To Give with Grace
By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"
Yankee Go Home. Nato is Nazo. American trash culture. The graffiti
adorn every wall, the contempt seems to be universal. America and
Americans are perceived to be uglier than ever before. It borders on
hatred and xenophobia. Are we talking about Serbia in the midst of
its Kosovo baptizing by fire? Not really. America-bashing seems to
be a phenomenon engulfing rich (Czech Republic) and poor
(Macedonia), the lawful (Greece) and the lawless (Russia), the
Western orientated (Bulgaria) and the devoutly Slavophile (Serbia).
Often, America (and Britain, its Anglo-Saxon sidekick) stand as
proxies and fall guys for this ephemeral ghoul, the West. At other
times, the distinctions are finer and France or Scandinavia, for
instance, are excluded from the general outcry and condemnation.
Americans - these patriarchs of spin doctoring and image making -
complain about the yawning discrepancy between facts and
perceptions. America is by far the most generous nation on earth,
they say (and it is). It recurrently risks the lives of its soldiers
and diplomats in the service of worthy causes the world over. It
often endures economic damage as it seeks to tame and educate
unwieldy tyrants - the cost of weaponry, the exclusion of American
business from whole regions of the globe. Its agenda is meritorious
and virtuous. It champions human rights, civil society and peace. It
actively engages in the enforcement of the former and in the pursuit
of the latter. Never before in human history has a superpower put
its prowess and clout to more deserving and selfless use. And it is
all true.
But America gives without grace and takes without shame. It is a
nation founded on contracts, on quid pro quo, on haggling and on
litigation. It is Mammon gone amok, law-abiding gone cancerous and
commerce gone haywire. Money has replaced all values combined and
fear substitutes for conscience. Its barons are robbers, its serial
killers are celebrities, its politicians corrupted by the twin
infections of campaign finance and narrow interests. Its diplomacy
is the conduit through which it spreads its rough hewn,
frontiersmen, bottom line and sound bite culture.
Thus, its "aid" is always strings-attached. Even when not explicit,
the payback is imminent and immanent. Goods can be bought with
American money only from American manufacturers. The recipient
countries are used as dumping grounds for surpluses, be they
agricultural or military. A swarm of advisors and do-gooders is in
place to secure American interests and markets, to deflect
adversaries, to intervene in local politics, brutally, if needed. As
a result, American charity, this fabulous beast, is derided as a new
form of American colonialism. Broken promises and keen trade
protectionism only aggravate the feeling that the West is more
interested in photo opportunities than in business opportunities. It
seems to be less concerned with the welfare of the assisted than
with the expense accounts of the assistants. Rather than where most
needed, grant money and provisions flow in the direction of waiting
TV cameras.
Even the "natives" of CEE and the Balkans accept that Western
diplomacy is the long arm of its business community. What they find
harder to digest is the double moral standard, the hypocrisy, the
preaching and the hectoring, the bad and uninformed advice foisted
upon them by third rate dropouts advisors and fourth rate third
world bankers. What they reject is the pompous likes of Blair - hair
artistically dishevelled in squalid refugee camps - lecturing,
preaching and beseeching while conveniently ignoring aid pledges he
solemnly made a while before. What they abhor is Germans
reprimanding them for political corruption, Frenchmen upbraiding
them for nepotism and cronyism and Britons teaching them health care
administration. Or Americans swearing by their selflessness,
objectivity and lack of ulterior motives. America plays by different
rules, exempt from international law and institutions. In short, the
indigenous resent being considered stupid.
The "multi"-lateral institutions (such as the IMF, the WTO and World
Bank) are long arms of the USA and, to a lesser extent, of Europe.
These are rich men's clubs. Their main aim is to sustain the
criminal fool's paradise that is Central and Eastern Europe and the
Balkans. They turn a blind eye to corrupt politicians who do their
bidding and another blind eye to violations of every right
imaginable - as long as a swampish stability is maintained. They are
the sotto voce juggernauts which, in the name of free marketry and
civil society, prepare the way for American and Western business.
The little good they do is lost in their partiality, ignorance and
shortsightedness. They are their master's voice.
Perhaps the West - more so the Anglo-Saxon contingent - should try
the refreshing opposite of unbridled narcissism. Perhaps it should
give freely and accept nothing in return, not even gratitude.
Perhaps it should no longer twist arms and threaten, let
multilateral institutions be really multilateral and encourage
pluralism through tolerance. More gratitude and business come the
way of those who seek them not. Omar al-Khayam, the Persian poet,
said: "IF you want to have the bird, set her free". But then the USA
is not very likely to listen to an Iranian, is it?
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AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)
Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant
Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West
Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician,
Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a
United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and
the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in
The Open Directory and Suite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government
of Macedonia.
Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com
