Dialog International

Social Europe

The good bloggers at the European Tribune have made me aware of a new quarterly journal: Social Europe: a journal of the European left. On the Web site, the journal's editors make their mission quite clear:

Social Europe – the name of the journal outlines our programme. In principal opposition to conservative and neo-liberal ideas, we stand up for the design and deepening of the European societal model on the basis of social democratic values. We support the development of the integration process and identify ourselves with the aims of the European Constitution, namely to assure ‘unity in diversity' in Europe. As regards the way we are seen by the outside world, for us, this implies the self-commitment of the European Union (EU) to advocate a just, democratic, and sustainable world order.

There is also an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for.  Even though the focus of the journal is Europe, I'm sure many Americans will be interested in reading this journal.  Many of us are fed up with the prevailing cult of the free market which has slowly destroyed the middle class and left tens of millions of Americans without adequate health care and educational opportunities.  So we are open to learning about different economic and social models that are predicated on the common good.  Actually, one the most interesting article in the current issue is by an American - Jeremy Rifkin: The real underlying debate in Europe is not the EU Constitution but, rather, the Future of Capitalism. Rifkin gets to the root of the great debate:

The strength of capitalism is, paradoxically, also its weakness. The market caters to the pursuit of individual self-interest, and is, therefore, almost pathologically innovative. Individual risk-taking, the entrepreneurial spirit, technological innovation, and productivity advances exceed any other economic system ever devised. This point, I believe, is generally agreed to by all. But then, the more troubling question has to be asked, what does capitalism not do well? It does not fairly distribute the fruits of economic progress. That is because the logic in the boardroom is to always cut production costs in order to maximise profits and shareholder value. This means reducing, whenever possible, the share of the gains that go to workers, as well as cutting the expense of preserving the natural environment upon which all future economic activity depends. The result is a world increasingly divided between haves and have-nots and a biosphere seriously weakened at the hands of self-interest devoid of a sense of collective responsibility.

This needs to be debated in the US.  Last week it was reported that the top hedge fund managers on Wall Street took home between $125 million and $1 billion in pay last year.  Meanwhile the price of a college education - traditionally a ticket to middle class prosperity - is increasingly out of reach for many Americans.  Unless we are willing to rethink our economic policy and listen to ideas from others we could be faced with a meltdown of the middle class in America, the foundation of our democratic system.

Social Democracy Economics Kapitalismus Wirtschaft

Stasi Film Gets Front-Page Coverage

This spring has seen an incredible amount of media hype for The Da Vinci Code, which I guess is raking in $$millions even though the critics have been less than enthusiastic.  German cinema rarely gets any notice in the US press, which is why it is an event worth noting when the Boston Globe has a front-page story about Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others). The article discusses how the film has started a new discussion about the darker side of the DDR:

The film ``Das Leben der Anderen" -- ``The Lives of Others" -- has triggered what some call the first debate in the reunified nation about the realities of the communist regime, a Soviet satellite state that came into being in 1949 and collapsed with the Berlin Wall four decades later.

``In trying to rebuild a unified country, Germans have to some extent put the topic off-limits," said Jochen Staadt, a researcher at Berlin's Free University who is a specialist on the German Democratic Republic, or GDR, the formal name of East Germany. . ``Criticism of the GDR has been muted because many East Germans have felt that it was criticism of their lives."

Indeed, a recent poll found that 56 percent of Germans surveyed felt it was inappropriate to discuss wrongdoing of the fallen communist system.

But the drama directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, a dark tale of love broken by the manipulations of the state security apparatus, has made the Stasi the talk of Germany and beyond. The movie this month won seven top awards from the German Film Academy and is quickly moving into theaters across Europe.

``German cinema has tended to portray the GDR as this funny place with quirky characters that no one takes seriously," Henckel von Donnersmarck told Der Spiegel magazine. ``This is really very different [from the true] atmosphere of great fear, of great mistrust."

The unsettling film comes just as former officers of the Stasi are mounting a controversial campaign to revise their image. With articles and books, rallies and swaggering takeovers of public meetings, the former officers seem determined to paint themselves as upholders of a firm but fair system that provided stable jobs, safe streets, and state-run day-care centers.

The film has not been shown in the US, so I haven't seen it (I'm still waiting for Sophie Scholl to be available on Netflix). If any readers have seen it and care to share their impressions, please leave a comment.

Not sure where I come down on the moral issues at play here.  It is easy for us who never lived in a totalitarian system based on fear and violence to condemn those who made their lives a bit easier by collaborating with the Stasi (as IM - Informelle Mitarbeiter).  On the other hand I understand the permanent rage of the victims who will never forgive those who persecuted them and their families. In any event, I am anxious to see Das Leben der Anderen.

I can recommend a couple of novels that deal with the topic.  Alexander Osang's Die Nachrichten is a fascinating portrait of an Ossi who has made it big as a television news reader in Hamburg. He is thrown into an existential (and career-threatening) crisis when he is accused of being an IM.  He then begins a search for his own past in what used to be East Berlin. Osang, who is from East Berlin but is now the US correspondent for Der Spiegel, is an excellent writer and a keen observer of the human comedy (and also happens to be a nice guy).  Another novel - lesser known but quite good - is Novembermärchen. Keine bleibende Stadt by Otto Emersleben, an east German writer who, by a twist of fate, now lives just a few miles from me (he showed me the file the Stasi maintained about him). The novel deals with the momentous events leading up to Die Wende, as seen through the eyes of a woman activist whose husband is an IM (and who writes reports for the Stasi about his own wife).  Novembermaerchen is one of the few novels I know of that deals with Die Wende - the collapse of the DDR. If there are others, please recommend.

Das Leben der Anderen stasi DDR

Pope Benedict at Auschwitz: Why, Lord, did you remain silent?

Pope Benedict XVI visited the site of the  Auschwitz death camp yesterday and gave a short address (original German, English translation) which, in my opinion, struck the right notes.  Benedict has come under some criticism for blaming the Holocaust in the speech on "a band of criminals" rather than on the German people as a whole, and also for not acknowledging his own background and imputed culpability as a German national.  But he delivered the address in his native German - the only time he spoke German during his trip to Poland.  And he noted the importance of the occasion as the first German pope ("a son of the German Volk") to visit Auschwitz:

Papst Johannes Paul II. stand hier als Sohn des polnischen Volkes. Ich stehe hier als Sohn des deutschen Volkes, und gerade deshalb muß ich, darf ich wie er sagen: Ich konnte unmöglich nicht hierherkommen. Ich mußte kommen. Es war und ist eine Pflicht der Wahrheit, dem Recht derer gegenüber, die gelitten haben, eine Pflicht vor Gott, als Nachfolger von Johannes Paul II. und als Kind des deutschen Volkes hier zu stehen – als Sohn des Volkes, über das eine Schar von Verbrechern mit lügnerischen Versprechungen, mit der Verheißung der Größe, des Wiedererstehens der Ehre der Nation und ihrer Bedeutung, mit der Verheißung des Wohlergehens und auch mit Terror und Einschüchterung Macht gewonnen hatte, so daß unser Volk zum Instrument ihrer Wut des Zerstörens und des Herrschens gebraucht und mißbraucht werden konnte. Ja, ich konnte unmöglich nicht hierherkommen.

Characteristically he presented a theological - as opposed to a personal, historical - interpretation of the Holocaust and the Nazi regime that was responsible for it.  They were engaged in a war against Christianity, and by persecuting Jews were attempting to destroy the "taproot" of the Judeo-Christian tradition:

Deep down, those vicious criminals, by wiping out this people, wanted to kill the God who called Abraham, who spoke on Sinai and laid down principles to serve as a guide for mankind, principles that are eternally valid. If this people, by its very existence, was a witness to the God who spoke to humanity and took us to himself, then that God finally had to die and power had to belong to man alone - to those men, who thought that by force they had made themselves masters of the world. By destroying Israel, by the Shoah, they ultimately wanted to tear up the taproot of the Christian faith and to replace it with a faith of their own invention: faith in the rule of man, the rule of the powerful.

But Benedict's attempt to answer his own question - Why, Lord, did you remain silent? - is somehow unsatisfactory:

We cannot peer into God’s mysterious plan - we see only piecemeal, and we would be wrong to set ourselves up as judges of God and history. Then we would not be defending man, but only contributing to his downfall.

Perhaps there can be no satisfactory answer.  But for those of us wrestling with faith, the existence of those crematoriums at Auschwitz remains a nearly insurmountable challenge.

Pope Benedict Benedikt papst holocaust

Memorial Day 2006

Today we honor the fallen in America's wars - both the necessary and unnecessary ones.  As of today, 2,462 US servicemen and women have been killed in the Iraq War.  One of those killed was Lance Cpl. Edward "Augie" Schroeder II.  Here is what his father wrote in the Washington Post earlier this year:

"Two painful questions remain for all of us. Are the lives of Americans being killed in Iraq wasted? Are they dying in vain? President Bush says those who criticize staying the course are not honoring the dead. That is twisted logic: honor the fallen by killing another 2,000 troops in a broken policy?

I choose to honor our fallen hero by remembering who he was in life, not how he died. A picture of a smiling Augie in Iraq, sunglasses turned upside down, shows his essence -- a joyous kid who could use any prop to make others feel the same way.

Though it hurts, I believe that his death -- and that of the other Americans who have died in Iraq -- was a waste. They were wasted in a belief that democracy would grow simply by removing a dictator -- a careless misunderstanding of what democracy requires. They were wasted by not sending enough troops to do the job needed in the resulting occupation -- a careless disregard for professional military counsel.

But their deaths will not be in vain if Americans stop hiding behind flag-draped hero masks and stop whispering their opposition to this war. Until then, the lives of other sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers may be wasted as well.

This is very painful to acknowledge, and I have to live with it. So does President Bush."

And the ever-eloquent Bob Herbert asks us to Consider the Living in today's New York Times op/ed piece:

"Leadership does not get more pathetic than this. Once there was F.D.R. and Churchill. Now there's Bush and Blair.

Reacting to the allegations about the murder of civilians, the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Michael Hagee, went to Iraq last week to warn his troops about the danger of becoming "indifferent to the loss of a human life."

Somehow that message needs to be conveyed to the top leaders of this country, and to the public at large. There is no better day than Memorial Day to reflect on it. As we remember the dead, we should consider the living, and stop sending people by the thousands to pointless, unnecessary deaths."

Iraq Irak-Krieg

The Haditha Massacre

In the comments below, Joerg from the Fulbrighter blog Atlantic Review asks whether I am calling for an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.  The answer is yes. Our continued presence will only lead to new nightmare scenarios such as this:

Witnesses to the slaying of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha say the Americans shot men, women and children at close range in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal in a roadside bombing.

Aws Fahmi, a Haditha resident who said he watched and listened from his home as Marines went from house to house killing members of three families, recalled hearing his neighbor across the street, Younis Salim Khafif, plead in English for his life and the lives of his family members. "I heard Younis speaking to the Americans, saying: 'I am a friend. I am good,' " Fahmi said. "But they killed him, and his wife and daughters."

The 24 Iraqi civilians killed on Nov. 19 included children and the women who were trying to shield them, witnesses told a Washington Post special correspondent in Haditha this week and U.S. investigators said in Washington. The girls killed inside Khafif's house were ages 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1, according to death certificates.

Wars beget inhuman acts; immoral wars beget immoral inhuman acts.  There is no possible positive outcome now for Iraq and the continued presence of US troops will only make the situation worse for the Iraqi people.  Those who say we must not "cut and run", who say "we must finish the job", "fight them over there so we don't fight them here" etc. are only advocating the "Tinkerbell strategy": clap hands and hope for the best.

We are today at about the same stage in the Iraq War as we were in the Vietnam War  in February 1968, when the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara resigned.  McNamara knew then that the war was lost, as did many other advisors to President Johnson.  Yet the nation lacked the political will to withdraw. As a consequence, another 30,000 Americans and half a million Vietnamese died from February 1968 until the end of the conflict in 1974 - for what?  What was achieved by the continued military operation except needless death and destruction?  Today most Americans know intuitively that the situation in Iraq is hopeless, but we lack the political will to withdraw.  And so we will face more Hadithas and more My Lais.  Those that committed the atrocities must be investigated and charged with war crimes; but their crimes pale beside those of our leaders who committed our troops to an unnecessary conflict under false pretenses; they too must be investigated and held accountable.

Haditha War Crimes

Dolchstosslegende Redux

The Dolchstosslegende (stabbed-in-the back legend) was a powerful narrative that originated with Field Marshal von Hindenburg following the disasterous defeat of the German army in World War I.  The German army, the legend goes, was all-powerful, but was betrayed by "internal forces", which forced Germany into a humiliating defeat.  That narrative was neatly taken on by the Nazis, who explicitly identified the treacherous internal forces as Jews, homosexuals, communists, etc.

The Dolchstosslegende was exported to the United States following World War II; the narrative was taken on by the right-wing political forces to gain popular support.  "Subversive elements" (Democrats) and "intellectuals"(code word for homosexuals) had sold out eastern Europe at Yalta to the Soviet Union.  This narrative was so successful in reversing the fortunes of the Republican Party, that it was reused to explain the setbacks in the Korean War conflict and then later the debacle of the Vietnam War. 

The writer Kevin Baker has a good article in this month's issue of Harper's Magazine: Stabbed in the Back! The past and future of a right-wing myth. Unfortunately, the article is not available online. Baker has a detailed history of how the myth has been used in the United States since the 1940s, and how it is now being redeployed by the Bush administration to explain the failure of its Iraq War. Here is how the formula works, according to Baker:

"Since the end of World War II [the myth of the stab-in-the-back] has been the device by which the American right has both revitalized itself and repeatedly avoided responsibility for its own worst blunders. Indeed, the right has distilled its tale of betrayal into a formula: Advocate some momentarily popular but reckless policy. Deny culpability when that policy is exposed as disastrous. Blame the disaster on internal enemies who hate America. Repeat."

Bush and his neocon minions are trying valiantly to revitalize the myth:  the invasion of Iraq was heroic. The (communist, terrorist, gay) critics of the policy are treasonous and are demoralizing the troops while giving comfort to al-Qaeda.  They and their allies in the liberal press are to blame for all of the carnage we see on TV and in our military hospitals. Only problem is, despite the best efforts of the Fox News Network, the legend is not working so well this time:  Bush and his war are so unpopular that only his most loyal base believes in this myth.  But the myth of the Dolchstosslegende will no doubt rise from the ashes like a phoenix when the next war presents itself. The narrative of  a treacherous fifth column inside the ranks is a powerful aspect of the reactionary imagination.

Writers and War

Günter Grass gave the keynote address at the International PEN Conference in Berlin, and his attacks on the hypocrisy of George Bush and Tony Blair received much attention.  By now, such attacks by Grass are to be expected and are not noteworthy.  But his entire speech is worth reading, for he takes us on a tour of Baroque German literature, quoting  Andreas Gryphius, Martin Opitz,  Johan Jacob Christophel von Grimmelshausen, and then ending his address with these lines from Matthias Claudius Kreigslied (Song of War):

»s’ ist Krieg / s’ ist Krieg!
O Gottes Engel wehre
Und rede Du darein!
s’ leider Krieg – und ich begehre
Nicht schuld daran zu sein!«.

Great stuff - for this alone Grass deserves our gratitude. But the message of his speech is still rather somber: wars have always plagued mankind and writers can do little to stop them.  Nevertheless, the writer is compelled to document and speak out about war - and here he comes to the defense of his much-maligned fellow Nobel Prize laureate Harold Pinter.  The duty of the writer is to work against and refute always the old adage  »Wenn die Waffen sprechen, schweigen die Musen« (When the guns speak, the muses fall silent). The pundits will heap scorn on Grass for his reflexive anti-Americanism, but his work will be read long after the Iraq War and the wars that will come after.

Iraq War Irak-Krieg Literatur

Hilde Domin: From Cologne to Vinalhaven

When I'm not traveling, I live in a coastal town in Maine, a remote but beautiful state with 5000 miles of spectacular Atlantic coastline.  The beauty of the sea and the rocks has been an inspiration for poets, and we are blessed with great poets in Maine. The 19th-century stalwart poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a Maine native.  The great American poet of erotic love, Edna St. Vincent Millay, was born up the coast in Rockland, and later owned an island just across the bay from where I live. Our greatest poet of the last century, Robert Lowell, divided his time between Boston and Maine, and many of his best poems (such as Skunk Hour and Waking Early Sunday Morning) were written in Maine and reflect the spirit of the place.

While Maine has been a magnet for American poets and writers, very few European writers find their way to the place, preferring the exotic landscapes of the Pacific coast or the electric vitality of New York City. One notable exception was the great French novelist Marguerite Yourcenar, who lived for many years with her female lover on Mount Desert Island. Now, I just discovered that Hilde Domin -the postwar poet of exile and return -  spent some time on the island of Vinalhaven.  Her longest poem Wen es trifft, was written on the island in 1953, as Domin and her husband, the architectual historian and Lorca translator Erwin Walter Palm, were making their way back to Germany in 1953, after 20 years in exile. The poem always had a special meaning for Hilde Domin - and she chose to read a section of it when she accepted the Konrad Adenauer prize in 1995. What brought her to Vinalhaven, Maine in 1953?  The only clue I can find is a short passage in her collection of autobiographcal sketches, Fast ein Lebenslauf.

Ich erzähle hier nicht von dem winzigen Haus auf Vinalhaven in der Penobscot Bay im Staate Maine, wo man so hoch im Norden ist, daβ das Meer schon wieder südliche Farben hat, und wo in den Basaltbrüchen der Lorbeer wächst wie in Italien, und die Möwen die Müllabfuhr besorgen. Obwohl ich dort “Wen es trifft” geschrieben habe, das letzte Gedicht, das ich vor der Rückkehr schrieb, und das, wie ich jetzt weiβ aber damals nicht wuβte, die Rückkehr in ihrer ganzen Ambivilenz vorwegnimmt.  (Fast ein Lebenslauf, s. 121)

Perhaps Hilde Domin's future biographer will be able to say how she got to the island of Vinalhaven and what she and her husband did there.  Or perhaps it will remain a mystery.

Hilde Domin Maine

Rise of the Christian Left

For years many of us who were moved by the Gospel of Jesus have watched in horror as Christianity in America has been hijacked by right-wing political interests, and the message of the Gospels has been perverted into a militaristic nationalism that celebrates endless wars of pre-emption, executions, torture (of Muslims) and discrimination against gays and lesbians. The Christian Right has become a powerful political and cultural force in America: it has its own television and radio networks as well as schools for children and colleges for young adults. Christians on the left have been demoralized; many have left the church in disgust.  Now, finally, the Christian Left is starting to find its voice and progressive Christians are coming together as an organization for positive change.  Today's Washington Post has a report on this hopeful development:

In large part, the revival of the religious left is a reaction against conservatives' success in the 2004 elections in equating moral values with opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

Religious liberals say their faith compels them to emphasize such issues as poverty, affordable health care and global warming. Disillusionment with the war in Iraq and opposition to Bush administration policies on secret prisons and torture have also fueled the movement.

"The wind is changing. Folks -- not just leaders -- are fed up with what is being portrayed as Christian values," said the Rev. Tim Ahrens, senior minister of First Congregational Church of Columbus, Ohio, and a founder of We Believe Ohio, a statewide clergy group established to ensure that the religious right is "not the only one holding a megaphone" in the public square.

"As religious people we're offended by the idea that if you're not with the religious right, you're not moral, you're not religious," said Linda Gustitus, who attends Bethesda's River Road Unitarian Church and is a founder of the new Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture.

To some degree this is nothing new in America.  After all, it was Christian churches in New England and Pennsylvania that led the anti-slavery abolitionist movement in the early 19th century, and then it was this same group of churches who joined with Black churches in the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s. Christian churches and leaders such as Daniel Berrigan led the anti-Vietnam war movement.

Can the Christian Left become a political force again in America?  It will not be easy.  The left lacks the funding and media power of the Christian Right. The Christian Right's power base is inextricably linked to the Republican Party, which now controls all three branches of government in the US. But the Christian Left has something that is ultimately more powerful than all the money and power on the right: the actual message of the Gospels.

Christianity Religion Jesus

Students Stand Up to McCain

Last week Senator John McCain - the "moderate" darling of the US and German press - took his message of war to right-wing evangelical Liberty University, where it was warmly received.  Yesterday, that message did not go over so well with the students of the New School in New York City. The New School has its roots in the University in Exile which was a refuge for Jewish and anti-Nazi intellectuals from the Weimar Republic. Unlike the southern "Christian" colleges, which instill a blind obedience to authority in students, the New School celebrates critical thinking and dissent. John McCain got plenty of that from the angry students:

The first student speaker, Jean Sara Rohe, 21, said she had discarded her original remarks to talk about Mr. McCain.

"The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded," she said, to a roaring ovation. "This invitation was a top-down decision that did not take into account the desires and interests of the student body on an occasion that is supposed to honor us above all."

Noting that Mr. McCain had promised to give the same speech at all of his graduation appearances, Ms. Rohe, who was one of two students selected to speak by university deans, attacked his remarks even before he delivered them.

"Senator McCain will tell us today that dissent and disagreement are our civic and moral obligation in times of crisis, and I agree," she said. "I consider this a time of crisis, and I feel obligated to speak."

She continued, "Senator McCain will also tell us about his strong-headed self-assuredness in his youth, which prevented him from hearing the ideas of others, and in so doing he will imply that those of us who are young are too naïve to have valid opinions.

"I am young, and although I don't profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous and wrong," she said.

She added, "Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction."

McCain then spoke to the students about his strong support for the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq:

Mr. McCain seemed uneasy, but stuck to his script and did not acknowledge the barbs. As Ms. Rohe had predicted, he spoke about the importance of civil discourse, and he reiterated his defense of the war.

"I believe the benefits of success will justify the costs and risks," he said. The protests grew louder and more frequent as he spoke. Some graduates walked out. Others laughed. When Mr. McCain returned to policy after briefly quoting Yeats, someone shouted, "More poetry!"

Undoubtedly, the protests from these students will help McCain win the support of die-hard Bush supporters (the few that are left) who hate any expression of dissent, and who by and large despise New York City anyway (too Jewish). 

John McCain Republican New York City