<I think that there's evidence of a somewhat disturbing undercurrent present in Germany and much of Europe.>
Yes, this undercurrent can't be denied but still there's a wide spectrum of opinions. It's not that Germans have suddenly become doves circulating around Saddam. As an example I have translated and appended an AP article summarizing an interview with Wolf Biermann who is a popular author and songwriter. He was a communist and lived in the GDR for many years but was expelled as a dissident in 1976 while he was touring West Germany.
Former justice minister Mrs. Daeubler-Gmelin had to resign because of her alleged Bush-Hitler comparison. She didn't really compare them but wanted to highlight how Bush abuses foreign policy to divert from domestic problems. Schroeder is no better: his last-minute Iraq "trick" successfully drew the attention away from the structural problems of Germany. Not that all of the German electorate is that gullible - but 2% were sufficient for Schroeder to win. Offending US feelings was a tasteless sacrifice for a victory which might turn out to be a Pyrrhic one.
Here's a German biography of Biermann, with a photograph:
dhm.de
Wolf Biermann accuses Schroeder of a "dishonest trick"
Saturday, September 28, 2002
The artist Wolf Biermann criticized the Iraq policy of chancellor Schroeder. The 65-year-old first praised Schroeder in the Cologne newspaper "Sunday Express": "I am pleased that he gets a second chance." But then he added: "However, it hurts me that he won with a 'dishonest trick'. Nobody can tell me that Schroeder is that naive. He very probably knows that 'unlimited solidarity' is as much a stupidity as 'unlimited non-solidarity'. These are two sides of the wrong medal."
Foreign minister Joschka Fischer should now try to re-establish a normal relationship with the USA, Biermann said. A blind man with a crutch would have been able to see that the "peace rhetoric" was a last-minute election panic.
The author and songwriter requested that totalitarian fanatics who are threatening mankind, who want to kill other peoples, who are committing genocide have to be fought by force if other means are exhausted. Biermann stated: "Nobody needs to explain to me that peace is better than war. I am privileged to have experienced war. I was in Hamburg when it was bombed and 60,000 citizens died in one night - not at the edge but in the center. In 1943 my mother took me on her back and swam with me through the channel away from the fire." He added: "I only live because people were fighting Hitler Germany and many gave their life for it."
That the PDS [successor of the GDR communist party] failed to get into the Bundestag makes him obviously happy. "But it could be disadvantageous that they are now bathing in the darkness of not being in the spotlight of parliament and that Germans in east and west no longer have the opportunity to experience the squalidness and mendacity of these people." Biermann, angry: "How the heirs of GDR fat cats, who are historically proven militarists, were suddenly fighting for peace! You'd really have to be very young to not perceive their hypocrisy and cynicism."
Link to the original:
Samstag 28. September 2002, 13:27 Uhr
Wolf Biermann wirft Schroeder verlogenen Trick vor
de.news.yahoo.com |
