Kozlowski: No need for another Europe

To hear some of the talk on both sides of the Atlantic, Europeans and Americans are hardly… To hear some of the talk on both sides of the Atlantic, Europeans and Americans are hardly the same species. We aren’t those wimpy, cheese-eating surrender monkeys and they aren’t capitalistic, imperialistic warmongers. Europe constantly gives us a lot of crap about being loud, ugly Americans with no class, and parties on both sides of the ocean occasionally suggest that the United States should aim to be just like Europe.

Now, I’m not a trained anthropologist, nor do I play one on TV. I only spent two weeks in Europe, and a lot of that time was spent trying not to trip over other tourists. I don’t pretend to have knowledge of the languages of the countries I visited, and of course I didn’t see everything. However, I did take the best look I could manage. And some of what I saw suggests that we should be glad for what we have in this country and avoid making generalizations about our nation.

Europe has a lot more history than we can begin to fathom here. Siena, Italy is a town where the “new” construction dates to the 1750s. However, this history is dotted with reminders of serious internal strife. You don’t utter the name “Medici” in Siena, because the city was conquered by the same name in the 1550s. Carvings of the Venetian lion in Verona — itself a representation of a past conquest — are thoroughly trashed and vandalized not by hoodlums of the present but by one hoodlum of the past: Napoleon. The town hall of Bologna has the names of partisans who fought the Fascists carved in it, along with those who died in a Fascist terror-bombing in the 1970s.

In Croatia, the strife is more recent and obvious. The countryside is dotted with houses that have caved-in roofs or houses where only the outer wall remains standing, likely the victims of shelling. Other buildings have large holes chipped in the façade in random patterns, just the right size to have been made by large-caliber bullets. A street in Zagreb is called “the Bloody Bridge,” because before Yugoslavs of different ethnic groups butchered each other, Yugoslavs of the same ethnic group in the same city fought in the streets.

Generally, we have avoided domestic strife in our nation. Sure, there was a dreadful civil war, there have been large riots, and we had disco inflicted upon us, but these were remarkable occurrences. The U.S. homeland has been spared war damage: The last foreign power to destroy a city was Great Britain. And the last city destroyed by warfare was Richmond, Va., in 1865.

The Europeans also helped me appreciate how good race relations are in the United States. Go ahead, laugh all you want at this obviously naïve statement. But then consider that one member of our glee club was asked by an Italian, in all seriousness, how we “blended the black and white forces together” in our group. In Venice, we encountered giggling Slovenians trying to get photographs of the two black members of the glee club. Our tenors had a tour guide who didn’t want to talk about or go inside a synagogue, despite our group showing interest. Finally, consider former Yugoslavia in general.

What I heard in Europe also made me pause about some elements of common knowledge. Take, for example, the notion that Americans are overworked — always striving for who knows what, only caring about money, they lead pointless, rat-race lives. Europeans, on the other hand, are carefree, relaxed and happy. Everybody knows this.

Except the Polish engineer I talked to in Porec, Croatia. He and his wife had visited Washington, and told me all about it in Polish — a language and culture I grew up with. What they said was astonishing: They found Americans very relaxed, always friendly, always making wisecracks, always enjoying themselves, while Europeans were tight-lipped and striving frantically for unclear objectives, not unlike the French Army in World War I. Granted, perhaps if they had visited New York City instead of Seattle, they wouldn’t have the same story. However, this showed me that some of the assumptions we make about ourselves are not necessarily true.

Oh yes. And though some American tourists were obnoxious, some of the Germans I saw were just as bad or worse.

Now, I don’t mean to sound anti-Europe. I found the people of Italy and Croatia to be genial and helpful to ignorant tourists like myself. Europe has a lot we can learn from: It was very pleasant to linger for two hours over dinner, then go for a two-hour stroll later. The cities are walkable. Zagreb’s public transportation looked clean, extensive and efficient in my limited experience. The art and architecture of Italy live up to all its hype. However, despite Europe being stunning, we shouldn’t be so hasty to Europeanize this country.

Europhile? Europhobe? Write kozthought@gmail.com.