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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hoa Hao who wrote (1572)	5/28/2003 6:03:13 PM
From: Elsewhere	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793955

My Babel Fish translation of the article you provided isn't up to allowing me to make any comments on the author's comments. Ok, I have translated Enzensberger's essay for you. All language errors are mine. Needless to say that I don't agree with all of Enzensberger's arguments but at least the piece ought to show that there are supporters of the Iraq war in Old Europe. See also a short article on Biermann I translated in #reply-18065894 - he is a famous singer and writer here. Hans Magnus Enzensberger Blind Peace A postscript to the Iraq war Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; April 15, 2003, p. 39 1. One of the few deep pleasures which history offers is the end of a dictator, no matter whether it is the loss of his power or his death. The toppling of his statues, the destruction of his images symbolize this moment. Hitler, Stalin, Franco, Pinochet, Ceausescu, Mobutu, Milosevic, Saddam - the list is endless. The end of Castro, Mugabe, Kim Jong-Il and a dozen others is foreseeable; each day of their continued regimen costs more human lives. The triumphant joy one feels when one of these figures perishes is based on having survived them. Canetti said about the most important motif of the dictator: to see as many people die as possible until his own time has come. This is reflected by those who detest him. Insofar this joy is barbaric to some extent although it is directed against the enemies of humanity. 2. Is one allowed to feel happy, or isn't one? The images of the toppling of Saddam Hussein are suspicious if not faked. Relief is an emotion better not to yield to. It is more meritorious to warn. If the peace proponents talk about the victory it sounds repressed. Somewhat embarrassing that there are Iraqis who welcome their occupiers! Nobody likes to be stultified. It isn't the first stultification of the warners; not for the first time the wrinkles of worry on the German forehead have proved to be premature. It isn't that long ago that the GDR (East Germany) was regarded as unshakable; it was considered to be one of the most successful industrial nations; the social democrats did everything to have amenable talks with the SED [the GDR communist party]; the Polish Solidarnosc was thought to be a dangerous trouble maker. Stability was everything, the Soviet Union an invincible monster which only the Americans and other cold warriors harassed whereas the heroic peace demonstrators of Mutlangen were opposing the provocative armament of the USA. It was weird and for many on the left annoying that the monster was standing on feet of clay! Similarly the Serbia of Slobodan Milosevic should have be treated like a raw egg for the sake of peace. Each intervention on the Balkan threatened a conflagration of unknown extent. Not to speak of the Taliban! Whoever attacked them would incite the whole Islamic world, an apocalyptic imagination. A comparable unisono of overassessment was heard regarding Iraq. There was a kind of panic rigor - the friend of peace adopted the attitude of the rabbit in front of the snake: "The German government has access to several studies, including one by the UN. 40,000 to 200,000 victims of military action are expected. It is to be feared that there will be another 200,000 indirect victims of the war." (Jürgen Trittin, environment minister of the German government) "The Iraqis had one year to prepare for the war. It is obvious how well they have prepared so that an invasion would certainly result in a big battle for Baghdad." (Stig Förster, military historian) "An attack would result in an explosion of the Middle East" (Angelika Beer, chair woman of the Greens) 3. According to Iraqi sources the war led to 1300 civilian victims; 153 Allied soldiers are supposed to have been killed. One needn't believe such numbers straight away. But for sure no other war before has caused so few deaths. Never before these victims were shown with so much involvement in all media of the world. This compassion is in a strange contrast to other facts: during the Iraq war at least one thousand civilians were killed in so-called tribal wars in Congo - for the big media a "fait divers". Thirty other wars - some of them far more brutal - ravaging all over the world lead a shadowy existence. Also the Germans don't seem to remember Hamburg, Cologne, Nuremberg, Berlin and Dresden - maybe because a comparison would show how cautiously the Anglo-American coalition has been proceeding this time. Generally peace activists have the strange notion that a war which they try to prevent must not have any victims if it does take place - a demand which could be called heart-warming if it didn't show a lack of realism which doesn't augur well in a political sense. It is only topped by the loss of realism in the Arab world where self-deception is widespread. A "wish as the father of the thought" is ruling without limits, and the more fatal a role model is the stronger one is attached to it: Nasser, Arafat, Gaddafi, Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein... 4. How often - and how unsuccessfully - has it been said: the code of politics is not congruent with moral. Many agitated persons are incapable of making this distinction. Their crouched attitude is coupled with a wondrous moral superiority. Maybe that is the reason why their criticism has a specific smell. Being pharisaic and sanctimonious catches up with most of the protesters. "No blood for oil!" - an effective slogan even in the mouth of somebody who enjoys his car, his heating, his travels and whose protest would rapidly find a new target if the gas stations were empty, it was freezing in the flat and the flight to Mallorca was canceled. As far as the "axis" Paris-Berlin-Moscow is concerned Americans are supposed to act according to low, material, egoistic motives but the own ones are not reflected. Russia and France have enormous economic interests in Iraq, not only in the oil and weapon business, and for decades Germany had a prominent role exporting weapons to Iraq. It is a fact that the sanctions imposed by the United Nations were far more deleterious for the Iraqis than the war; there are estimates of hundreds of thousands of victims. Therefore the peace friends always criticized them. According to them the regime would have remained in power and with it the UN sanctions. 5. A more pious intent than the maximum protection of the Iraq regime is to establish democracy in every country. It is objected that this is an illusion considering the religious and political traditions in the region. Aside from not being free of colonial haughtiness such arguments ignore that a regime like the Iraqi one has little in common with traditional political structures in the Islamic world; it is modern in the most fatal sense and owes important properties to the model of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. There is little which is more expensive for society than a totalitarian system. Its terror is not only physical; it is not restricted to torture and murder. It results in a loss of human substance which can be felt decades after its end. It starts with the displacement and the flight of the best citizens, a loss which a society never fully recovers from. The mentality of the remaining majority changes the more the longer the tyranny lasts. Civil deficits, rightlessness and irresponsibility are rampant; perception is distorted and inhibition thresholds are lowered. Only after the collapse of a regime the long-lasting damages become apparent. The resocializing of whole peoples is a very protracted and complex process which shouldn't have escaped the Germans. It is nearly to be expected that those which toppled the regime are accused of any problem which appears in such cases. Even if the Americans and the Brits would provide miracles it would only be a proof of their deceitfulness. 6. The object of hate of the war opponents in the current conflict isn't Saddam Hussein but G. W. Bush - a fact which has to be explained. The more radical speakers of the left, the Islamists and Arab nationalism talk if asked about the dictator (for by themselves they hesitate to speak about him) of a perfect symmetry between Bush and Saddam; in any case the former, they say, is more dangerous. The very same manichaeism - which critics accuse the US president of - is characterizing themselves. Both sides would like to identify evil unambiguously - one in Iraq, the other one in the USA. It is inconceivable to them that anthropologically good and evil coexist in the same person. The difference between the political systems of the USA and Iraq seems to be unknown or is deemed irrelevant. No wonder that East Europeans are no friends of this equalization. They deem the lack of fantasy of war opponents grotesque; their historic experiences help them to recognize nuances like the difference between life and death. It is especially strange that many Germans adhere to the rhetoric of appeasement just as if they never suffered from a totalitarian regime. Most of them didn't see sufficient reasons for terminating the terror regime in Iraq; not that they wanted it to last eternally but any decisive step towards its end was deprecated. In spite of the German experiences or maybe even because of them? Maybe it is admissible to remember how difficult it is for Germans to consider the defeat of the Nazi regime as a liberation - it was called "collapse", the Allies were the "occupiers". One of the earliest graffitis of the post-war time was "Ami go home". Similarly the end of the East German dicatorship didn't please all inhabitants of the country. Admittedly gratitude isn't a political category. The fact that Germany has been saved by the Western Allies and that without them the Wall would still be standing isn't something to expect thankfulness for. But a little more courage for liberty, a little less haughtiness might be useful in this context.