(As we remember and celebrate the 30th anniversary of the defeat of the Americans by rice farmers in Vietnam).
The history of the past six decades can be summarized as being a war between the world and the Anglosaxon Axis (America, the UK, Australia). People from all over the world, from all kinds of different cultures have had to fight these Anglosaxons who continuously interfere in their lives and politics.
From Korea over Congo to Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Angola, Mozambique, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq... about everybody on the planet has had to defend themselves against the evil Anglosaxons (some for years on end - the Vietnamese - , others were lucky to succeed in throwing them out by sending local girls with kalashnikovs to defeat the US marines - the Somalians - ). Every five years since WWII, these Anglosaxons have created war campaigns, launched civil wars, destroyed countless lives, committed bloody coups d'état, installed dictators, destabilized young democracies or simply bombed people to death.
This continuous violence coming from one and the same culture is silently creating a collective world memory. All peoples of the planet are united in this regard. Go anywhere on the planet, and ask
What the World Thinks of America. You'll get the same answers everywhere.
As these major research results show, America is the world's most hated nation. The Chinese may hate the Japanese, but both hate America more than they hate each other.
"Anti-Anglosaxonism" has become a truly universal trait of humankind. It is also a legitimate one.
The question now is very simple: suppose Peak Oil hits the world, will there be a kind of collective revenge, directed against the USA and its Anglosaxon allies?
Collective violence is always a very complex matter, and the psycho-social dynamics of such outbursts of revenge only come to the fore when material conditions are ripe. I fear that Peak Oil may create just such conditions.
Even though the Anglosaxons have actively tried to whipe out the memory of people who were subjected to their violence (they now even have a special Minister whose sole task is to combat world wide legitimate Anti-Anglosaxonism - her name is Karen Hughes), they underestimate the power of such collective memories. Neither a change in culture, political regime or economic wealth can whipe out collective memory. Globalization may efface many cultural habits, but collective memories are too persistent to succumb to it.
Will these collective memories converge and be "worked through" (as Freud put it), by attacking and destroying the object that drives this deep anger? Will Peak Oil create such conditions that the legitimate and latent form of global anti-Anglosaxonism, turns into an active and less legitimate form of revenge?