Belgian Public Radio: Proud of its Anti-American Dance

From the desk of Luc Van Braekel on Wed, 2005-10-12 13:45

What you see here is an advertisement for the Belgian radio network "Radio 1", operated by the public broadcaster VRT. Its tagline "meteen mee" means "get it right away" or "get it at on(c)e". To illustrate this slogan, the ad shows six pictures of president Bush. On the first one he is smiling, and the caption reads:
2002. When things are not going well on the domestic front, divert attention and start a war abroad. In Iraq for instance.
On pictures two through five Bush looks more and more worried and the captions read:
Iraqi resistance is persistent. There are more victims than we expected. It is costing more than we had budgeted. And then, the levees break and New Orleans is flooded, while the National Guard is in Iraq.
In the last picture Bush is smiling again and saying:
When things are not going well domestically, divert attention and start a war abroad. Maybe in Iran?
Mind you, the purpose of this advertising campaign by the Belgian public broadcasting service is not officially to convince people that president Bush has hideous plans or dishonest intentions. As with any advertising campaign, its first purpose is to catch attention. In addition it intends to convey the message that Radio 1 is reliable and competent, providing its listeners with information and analysis, providing background and perspective, so that you "get it right away". The campaign targets an information-hungry audience of professionals, intellectuals and students.

There are, however, a few problems with this campaign. First, it contains a factual error. Though the pressure on Iraq to give up its weapons of mass destruction was heightened in September 2002, the war did not start until March 2003.

Second, the ad does not convince me of Radio 1's competence. All I see is that the public broadcasting service is taking the same old path of anti-American clichés and Bush-bashing and is so proud of it that it is advertising it.

Third, the ad's reference to Iran is particularly inappropriate in view of the fact that Europe's endless 'negotiations' with Iran about its nuclear program have been a total failure.

The public broadcaster VRT gets more than a quarter billion euros a year from the government and earns some forty million euros from the radio commercials it broadcasts. Consequently at least 85% of this campaign is being paid for by the taxpayer. [hat tip]

If I understand correctly,

Submitted by Matt (not verified) on Fri, 2005-10-14 01:51.

This is an advertisement for a -public- broadcasting service, right? So, I would think that it would be under some obligation to perform its public function in a reasonably politically neutral way. How can this be squared with the out-and-out condemnation and mockery of Bush in the advertisement? Do people in Belgium all have to pay for a state broadcasting service to provide anti-Bush propaganda regardless of their own political views?

Do people in Belgium all

Submitted by Nicolas Raemdonck on Fri, 2005-10-14 10:44.

Do people in Belgium all have to pay for a state broadcasting service to provide anti-Bush propaganda regardless of their own political views?

Yes, we have to.

Sad, Pathetic Little Belgians

Submitted by Molly (not verified) on Thu, 2005-10-13 21:01.

Pretty sad when not one Belgian can come up with some sort of catchy advertisement to represent Belgium. So, once again America comes to their rescue. Gee, they must really love us Americans (tongue in cheek)!!!

So sorry. I need to stop

Submitted by Molly (not verified) on Fri, 2005-10-14 11:08.

So sorry. I need to stop using that 'all Belgians' phrase, especially since my husband is Flemish Belgian. He is not pathetic either.

"But are you pro-Bush or are

Submitted by Mike (not verified) on Thu, 2005-10-13 02:27.

"But are you pro-Bush or are you simply annoyed that America is not treated objectively by the Belgian media? What is it exactly that we lose by criticising America's attitude, Bush or the war in Iraq? What is there to gain and how could we accomplish this?"

But my question is two-fold:
1. Does the Belgian Press take to task other Countries with far worse records with the same zeal?
2. Where's the balance? Who's arguing for the other side in the Belgian Press?

To answer your two

Submitted by Paul Belien on Thu, 2005-10-13 07:44.

To answer your two questions:
1. No. (There is hardly any criticism of the human rights record of the Chinese.)
2. We are.

Which proves my point

Submitted by Bart Vanhauwaert on Thu, 2005-10-13 08:40.

That anti-Americanism is about economics not ethics. Now China is adopting a more capitalist attitude, public opinion is slowly turning against China : 'the Chinese are taking our jobs!'

Which proves mine

Submitted by Paul Belien on Thu, 2005-10-13 10:05.

There is not the same degree of "anti-Chinism" as anti-Americanism. Moreover, if there is criticism of China it is not because of its human rights record, or because of what happens in Chinese prisons (worse than Gitmo?), the poverty rate in China's backward provinces (New Orleans?), the bad health care provisions, the foreign policy towards Taiwan... all the things America is criticised for.

If public opinion is slowly turning against China because the Chinese are taking our jobs, this is yet another proof of the envy of Europeans towards those that are doing a better job at wealth creation than Europe. The cause might be economics (which proves your point), but envy is a matter of ethics (which proves mine). If an American sees someone who is rich he wants to do his best and become rich too. If Europeans see rich people they demand that the state rob them of their money.

Sorry misunderstood you there

Submitted by Bart Vanhauwaert on Thu, 2005-10-13 14:48.

Sure, you could say (not) being jealous is a question of conservative ethics. I thought by ethics you meant issues like abortion, homosexual marriage and euthanasia. To my defense you write more about those kind of ethics on this weblog so the mistake is easy to make.

Of course I agree that the basic mechanism behind anti-Americanism is jealousy.

Guardian of morality

Submitted by Paul Belien on Thu, 2005-10-13 18:34.

I do believe, however, that morality is a seamless garment. Of course abortion, homosexual "marriage", euthanasia,... are ethical issues. Whether the state has to be morality's watchdog is another matter. I think that the role of guardian of morality is primarily the role of the church(es) and not of the state, which is why, unless we allow the state to usurp this role, religion is very important.
Here, too, the US differs from Western Europe. Churches play an important role in the lives of ordinary Americans, while Europe's problems result from the fact that it has created a religious vacuum in the heart of its civilization. A secular culture (a culture without a cult) dies. I think that is what we are witnessing in Europe.

Here is why I am unconvinced

Submitted by Bart Vanhauwaert on Fri, 2005-10-14 12:59.

Morality may be a seamless garment but it does not fall the same way for everyone. There is no connection between 'supporting gay marriage' and 'being jealous of America's wealth'. You can be one without the other.

I am glad we agree state imposed morality is a sure way to lose our freedom and more! While (old)European governments certainly are guilty as charged, (and this is no excuse) nearly all states try to legalize morality, even America to a surprisingly large extend.

But I fail to see why churches are necessarily a better institution to give moral guidance. Clearly history proves they can just as well as secular states be wrong, open to abuse or perverted by individuals wielding the powers granted to them for the better good for their own interest.

I believe that morality is not something that should fall from the top downwards, be it from the church or the state, but should grow at the bottom. The only thing sacred is the individual and thus one's own opinion.

The religious breakdown in old-Europe is not so much because society has become secular/selfish/etc... It is because the de-facto monopoly and hierarchy of the catholic church was and is ill-adapted to this modern idea of individualism. The plurality of churches and various semi-religious institutions in America make this crisis less acute. By converting to another church an American citizen is more likely to find an institution that conforms to his or her own point of view than the old-European with hist only one option : breaking away from the catholic church.

It is true that the Catholic church is still popular in quite a few countries where it has a monopoly that does not seem to break down. In Africa (and Latin America) this can be explained by a lack of modernism in those societies themselves and the relative common forms of paganism that allow an individual to be catholic in name but with a lot more spiritual and ethical freedom than the average European catholic. In Poland (probably the most catholic of all the new European countries) communism and the popularity of pope J-P II surpressed and delayed the modernisation of society. But I am convinced that is just temporary.

We will not agree on this,

Submitted by Paul Belien on Fri, 2005-10-14 13:26.

We will not agree on this, but we do not have to. I think that the problem with the individualism as you see it is that the individual has to "create" his own moral values. I believe there is a lot of wisdom and knowledge about human nature in the traditions (including, perhaps most importantly, the traditional morality) of the generations that preceded us. These people were not dumber than we are.
Hayek has written extensively about this, but so have Chesterton and other conservative thinkers. I think that we should build on our own wisdom but also on that of the generations before us. Otherwise mankind is bound to make a lot of the mistakes that have already been made.

Not agreeing is good

Submitted by Bart Vanhauwaert on Sat, 2005-10-15 09:19.

It wouldn't be consistent with my plea for individualism if I thought otherwise. I think the argument you make for tradition is a very good one and I'd like to hear more of it sometime. Another subject, if I may suggest one, would be how you see 'dying cultures'. We hear that a lot from the conservative when referring to Old Europe, but I've never taken it as a serious comment. Is it, and yes, how does the standaard apply to other large blocks like South America, China, India or even Africa (which is literally dying)

The times they are a changing...

Submitted by Bob Doney on Sat, 2005-10-15 11:55.

...Old Europe, but I've never taken it as a serious comment. Is it, and yes, how does the standard apply to other large blocks like South America, China, India or even Africa (which is literally dying)

Trying to take a longer historical view, I would have thought that the striking thing about our world now are the totally unprecedented rate of social change, and the fact that these changes are taking place in a globally interconnected way. This has never been true before in human history as far as I understand it.

To say, for example, that Old Europe is somehow sick or even terminal just does not accord with the facts. Just compare the reality of people's lives with, say, a hundred years ago.

Bob

Mistakes

Submitted by Bob Doney on Fri, 2005-10-14 15:49.

I think that we should build on our own wisdom but also on that of the generations before us. Otherwise mankind is bound to make a lot of the mistakes that have already been made.

Sorry to be a nuisance, but...

How do we choose which wisdom should be handed down from earlier generations and built on, and which should be rejected as not relevant to our modern lives? How do we decide which beliefs led to mistakes and which to earthly paradise? AH YES!! We can use the methods of logic, historical analysis and scientific reasoning bequeathed to us by the heroes of Ancient Greece and the Enlightenment.

The alternative would be to list all the wisdom and beliefs of the ages, and stick pins in blindfold to decide which should stay and which should go.

Bob Doney

sticking pins

Submitted by Paul Belien on Fri, 2005-10-14 16:22.

We do not have to stick pins because we can opt for the wisdom and beliefs of those societies that have proved to be the most free and prosperous.
I think that, despite all its flaws, this is the Christian civilisation of America, which as I argued elsewhere has its roots in the civilisation of mediaeval Europe, which has to a large extent been killed by the continental (as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon) Enlightenment.
As Hayek wrote on pp 136-7 of his The Fatal Conceit:

"Like it or not, we owe the persistence of [...] civilisation [...] in part to support from beliefs which are not true - or verifiable or testable - in the same sense as are scientific statements, and which are certainly not the result of rational argumentation. [...] In any case, the religious view that morals were determined by processes incomprehensible to us may at any rate be truer (even if not exactly in the way intended) than the rationalist delusion that man, by exercising his intelligence, invented morals that gave him the power to achieve more than he could ever foresee."

Stuck

Submitted by Bob Doney on Fri, 2005-10-14 16:29.

we can opt for the wisdom and beliefs of those societies that have proved to be the most free and prosperous.

Which wisdom? Which beliefs? The Pilgrim Fathers'? Henry Ford's? George Washington's or some other George's?

Get that pin out, Paul, and get sticking!

Bob

Death of a culture

Submitted by Bob Doney on Thu, 2005-10-13 21:33.

A secular culture (a culture without a cult) dies.

Our culture is getting more secular all the time, and we ain't dead yet.

Bob Doney

Problems

Submitted by Bob Doney on Thu, 2005-10-13 21:31.

Europe's problems result from the fact that it has created a religious vacuum in the heart of its civilization.

Which problems? The problem of widespread poverty? The problem of not having a bathroom and an inside toilet? The problem of children having to leave school to support a family? The problem of women not having equal opportunities? The problem of neighbouring countries wanting to fight each other all the time? The problem of getting clean drinking water? The problem of mass unemployment? The problem of unsafe working conditions?

These are all problems that were very serious in my lifetime, and, although not totally "solved", are a lot less pressing now.

Or perhaps you mean the problem of finding a good leftside player for our World Cup squad?

Bob Doney

Envy & wealth

Submitted by Brigands on Thu, 2005-10-13 11:59.

Well we cant say we're not wealthy. We can say that we're being sucked dry by the State, but does that extent to the whole of Europe?
The US might be wealthy but as far as I recall they arnt the ones taking away our jobs.
I would say the blame is rather pointed towards national goverments, over-taxation, the European Union and its expansion drift, upcoming trade with China.

China is a big market, but how long will it take before they take us out economically ?
Economics is also related to Defense & global power, elements which have been decreasing in the West. Russia is a joke, Europe has been cutting in a frenzy, the US has overstretched itself a bit. It gives the impression we're loosing the stability of the bipolar world.

How long is it going to take China to invade Taiwan ? To become global defense player ?
Elements of insecurity and the scariest to me is that they come from -what remains- a communist state.

Where's my job gone?

Submitted by Bob Doney on Thu, 2005-10-13 09:24.

Now China is adopting a more capitalist attitude, public opinion is slowly turning against China : 'the Chinese are taking our jobs!'

Very often the ones who say this also argue that it is shocking that there are so many poor people in the world, and more should be done to help them!

I would have thought that a couple of billion new customers for all the things that Europe does best is quite an exciting prospect.

Bob Doney

Unfortunetaly these cases of

Submitted by Nicolas Raemdonck on Wed, 2005-10-12 22:31.

Unfortunetaly these cases of anti-americanism are widespread in Belgium. The advertising people of the VRT will may be say that they only give the people what they want, because anti-Bush advertisement is very popular with a population that is very anti-Bush.

But this argumentation does not make sense because it is just because the media only publishes and broadcasts anti-american propaganda that many Belgians are anti-american.

By advertising with anti-Bush material, they are trying to influence their public again.

Say no to propaganda of the so-called neutral public broadcaster.

This is getting old...

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2005-10-12 18:01.

Yet another article about America- or Bush-bashing.

Yes I got the message Mr.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2005-10-13 01:31.

Yes I got the message Mr. Belien.

But are you pro-Bush or are you simply annoyed that America is not treated objectively by the Belgian media? What is it exactly that we lose by criticising America's attitude, Bush or the war in Iraq? What is there to gain and how could we accomplish this?

Anti-Americanism is a

Submitted by Paul Belien on Thu, 2005-10-13 07:37.

Anti-Americanism is a pathology of a dying continent. As I wrote here last week (in my article on "red America vs blue Europe") I do not think that Bush and the war in Iraq have caused it. Europe hates America predominantly because of its ethics and economics, and to a far lesser extent because of its foreign policy. This explains why the Europeans also hate the conservative opponents of Bush and the war in Iraq, such as Pat Buchanan, Thomas Fleming etc.

Not convinced

Submitted by Bart Vanhauwaert on Thu, 2005-10-13 08:34.

I think few Europeans even know there is resistance against the Iraq war from leading conservatives. Most common answer : Pat who?

No, anti-Americanism is clearly a derivative of economical ideology. It dates back from the cold war when the cultural elite was openly communist. Now the iron curtain has fallen, it surfs on the same sentiments as the anti-globalization movement. "Capitalist" is still an insult and probably will be for some time.

Europe's public opinion claims American foreign policy is all about hidden economics (it's about the oil) rather than bringing conservative values to Iraq (the average pious Shia is probably more conservative than America ever will be). The focal point of European anti-Americanism is the Iraq war; not because it is seen as a moral crusade but as economic imperialism.

Denial

Submitted by Bob Doney on Thu, 2005-10-13 09:17.

anti-Americanism is clearly a derivative of economical ideology

I think that's true, but there is also a lot of plain, old-fashioned jealousy involved. There is a lot of cultural anti-Americanism here in the UK, even though, because of our shared language and history, we actually allow a huge American influence in our way of life.

I also think there is much to Paul's point about Europe being a "dying continent" - old Europe, that is chiefly France, Germany and Italy, are clearly in denial about what is required to renew and reinvigorate Europe. As against that the countries to the East and West show a more forward-looking and optimistic approach, and the ones to the North show that social progress can go together with economic strength.

Whether Europe will rot from the middle outwards, or whether it will be rescued by the outer countries (including Turkey) remains to be seen. It will be fascinating to watch, but probably not much fun to experience!

Bob Doney

Rescued by Turkey

Submitted by Brigands on Thu, 2005-10-13 11:51.

No thanks, I dont require any assistance from Turkey.
I believe everyone has a bone to pick with the US; my bone is named Turkey.
It is true that there is a broad level of anti-Americanism but I wonder about some things.

Using the ancient Left-Right typology.
Those on the left seem predominantly anti-Aermicanism because of globalisation and because US foreign policy which is disturbing an element of their electorate (Muslims).
Those on the right of the scale that have anti-American tendencies are somewhat bizar...they dont quite know why they're like that. So far, I believe their motivations are the following: there is the element of US Mass Culture, which is 'threatening our culture' and the US stirring up the Middle East causing a growth in insecurity mainly for those living in Brussels.

Either way Europe might be dying but we still have potential which will never come around if no-one acts. We should turn to a confederacy; we should dump that hidious pseudo- nation-state Belgium. But it seems we're just all sitting on our asses...or is it me ?