Dialog International

Gegen die Wand (Head-On)

While in New York to experience the last days of the Gates I managed to catch Gegen die Wand at the Angelika in the Village.  This is a terrific film which can be interpreted on many levels.  At its most basic, it is a gritty love story of two damaged people.  But it is also a film about the crisis of identity in multicultural society.  The two principal characters are Turkish-German and are therefore marginalized to begin with.  The man - Cahit  - is a punk-anarchist bent on self-destruction.  The girl - Sibel - is suffocating in a traditional Turkish family.  Both see suicide as their only solution - and that's how they meet.  Sibel and Cahit live between two cultures.  They are most comfortable speaking German - Cahit's Turkish is supposedly less than perfect - and yet German only gives them only a tenuous connection with German society. There is virtually no interaction with non-Turkish Germans.  Cahit sees a psychiatrist - a Dr. Schiller - whose "therapy" consists in exhorting Cahit to leave the country (advice he eventually does take to heart).  Sibel is jealous of the freedom she perceives her German peers have - freedom to have casual sex and take drugs.  Paradoxically it is the shattered Cahit that she latches on to as her ticket to freedom.  In the end, both end up in their 'homeland' - Turkey - a strange land they have never known.  The characters are abrasive and shocking in their violent urge for self-destruction - but you cannot keep your eyes off them, and slowly you begin to care deeply about their fates.  Gegen die Wand is an outstanding film and deserves the awards it has won.

By the way, I had originally intended to see Der Untergang (Downfall) - which opened last week in New York to considerable buzz - but all weekend performances were sold out.  So even though Untergang did not get the Oscar last night, I predict it will find a huge audience in the US. 

Blogger Interviews Eyewitnesses to US War Crimes in Fallujah

Who says bloggers don't do real journalism?  German blogger Genosse Tabu has posted interviews with two Iraqi eyewitnesses to the US military's "liberation" of Fallujah in December 2004.  Americans have read reports about the brave soldiers who rescued the city  from the "terrorists", making Fallujah safe for democracy.  We were told that voting on January 30 went smoothly in Fallujah, and that life is now returning to normal.  For the most part, we were not told much about the hundreds of non-combatant Iraqis who were killed or severely wounded in the operation - "collateral damage".  We were not told that the city has been  flattened by incessant bombing from US warplanes.  We were not told that only a fraction of the citizens have been able to return to their city. 

Tabu interviewed an Iraqi refugee worker and a medical doctor.  I translated the section from Dr. Mohammad Haded about the how the hospital in Fallujah was destroyed:

The US Army (note: Dr. Haded doesn't distinguish between the US Marines and the Army in the interrview) occupied the hospital in Fallujah where i was working.  Troops from the airborne division attacked doctors who were performing operations.  The soldiers forced them to lie on the ground, and they bound their hands behind them.  The doctors were lying there for hours. Other hospital personnel negotiated with the army. They were told that they would untie the doctors if they agreed to cooperate by identifying "terrorists".  The doctors agreed; after they were untied they underwent hours of interrogation.

The soldiers spent the day and night turning the place upside-down, but failed to find any "terrorists".  In the process they destroyed valuable medical equipment.  Afterwords the hospital could no longer be used.  We then worked out an agreement that we could evacuate the patients. A team of doctors stayed behind to try to prevent further destruction to the euipment in the hospital.  We were able to set up an emergency clinic where we brought many of the wounded - but we had no surgeons. 

Two days later the US Army bombed the clinic.  Even those who were evacuating the wounded were bombed, as well as ambulances that were clearly marked as such. One hospital was directly targeted by US tanks.  We received calls from people who couldn't reach a hospital.  We gave them instructions over the phone the best we could about how to treat the wounds.  Many had wounds that became infected because they were unable to get proper treament. 

That's how it went for six days.  On the seventh day I went to the soldiers to inform them that I wanted to gather civilians in a mosque so they could get some basic care.  As they came toward the mosque they were fired upon by sharpshooters.  About two hundred people came; I personally took about fifty people to the mosque, thereby rescuing them from the army.  We had no medical supplies, so could do little to help the severely wounded.... We buried seventeen people at the mosque, including women and children...

It is unlikely that the true story of Fallujah will ever be told in the US.  The US press has abdicated its journalistic responsibility and stays in the heavily protected  Green Zone in Baghdad, rehashing Pentagon press releases.  For the most part, Americans  have shown little interest in learning about what is really happening in Iraq, and are happy to be told that we are "building democracy" and "fighting terrorism".  Blogs are now the only consistently reliable source of information; Juan Cole's Informed Comment stands out as the most comprehensive.

Old Europe Out-Googled

Wow, who would have thought that this announcement by Google would start a new squabble between Europe and the US?

As part of its effort to make offline information searchable online, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced that it is working with the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the University of Oxford as well as The New York Public Library to digitally scan books from their collections so that users worldwide can search them in Google.

SInce December 2004 Google has digitized 14,000 books a day, with the goal of digitizing 15 million before the project is complete.  It was the French who immediately smelled an Anglo-American conspiracy against Old Europe:

  PARIS--France's national library has raised a "war cry" over plans by Google to put books from some of the world's great libraries on the Internet and wants to ensure the project does not lead to a domination of American ideas.

Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who heads France's national library and is a noted historian, says Google's choice of works is likely to favor Anglo-Saxon ideas and the English language.

    He wants the European Union to balance this with its own program and its own Internet search engines.
(...)
"Here we find a risk of crushing domination by America in defining the idea that future generations have of the world," he wrote, urging the EU to act fast.

Meanwhile, according to Der Spiegel, German librarians are mulling over their options. The Digital Libarary Forum ( in Germany:EUBAM: Arbeitsgruppe zu europäischen Angelegenheiten für Bibliotheken, Archive und Museen) is putting together a project to digitize books from key European libraries.  And Spiegel itself backs Project Gutenberg , which has already ready digitzed half a million pages.  But it is doubtful that any group could compete with Google on a project of this scale.  Best option is to throw in the towel to the Americans and work with Google on expanding the project throughout Europe.

Reviews of Bush's Germany Visit

For the most part, American television viewers and newspaper readers were told that that President's Bush's nine-hour visit in Germany was a resounding success. Americans saw smiles and handshakes and heard sounds of reconciliation and mutual admiration. " Schroeder treated Bush to a red-carpet ceremony in this picturesque town. The welcome took place in the courtyard of the centuries-old Electoral Palace."  The media by and large neglected to tell us that "the picturesque town" of Mainz had been emptied of its citizens.  No, the prevailing theme is "Bush, Germany Bury the Hatchet." Only occasionally does a discordant note filter through, as in this report from the New York Times:

Mr. Bush spent a total of nine hours in Germany on Wednesday, his first trip to the country since the invasion of Iraq, and his first extended meeting with Mr. Schröder since the chancellor had lunch at the White House in February 2004. The two have had a tense relationship since Mr. Schröder campaigned for re-election in 2002 on what many in the White House considered an anti-Bush, anti-American platform.

People close to Mr. Bush said he had felt personally betrayed. Although the two leaders now seem to have reached a civil working relationship, the body language on Wednesday was anything but warm. Mr. Schröder looked stern and businesslike in his public appearances with Mr. Bush, who smiled as "The Star Spangled Banner" was played in a military welcoming ceremony under intermittent snow flurries.

It was this visible frostiness between the two leaders - which couldn't be obscured by the smiles and nice words - that the German media picked up on.  Typical is Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff in Die Zeit:

Partner können diese beiden Staatsmänner werden, Freunde nicht mehr. Das wird sogar im formalisierten Ablauf eines Staatsbesuchs deutlich. Wärme, Zugeneigtheit ist nicht zu spüren. Gesten dementieren alle Worte. Wenn Georg Bush spricht, liegt Gerhard Schröders Gesichtslandschaft versteinert da. Er schaut starr in die Menge und dreht sich dem Präsidenten nicht zu, selbst wenn dessen Körpersprache nach Zustimmung sucht.

Incidentally, it was almost amusing to watch President Bush assure the Europeans - for the tenth time - that the US "has no intention of invading Iran."  On Tuesday he stated:"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous." Now why would anyone think the United States would undertake a unilateral invasion of another country?  Bush's comical denials bring to mind a poem in Brecht's Deutscher Kriegsfibel -  (A German War Primer):

Wenn die Oberen vom Frieden Reden
Weiß das gemeine Volk
Daß es Krieg gibt

Wenn die Oberen den Krieg verfluchen
Sind die Gestellungsbefehle schon ausgeschrieben

WHEN THE LEADERS SPEAK OF PEACE
The common folk know
That war is coming.
When the leaders curse war
The mobilization order is already written out.

 

A Tale of Two Presidents

President Bush visited the city of Mainz, Germany today - a city that had been transformed into a ghost town except for the the presence of 12,000+ protesters:

A force of 10,000 police officers staged one of the biggest postwar security operations. Frogmen searched the Rhine for explosives, 1,300 manhole covers were welded shut and thousands of residents were displaced.

For Bush's eight-hour stay there was also a strict ban on air traffic within a 60-km (40-mile) radius of Mainz, barges on the river were halted and motorways in the region closed. Factories, businesses and schools were shut.

It is important to remember that there was a time when the United States was an inspiration for Europe, and the visit of  the President of the United States was a cause for celebration.

                              

   Die Reise des 46-jährigen Kennedys im Juni 1963 nach West- Deutschland ist unvergessen. Die Begeisterung war überall groß, der Besuch in Berlin wurde ein einziger Triumph. Hunderttausende jubelten dem Präsidenten zu. Für die Menschen sei Kennedy ein «Symbol des Aufbruchs» gewesen, meint der Historiker Andreas Daum.

Neocons Press on With AntiEuropean Agenda

There is much teeth-gnashing among the neocon crowd in DC as they watch their leader on his "charm offensive" across the Atlantic.  President Bush speaks with members of the EU about the "alliance" and "shared values" , but the neocons will have none of this.  Writing in the Weekly Standard Gerard Baker mocks the "irrelevance " of Europe:

IN THE ENDLESS THEORIZING about the transatlantic relationship, it is tempting to dismiss Europe as irrelevant, a nineteenth-century superpower in a 21st-century world.

Its sclerotic economy, stagnant demography, military obsolescence, and strategic pusillanimity create the impression of a gently disintegrating, mildly irritating, but mostly inconsequential relic. The dogs of Europe may bark, but America's caravan is moving on to the Middle East and Asia Pacific.

I wish Baker could explain to me why global investors are fleeing the US dollar for the Euo. But it is interesting that this same crowd which only two years ago was calling for an end to NATO after that organization refused to endorse a preemptive invasion of Iraq now sees NATO as the cornerstone for the US-Europe alliance.

Above all, the United States should seek ways to strengthen and renew NATO. It should resist the calls of European superpower dreamers (and their supporters in the United States) who want to see NATO wither and be replaced by a transatlantic political community of "equals." NATO has been the best hope for the liberation of Europeans before. It should remain the cornerstone of Washington's European strategy in the global struggle for democracy.

Over at the National Review, Andrew Stuttaford ridicules the EU process for drafting a constitution.  This is an unprecedented effort of 24 states to craft a document that expresses shared values and aspirations.  But Stuttaford finds it contemptible:

The project of a federal EU has long been driven, at least in part, by a profound, and remarkably virulent anti-Americanism, with deep roots in Vichy-era disdain for the sinister "Anglo-Saxons" and their supposedly greedy and degenerate culture. Throw in the poisonous legacy of soixante-huitard radicalism, then add Europe's traditional suspicion of the free market, and it's easy to see how relations between Brussels and Washington were always going to be troubled. What's more, the creation of a large and powerful fortress Europe offered its politicians something else, the chance to return to the fun and games of great power politics.

What really angers Stuttaford is the language that confirms a commitment to cultural diversity and social equity:

what a sorry, shabby work it is, an unreadable mish-mash of political correctness, micromanagement, bureaucratic jargon, artful ambiguity, deliberate obscurity, and stunning banality that somehow limps its way through some 500 pages with highlights that include "guaranteeing" (Article II-74) a right to "vocational and continuing training," "respect" (Article II-85) for the "rights of the elderly... to participate in social and cultural life," and the information (Article III-121) that "animals are sentient beings." On the status of spiders, beetles, and lice there is, unusually, only silence.

This is the same crowd that is stridently calling for an amendment to the US constitution that codifies discrimination against gays and lesbians (The Federal Marriage Amendment - aka The Hate Amendment).

To counterbalance the neocon perspective it is worth taking note of Martin Winter's commentary in today's Frankfurter Rundschau, as President Bush visits Mainz.  Winter notes that Bush's visit in Brussels did not end with a common declaration.  "The pillars of the free world are too far apart to bridge" at this time, and soaring rhetoric about "spreading freedom" and "fighting tyranny" can do little to repair the fissure.  While Winter concedes the military supremacy of the US, he sees equal strength in the EU approach:

So überträgt die EU ihre Erfahrung auf die Welt, dass eine friedliche und demokratische Gemeinschaft nur mit viel Geduld, einer großen Bereitschaft zum Kompromiss und vor allem langem Atem aufgebaut werden kann. Hier scheiden sich der europäische und der gegenwärtige amerikanische Weg. Washington fehlt der lange Atem.

(my translation: The EU can offer the world its experience that a peaceful and democratic community can only be achieved through a lot of patience, openness to compromise, and staying power.  This is where Europe diverges from the current American way.  Washington doesn't have this kind of staying power.)

The Danish Kingmakers

I have to confess that I knew next to nothing about about the South-Schleswig Voters Association (Südschleswigscher Wählerverband - SSW), but this tiny group has managed to save the Red-Green Coalition in Schleswig-Holstein.  On the SSW Web site  I learn that they represent the Danish minority in the region, and that their mission is to bring a "Scandinavian perspective" to the political direction of the state.

Der SSW orientiert seine Politik eng an der gesellschaftlichen und politischen Entwicklung in Skandinavien. So bringen wir wichtige neue Impulse in die Politik in Schleswig-Holstein ein - beispielsweise in der Arbeitsmarkt-, Sozial- und Bildungspolitik.

The SSW also has a special status in German politics in that the 5% hurdle does not apply to them.  The Guardian has explained this nicely.

It takes the form of the South-Schleswig Voters' Association (SSW), created by the British military authorities in 1948 to represent ethnic Danes after Schleswig was divided between Germany and Denmark after plebiscites in 1920.

The SSW, dedicated to maintaining "the peculiarity of Danish life", is hardly a major political force. Speaking for the 50,000 Danes and 40,000 Friesians among the state of 2.8 million people, it currently holds three seats in Kiel's Landtag (parliament).

What made the outcome so unsatisfactory on Sunday was the low voter turnout - less than 68%, so there is  no clear mandate for any coalition.  EU Pundit sees the SSW joining Red- Green as "catastrophic":

The SSW is thus the kingmaker in Schleswig-Holstein in an election result which in part determines the fortunes of the Schroeder administration, a result to be determined by 50,000 Danes on the wrong side of the border. Worse, the SSW traditionally holds to the left-wing parties, so that they may swing their two votes to the losing incumbents, thus negating the actual German vote, which would ordinarily demand a change of government.

The vote is also catastrophic for the SSW. If they cast their votes to the losers of the election, the "Danes" have changed the political scene in Germany. This will only feed the growing right-wing sentiment in Germany and in Schleswig-Holstein and clearly and ultimately lead to the loss by the SSW of their special privileges, once the left-wingers are out of office. On the other hand, if the SSW respects the choice made by the German voters, they should join the CDU-FDP coaltion, which however would go contrary to their historical allegiance and contrary to their own voters. In our opinion, the only way that the SSW could possibly save itself from ultimate demise is to abstain from joining any coalition and letting the Germans decide the matter for themselves, while of course exacting the fulfillment of some political demands for remaining neutral.

He expects four more years of Red-Green rule in the north to contribute to the rise of the extreme right-wing parties.  But the good news from the results was that the neo-Nazi NPD achieved under 2% - far less than had been feared.  So maybe the situation is not as dire as he predicts.

NY Times Profiles BILDblog

BILDblog hits the big time in the US this morning with an article in the New York Times: "Europe Teems with Web Dailies that Twit the Mainstream Press" .  The print version even has a large photo of blogger Christoph Schultheiss. Here are the key graphs:

But fact-checking is what draws more than 300,000 readers a month to Bildblog, a media monitor that was created in the summer of 2004 and dissects the tabloid reports of Bild, Germany's leading daily, which has a paid circulation of more than 3.8 million.

Four journalists with conventional day jobs scan Bild in their off hours to interpret and analyze the tabloid.

(...)

The site, created in June 2004, draws about 10,000 visitors a day, with many readers sending tips to an e-mail address, said Christoph Schultheis, a freelance journalist and the only founding member of Bildblog who was willing to talk publicly.

"We started doing it because in the daily newspaper business we read Bild anyway," Mr. Schultheis said. "We always found small things we can't put in other newspapers because we can't do it every day. So we decided to create a place to collect them."

Many of Bildblog's readers appear to be Bild employees, Mr. Schultheis said. Bild's management is philosophical about the situation.

"Bildblog is hardly above the threshold of our attention," said Tobias Fröhlich, a spokesman for Bild's parent company, Axel Springer. "We can't help liking it. It is full of silly assertions, pure nonsense and refreshingly biased stories. Moreover, Bildblog boasts the importance of Bild by calling us the undisputed opinion leader and agenda setter in Germany. What more can one ask for?"

While it's nice that at least one German Weblog receives this kind of recognition, it is unfortunate that the article didn't mention at least a few other important Weblogs that monitor the mainstream press such as Der Spindoktor, Medienkritik (which gets as many readers as BILDblog). Wortfeld, just to name a few.

American Power and the Tsunami Paradigm Shift

The Bush "charm offensive" in Europe has begun, but no matter what public displays of mutual admiration and reconciliation take place (mostly for the benefit of US television) the trip will do little to heal the divisions between the US and Europe.  Europeans are unmoved by the "war on terror" - having lived with terrorist threats for decades;  nor do they think much of the "war against tyranny", viewing it as a lame pretext for US unilateral preemptive war. 

Horst -Eberhard Richter has a provocative essay in Freitag entitled  "The Tyranny of Fear: "Evil" and the Militarization of Politics" (Die Unfreiheit des Schreckens: Das "Böse"und die Miltarisierung der Politik).  Richter's thesis is that the Tsunami was such a cataclysmic event that it provides a basis for moving beyond the "good versus evil" rhetoric of "post 9/11".  US politicians are fond of saying "9/11 changed everything"; Richter says that for the community of nations the Tsunami changed everything.  Here are a couple of passages (my translation):

Something extraordinary is happening.  Even in countries for removed from the disaster the people feel affected.  As if they too had lived through the catastrophe and through this fate have gained a new orientation.  As if they now understood their own lives, their own fragility and their connectedness with everyone else.

Albert Eisnstein once wrote after Hiroshima and Nagasaki that in the shadow of the atomic bomb human beings should finally realize that they are all related to one another. That only involved two cities.  Here we are confronted with the the greatest natural disaster in memory.  Believers and unbelievers see this as a signal that we can no longer accept many things we have taken for granted. ... No technology can offer the kind of protection that was proclaimed by the leaders of the scientific-technological revolution.  The global disaster teaches us that the most important power resides in our own beings - the power to suffer and mourn, to help, to hope, to trust and to earn trust of others, to prove ourselves in taking responsibility.

(...)

Nelson Mandela has provided a marvelous description of how during the long years of agonizing imprisonment it slowly dawned on him and his chiefs that the proper response to their own persecution was not violence but understanding. He wrote, we need to end the suffering on both sides - our own suffering as the oppressed, but also the suffering of our oppressors, who are imprisoned by their hatred. That Mandela was not simply a Utopian dreamer in his trust of mutual reconciliation was later proved in the cooperation of both blacks and whites in avoiding a civil war.

The time is now ripe for us to imagine that each one of us has the same energy that led to peace in South Africa.  We cannot accept the argument that Mandela is a saint - too good to serve as an example for the real world.  The real world today cries out for the courage to achieve peace - instead of cynically believing that the threat of nuclear destruction will protect us from our own impulse for violence.  That is absurd.  Mandela is not the only example.  All of the great peace initiatives of the 20th century have been led by men or women who - during the times of enormous crisis - believed that understanding could be achieved between nations and peoples.

Will the US ever come to realize that "good versus evil" is no longer a tenable paradigm?  And that our response to the Tsunami represents a great chance to show the world that we can still achieve greatness that benefits everyone?

The Nazi Next Door...

The voters of Schleswig-Holstein go to polls today to elect the state assembly.  It appears that Red-Green will come out on top - mostly due to the popularity of the state premer and SPD star  Heide Simonis. But what is also at stake is whether the neo-Nazi NPD can cross the 5% threshold and achieve representation in the state assembly the same way they did in Saxony.  No matter what the outcome, however, it appears that the NPD is gaining ground by keeping a lower profile - less confrontational, more sympathetic.  The TAZ has profiled the NPD candidates in Schleswig-Holstein, calling them innocuous "nice neighbors".  They are described as "nice guys" or "family men" who hardly seem threatening at all. Here is some background on one the NPD candidates.

Wolfgang Schimmel tritt kaum öffentlich für die NPD auf. Selbst manche Nachbarn in seinem Wohnort Leezen, einem kleinen Ort nicht weit von Bad Oldesloe, wissen nicht, für welche Partei Schimmel sich engagiert. Ganz volksnah gibt sich der verheiratete 42-jährige Diplomingenieur, Vater eines Kindes und Mitglied des NPD-Landesvorstands, in seinem Statement auf der NPD-Wahlwebsite: "Politik muss sich endlich wieder nach dem Willen des Volkes richten. Dazu ist es notwendig, wirksame Volksentscheide einzuführen." Und es dürfe nicht sein, "dass sich ein Parlament über das Ergebnis eines Volksentscheides durch neue Beschlüsse hinwegsetzen darf, wie es bei der Rechtschreibreform in Schleswig-Holstein geschehen ist".

As erphschwester warns:  "we no longer have the shouting, primitive Nazi"  ("die Zeit der schreienden, primitiven Nazis ist vorbei")  Instead,, they come across as reasonable - even intellectual, so the "man on the street" suddenly thinks: Hey, they're not so bad after all!  (Die sind ja gar nicht so schlimm !).  So the challenge will be to confront them in the future - unmask them for their true intentions - even if they fail this time at the polls.