From the Desk of...
James Diedrick, professor of English and associate dean of the faculty

March 26, 2004

For lovers of literature, England has a near-mythic attraction. From Beowulf to Virginia Woolf, this island nation has produced an astonishing number of great writers, and every time I visit the country I have to resist the impulse to romanticize.

For the past several years I have been doing literary research in England during spring break. On every trip, as our British Airways jet descends and the lush landscape of the emerald isle appears beneath us, John of Gaunt’s words from Shakespeare’s Richard II begin echoing in my mind: “This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,/This other Eden, demi-Paradise; /This fortress built by Nature for herself/Against infection and the hand of war;/...This precious stone set in the silver sea,/...This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”

During this trip, however, romance was tempered by reality. On the next to last day of my trip, someone smashed a window in our rental car, and stole my passport.

No, I never should have left my passport in the car. I spent many hours after sweeping up the shattered glass reminding myself what I should have done. After all, I had plenty of time – the theft took place on a Saturday, I wouldn’t be allowed to fly back without a replacement, and the only place in London to get that replacement was closed until Monday.

But this column is not about the aftermath of my stolen passport—it’s about learning first-hand how present-day Londoners are living with the terror threat, and about how America’s war against Iraq has increased that threat in the eyes of many Europeans. I experienced some of this in the 48 hours I spent between tube stops on the London Underground and the time I spent at the heavily-fortified U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square.

I was stranded in London on March 15, just four days after Al Queda-linked terrorists attacked several commuter trains in Spain, one of the coalition countries that supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq. England, another of those countries, was in high alert mode. Subway passengers were on edge, clearly not reassured by the extra plain-clothes military and police officers assigned to mingle with passengers and prevent subway bombings.

To gain entrance to the Grosvenor Square area, I had to walk a gauntlet of steel fences, concrete barricades, and half a dozen automatic weapon-wielding guards. Inside, American television programming was interrupted for an announcement that a bomb threat had been received and we might need to follow evacuation or “duck and cover” procedures shortly.

My experience helped me understand the sobering statistics contained in the most recent “Global Attitudes” survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The survey, released on March 16, 2004, reveals that “a year after the war in Iraq, discontent with America and its policies has intensified rather than diminished.”

Most distressingly for those who imagine Britain as America’s staunchest ally, “in Great Britain . . . support for the decision to go to war has plummeted from 61 percent last May to 43 percent in the current survey... Moreover, there is broad agreement in nearly all of the countries surveyed – the U.S. being a notable exception – that the war in Iraq hurt, rather than helped, the war on terrorism.”

Walking the streets of London on March 15 tempered romance with reality, and gave me a taste of the daily anxiety many Londoners live with. But it doesn’t require a trip to Europe to understand some of the causes of this anxiety. Have a look at the full “Global Attitudes” survey at http://people-press.org/reports. Short of a semester abroad, it is one of the best ways to see how others see us.