Interview with Justin Webb, BBC US Reporter and Author in one of the British papers today:
Justin Webb - Doesn't hate Americans
BEFORE we get to your book – do you believe Obama can win?
Yes. If he wins all the states Gore won in 2000, plus one more, he can. It’ll be quite tight down to the wire, unless one of them cocks up.
Why did you write Have a Nice Day?
I think America’s strengths are under-reported and their weaknesses over-reported, and we feel able to be contemptuous of Americans in a way we’d feel uncomfortable with if it was any other people. But when you look at its contribution to the world in its short history, how we depend on and enjoy American things, what they’ve made available, it’s pathetic to have that view.
But isn’t it run by bonkers evangelical Christians who don’t believe in evolution?
We over-emphasise the nutty religion. Americans do have a problem with rationality – there’s a side of the American psyche that’s very credulous, which is why Halloween is such a success; they like to be scared by ghosties and have an interest in the supernatural. And, yes, bizarre evolution issues come up in Presidential debates. But we don’t have sight of the decent things American evangelicals do, like prison work and aid. One of the Bush administration’s huge successes has been its funding of measures to tackle Aids in Africa.
What about their gun obsession?
Well, it’s interesting that gun ownership can co-exist with peacefulness. Appalling things happen, of course, but at the same time they’re able to create a quite genteel society. The US equivalent of a British market town is much more peaceful than in Britain, yet they’re much more heavily armed. Of course, I don’t think we should carry guns; I just throw that out as a thought.
What’s wrong with America?
I don’t think it appreciates the strength of its diversity. The ongoing debate about immigration is a giant case of missing the point. It’s a nation of settlers: look at the US Olympic team – 33 were born outside the States. Militarism is also a problem. There’s a tendency for people to set too much store by soldiers.
You say the American psyche is shaped by the landscape. How?
America’s the only first-world country with third-world weather. It’s amazingly rough: sandstorms, extreme heat, tornadoes. It explains the roughness of the American psyche. There’s a brutality about life that there isn’t in Europe.
In what way?
Like the easy acceptance of violence. Prisons are more brutal, and Americans are keener in general to resort to war. And there isn’t a European-style safety net, with millions of children not having health insurance. They’re more willing to accept that because they have to battle these brutal elements.
You also mention the prudishness, like the uproar over Janet Jackson’s ‘boob’.
Yes, it’s an obsession. We were on holiday in South Carolina, and my London friend was getting changed under a towel, and someone said ‘don’t do that!’ It’s damaging, because nudity becomes bad or pornographic. That, and America’s crazed work ethic, is testament to the strength of the Pilgrim Fathers’ lineage, physical and mental.
What’s the one thing we could learn from Americans?
Cheerful seriousness. They’re serious, yet relentlessly optimistic. You can regard it as completely ridiculous, and plough your own miserable furrow, or embrace and learn from it. After seven years living there, I can appreciate Americans’ serious intention to have a nice day.
Have a Nice Day, Short Books, out 11 Sep, £14.99
