Anti-Americanism
Anti-Americanism (also called anti-American sentiment)[1] is prejudice, fear or hatred of the United States, its government, its foreign policy, or Americans in general.[2]
Political scientist Brendon O'Connor at the United States Studies Centre in Australia suggests that "anti-Americanism" cannot be isolated as a consistent phenomenon, since the term originated as a rough composite of stereotypes, prejudices, and criticisms which evolved into more politically-based criticisms. French scholar Marie-France Toinet says that use of the term "anti-Americanism" is "only fully justified if it implies systematic opposition – a sort of allergic reaction – to America as a whole."[3] Scholars such as Noam Chomsky and Nancy Snow have argued that the application of the term "anti-American" to other countries or their populations is nonsensical, as it implies that disliking the American government or its policies is socially undesirable or even comparable to a crime.[4][5] In this regard, the term has been likened to the propagandistic usage of the term "anti-Sovietism" in the USSR.[4]
Discussions on anti-Americanism have in most cases lacked a precise explanation of what the sentiment entails (other than a general disfavor), which has led the term to be used broadly and in an impressionistic manner, resulting in the inexact impressions of the many expressions described as anti-American.[6] Author and expatriate William Russell Melton argues that criticism largely originates from the perception that the U.S. wants to act as a "world policeman".[7]
Negative or critical views of the United States or its influence have been widespread in Russia, China, Serbia,[8] Pakistan,[9] Bosnia,[10] Belarus[11] and the Greater Middle East,[12][13] but remain low in Israel, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Korea, Vietnam,[14] the Philippines and certain countries in central and eastern Europe.[12]
Anti-Americanism has also been identified with the term Americanophobia,[15][16][17] which Merriam-Webster defines as "hatred of the U.S. or American culture".[18]
In the online Oxford Dictionaries the term "anti-Americanism" is defined as "Hostility to the interests of the United States".[19]
Two protesters in Iran tearing an American flag at an anti-American rally after the American withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.
Protest march against the Vietnam War in Stockholm, Sweden, 1965
A 1944 German propaganda poster aimed at the Dutch, from a Norwegian World War II poster by Harald Damsleth
9/11: World Trade Center twin towers on fire
Public opinion on the US (2022)
Anti-American slogans, Victory Day in largely Russian-speaking Donetsk, Ukraine, 9 May 2014
Banner expressing anti-American sentiments in Stockholm, Sweden in 2006
Anti-war demonstration against a visit by George W. Bush to London in 2008
Protest against the deployment of Pershing II missiles in Europe, Bonn, West Germany, 1981
Protest against the deployment of Pershing II missiles, The Hague, 1983
Anti-American banners in Liverpool, UK.
Anti-American protests in Nanjing following the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, 1999
Okinawans protesting against the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, 8 November 2009
North Koreans touring the Museum of American War Atrocities in 2009
Protesters in Kuala Lumpur take to the streets to demonstrate against the
Innocence of Muslims film.
Student-activists from University of the Philippines and Ateneo de Manila University burn the flags of China and US to protest against their encroachment of Philippine sovereignty.
A protest in Tehran on 4 November 2015, against the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia
At the Iranian Foreign Ministry, in Tehran, a banner advertising an article written by Ayatollah Khomeini in which he is quoted as saying that America is the Great Satan
A Spanish satirical drawing published in
La Campana de Gràcia (1896) criticizing U.S. behavior regarding Cuba by Manuel Moliné, just prior to the Spanish–American War. Upper text reads (in old Catalan): "Uncle Sam's craving", and below: "To keep the island so it won't get lost."
Cartoon depicting Theodore Roosevelt's Big Stick interventionism
Anti-U.S. banner in a demonstration in Brazil, 27 January 2005
Guerrillero Heroico, Che Guevara, one of the iconic images from the Cuban Revolution and more generally anti-imperialism. Photo by Alberto Korda, 1961.
The Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice in Buenos Aires, commemorating the victims of the Dirty War in Argentina, 24 March 2016
Hugo Chávez strongholds in Caracas slums, Venezuela, often feature political murals with anti-U.S. messages.
A Canadian political cartoon from 1870 of "Uncle Sam and his boys," with Canada depicted in the background. Anti-American rhetoric in Canada during the period typically depicted the US as disorderly in contrast to Canada.
A demonstrator in Toronto holds up an anti-Trump sign in February 2016
Signage advocating against free trade with the United States on a building in Toronto in 1911
Protestors against the Iraq War in Montreal in March 2003
