience gathered by Franck Biancheri in over a decade on the United-States and the EU/US relations. Not pretending to be either a scientific study or a report, this series of texts reflects the visions of a 40-year-old European in an attempt to cast a European eye on the Americans, the United-States and their future. It is the expression of the learnings drawn from an unusual succession of discoveries/cooperations with the Americans :
-- - invitation in January/February 1991 (during the Gulf War) by the American State Department to a 1-month-stay in the US in the frame of the "Young European Political Leaders" programme
- launch of the Prometheus-Europe network towards North America in 1996
- launch in 1997 in Wahington at the Blair House on the occasion of the EU/US Summit, of the Transatlantic webportal TIESWEB addressed to the civil societies of both sides
- development of TIESWEB since that time (F. Biancheri is the President) along meetings/symposia/conferences held everywhere in the US
- contribution to the launch of the first North American student network (North American Student Forum in Vera-Cruz in 1999)
- launch of the Transatlantic 2020 project in cooperation with the EU Center of theUniversity of Atlanta in April 2000, in presence of Jacques Delors
- survey on the United-States from the " interior " during the Summer 2001
- co-animation of the " September 11th - Transatlantic Response " Internet discussion list, in partnership with various American NGOs.
In a decade, Franck Biancheri visited 34 American States and met with the highest levels of the " Wahingtonian " circles, with academic and NGO leaders from all over the country, and with simple citizens on their living, working or leisuring places.
http://www.newropeans-magazine.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3495&Itemid=85
