Dialog International

Daimler: Petroleum-Free by 2015?

Lots of depressing news concerning energy prices, so this report was a welcome change, if true:

The Sun reports that Mercedes-Benz is aiming to phase out fossil-fuel powered vehicles over the next seven years, replacing its entire lineup with autos powered by electric motors, fuel cells, and biofuels.

BUt we won't have to wait until 2015 to see the first all-electric cars.  EcoGeek reports:

By 2010, Mercedes promises to have on the market an all-electric version of its popular sub-compact, the Smart Fortwo, as well as a similarly-powered version of one of its higher-end offerings. Whether it will be based on Benz’s entry-level B-class hatchback, or some higher-end model has not yet been revealed. “We plan an electric Smart for 2010 and for the same year a Mercedes (electric) model as well,” said Dieter Zetsche, aka Dr. Z, to a German paper.

It’s no mere figment. The company already has a fleet of 10 of these futuristic electro-SMARTIES tooling about the streets of smog-choked

London

along side their eco-cabs, a city where a few years ago Swedish manufacturer Saab boasted the air coming out of the tail pipes of its cars was cleaner than the surrounding air.

Now that Daimler is free from the completely broken Chrysler, it can put its resources into innovation, and take the lead on creating a petroleum-free future.  And if we are today addicted to oil, we can, in part, thank Daimler: in 1879 Karl Benz patented the first gasoline-powered engine.

...the second time as farce.

"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

Back in 2005 the "Islamic expert" Hans-Peter Raddatz - a Daniel Pipes wannabe - greatly enhanced his career by announcing to the German media that Muslim groups had made death threats against him.  The story got wide play in Germany and beyond, Raddatz received round-the-clock police protection and he was a sought-after guest on the German TV talk shows.  He even got some attention in the US: the Wall Street Journal reported that Dr. Raddatz was hiding out from his would-be assassins in the US, and the right-wing extremist Web magazine Front Page began publishing contributions from Raddatz. Soon, however, the excitement died down as it became evident that the "threats" against Raddatz were overblown.

Last week the litigious "Islam expert"  Dr. Udo Ulfkotte - a Raddatz wannabe - tried to imitate Raddatz's success thanks to a YouTube video that surfaced just before Europe Cup soccer match between Germany and Turkey. YouTube has taken down the video, but I was able to see it first: it was a video of two German teenagers- probably drunk - making obscene remarks about Turks.  A commenter on YouTube then (wrongly) identified the girl in video as Ulfkotte's wife. According to Ulfkotte, he then received "numerous" death threats, and a price of 1000 Euros ("Kopfgeld") was put on his life and that of his wife. Ulfkotte hoped that this event would cause a media sensation in Germany; he contacted all of the major newspapers and television networks: but no dice.  Only the hate blog Politically Correct published the story. Poor Dr. Ulfkotte: he was counting on Die Zeit and Der Spiegel to provide a boost to his career and enhance his image in Germany. Perhaps the lack of interest had to do with Ulfkotte's strategy of taking legal action against journalists who criticize him?  In any event, Dr.Ulfkotte had a major public relations success today. A well-known newspaper picked up his story: the neo-fascist weekly Junge Freiheit. In the article Dr. Ulfkotte reveals that he was invited to come to the United States:

Ulfkotte überlegt derweil, ob er und seine Frau überhaupt noch in Deutschland in Sicherheit leben können oder ob ein Umzug ins Ausland nicht ratsamer wäre. „Wir haben aus der Schweiz von politischer und aus den USA von kirchlicher Seite Unterstützung und Hilfe angeboten bekommen. In Deutschland interessiert sich dagegen außer der Staatsanwaltschaft niemand für unsere Bedrohung.“ (Ulfkotte is wondering whether he and his wife can still live safely in Germany, or should they move abroad. "We have received offers of help and support from Swiss political groups and US church groupg. But other than the state prosecutor no one in Germany cares about the threats made against us.")

I would urge Dr.Ulfkotte to take advantage of the offer and come to the United States.  Here he will find a multicultural society where different ethnic groups and different religious groups get along just fine.  We might even put a black man with a Muslim-sounding name in the White House.  Also, we still have true freedom of expression: writers, journalists, politicians, pundits etc. can openly criticize each other without fear that they will be taken before a judge. So come to America, the land of endless opportunity. You might even become a millionaire like your ideological comrade Mark Steyn.

Ernst Jünger and French Masochism

It is a great honor in France to have a book included in
La Bibliothèque de la Pléiade.  The elegant, leather-bound books of the greatest works of literature find their way to the bookshelves of every self-respecting member of the Parisian intelligentsia:

“La Bibliothèque de la Pléiad presents reference editions of the great works of Fren and foreign literature and philosophy, printed on Bible paper and bound, with a full leather and gold cover.< Each year between 10 and 12 new titles are added to this elegant, practical and easy to read imprint. The texts are based on original manuscripts, editions and documents. The translations are new or revised."                   

New editions to this glorious library of the classics are always a cause for celebration.  So now we will get to read a Pléiade edition of Ernst Jünger along side works of Victor Hugo, Balzac and Goethe.  And not just any work by Jünger, but his wartime diaries (Tagebücher I bis III "Journaux de guerre") that deal with his experience as an officer of the Wehrmacht during the Nazi occupation of France. To be sure, this was a high-point in Jünger's military career, for the aristocratic officer could indulge in the aesthetic delights of Paris, the wonderful wines and paintings. But unfortunately the writer just did not have the time, between his bottles of Veuve Cliquot and Pommard, to describe the terror of the Nazi occupation, the execution of resistance fighters, the rounding up of Jews, etc. Why would the French celebrate this monument to aesthetic ego?  That is a question that the writer George-Arthur Goldschmidt asks in a polemic in the Frankfurter Rundschau:

Durch eine solche Publikation wird fast absichtlich die deutsche Emigration, der deutsche Widerstand gegen die Hitlerbarbarei, in den Hintergrund verschoben. Das wahre Deutschland sind daher weder Döblin noch Thomas Mann und Walter Benjamin, alles Emigranten, wenn nicht Nestbeschmutzer. So haben sie nicht die leiseste Chance, in die "Pléiade" aufgenommen zu werden, stehen sie doch auf der falschen Seite, auf der des Widerstands, auf der auch de Gaulle stand. ("A publication of this sort seems almost to intentionally push German emigre writers, the German resistance to Hitler's barbarism, into the background. The true Germany is therefore not Alfred Döblin, Thomas Mann or Walter Benjamin - all emigrants, if not whistle blowers. As such they haven't the remotest chance of being received into the 'Pleiade', after all they are on the wrong side, that of the resistance, the same side as de Gaulle. Incredible but true, this is a form of justification for the collaboration and a Europe without Jews or communists.")

I've never understood the  attempts to  rehabilitate Ernst Jünger as some sort of secret anti-Nazi resistance author. Jünger's disdain for the Nazi was driven by aesthetics, not ideology.  In fact his 1932 book Der Arbeiter: Herrschaft und Gestalt is the most perfect expression  of the fascist worldview in German. His 1939 novella Auf den Marmorklippen (On the Marble Cliffs) was read at the time as some kind of anti-Nazi allegory (according to Heinrich Böll, whose opinion I respect greatly).  But it is hard to see it as such, reading it today. The prose of Marmorklippen, like most of Jünger, seems bombastic and overrated - of historical interest, perhaps, but certainly not literary.

Germany's Troop Surge

Germany's defense minister Franz Josef Jung announced his intention to deploy an additional 1,000 troops to Afghanistan by early October, bowing to NATO pressure. This would increase German troop levels to 4,500 at a time when 3/4 of all Germans oppose German military presence in that troubled country, according to recent polls. The surge us unlikely to appease the United States, since the additional forces will remain in the relatively peaceful north of Afghanistan, while the US and Canada are facing a growing threat from the Taliban in the south. It was up to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to make the case for the surge in front of the Bundestag. Addressing parliament, Steinmeier said there had been "significant strides" in Afghanistan's development since the Taliban were driven out in 2001 "which one can be a wee bit proud of."  Steinmeier's problem is that there are not many people in Germany or elsewhere that believe that there have been "significant strides". 

The reaction in the German press to the announced surge has been rather muted, more like resigned disappointment that Germany is being dragged into a quagmire. Typical was this editorial by  Martin Rücker in the Wiesbadener Kurier with the subtitle  "Aufstockung der Bundeswehr-Truppe in Afghanistan ändert wenig an der schlechten Lage" ("A surge of German troops in Afghanistan will do little to change the bad situation there."):

Der Afghanistan-Experte (Conrad Schetter) am Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung der Universität Bonn erklärte: "Für die Handlungsfähigkeit der Bundeswehr ist die Aufstockung wichtig. Aber der Schwund an Sicherheit in den vergangenen Jahren war dramatisch - da sind 1000 Soldaten mehr nur ein Tropfen auf den heißen Stein." Bei Feldforschungen habe Schetters Institut eine zunehmend feindselige Stimmung in der afghanischen Bevölkerung auch gegenüber den Deutschen festgestellt: "Ausländer werden verstärkt als Besatzer und nicht mehr als Befreier wahrgenommen." (Conrad Schetter, the Afghanistan expert at the Center for Development Studies at the University of Bonn said: "The surge is important for enhancing the capabilities of the army.  But the denigration of security in the last few years has been dramatic - 1,000 more troops are just a drop in the bucket."  Surveys on the ground conducted by Schetter's institute show that there is growing hostility towards the German troops by the Afghan population. "Increasingly, foreigners are seen as occupiers and no longer as liberators.")

Many military analysts believe that it would take over 350,000 troops to achieve real security in Afghanistan, and there is zero will among the NATO partners to commit to anywhere near that level, and the US remains stuck in Iraq.

The big winner here will be the Left Party (Die LINKE), which has been consistent in calling for German troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. This was recognized by Green Party leader Claudia Roth, who said in an interview that the surge was "grist for the populists' mill", where "populist" is code for the hated Left Party.

 

Call to Remove US Nukes From Germany

There seems to be a growing consensus in Germany that the remaining US nuclear weapons should be removed:

" Germany's Social Democrats, who share power in the governing authority, and opposition parties are calling on the United States to remove all nuclear weapons stored in military bases here after a report found that safety standards at most sites for nuclear weapons in Europe fall well short of Pentagon requirements."

It is certainly unusual in German politics to see the super-capitalistic Free Democrats (FDP) join forces with the hated Left Party (Die LINKE) on any issue.  But that seems to be happening here:

Guido Westerwelle, leader of the opposition pro-business Free Democratic Party, agreed. "The atomic weapons are a holdover from the Cold War. They must go," he said Monday.

Gregor Gysi, leader of the Left Party, said the government should "immediately demand the U.S. withdraw, and preferably destroy, the atomic weapons."

Only Angela Merkel and her Christian Democrats want the nukes to remain on German soil:

Foreign policy experts in Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party warned against making any quick decisions on the weapons in Germany. "Of course the sites need security, but we have to consider the threats we face," said Ruprecht Polenz, chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee.

Eckart von Klaeden, foreign policy spokesman for the conservatives' parliamentary faction, said of the weapons, "They protect us too."

"Nuclear weaponry has to be part of German security policy. We have to protect ourselves against being taken hostage someday from a country like Iran."

I haven't heard the reaction yet from the Pentagon, but if they are upset about the calls to remove the nuclear weapons they have only themselves to blame.  They provided an opening for the anti-nuke faction with incomprehensibly lax security in Germany and the other locations in Europe.  The concerns were made public on the Web site of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS):

An internal U.S. Air Force investigation has determined that “most sites” currently used for deploying nuclear weapons in Europe do not meet Department of Defense security requirements.

A summary of the investigation report was released by the Pentagon in February 2008 but omitted the details. Now a partially declassified version of the full report, recently obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, reveals a much bigger nuclear security problem in Europe than previously known....the investigation {...} was triggered by the notorious incident in August 2007 when the U.S. Air Force lost track of six nuclear warheads for 36 hours as they were flow across the United States without the knowledge of the military personnel in charge of safeguarding and operating the nuclear weapons.

Thanks to a screw-up by the Belgian defense minister, we know where the nukes are held in Germany (Büchel Air Base in Germany) but we don't know exactly how many warheads are there.  The FAS makes the following estimates:

Free Speech / Hate Speech

Anthony Lewis recently published a wonderful book on the history of the First Amendment: Freedom for the Thought We Hate.  The First Amendment guarantees freedom of expression in the United States, and is the cornerstone of the Free Press.  The text of the First Amendment is brief, but its implications are huge:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
(„Der Kongress darf kein Gesetz erlassen, das die Einführung einer Staatsreligion zum Gegenstand hat, die freie Religionsausübung verbietet, die Rede- oder Pressefreiheit oder das Recht des Volkes einschränkt, sich friedlich zu versammeln und die Regierung durch Petition um Abstellung von Missständen zu ersuchen.“)

The protection extends to "hate speech" as well: anyone can make racist or morally repugnant statements and not have to worry about legal consequences. Here the United States is unique among nations: Canada, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws or have signed international conventions banning hate speech. The British historian David Irving could travel around the US and make speeches denying the holocaust, but in Austria he was thrown in prison for making the argument.

In Germany the situation surrounding free speech is clouded by laws banning hate speech and also by the rather lax libel laws. It's fairly simple to bring a lawsuit against someone who you feel might have defamed you. So I can understand the frustration of of the journalist CIGDEM AKYOL, who complained in an article in the Tageszeitung (Die Meinungsterroristen - The Opinion Terrorists) about the proliferation of hate-blogs in Germany.  I've already written about the hate-blog Politically Incorrect which consistently publishes lies about Senator Barack Obama and his candidacy. But Akyol has many more equally repulsive examples. One of these hate-blogs- Die Grüne Pest - recently attacked Dialog International. 

Authoritarian Minorities in Germany and America

Der Tagesspiegel published the findings of a survey conducted by the University of Leipzig concerning German attitudes towards foreigners and towards democracy in general (via Politisch Korrekt) .  The results are sobering:

Diese erste Untersuchung ergab, dass rechtsextreme Einstellungen kein Randphänomen, sondern in der Mitte der Gesellschaft verwurzelt sind. Ausländerfeindlichkeit ist demnach die am weitesten verbreitete rechtsextreme Einstellung - 26,7 Prozent der Befragten stimmten damals entsprechenden Thesen zu. Neun Prozent gaben an, sie betrachteten die Diktatur als die unter Umständen bessere Staatsform. 15,2 Prozent sehnten sich nach einem "Führer" mit starker Hand, 26 Prozent nach einer einzigen Partei, von der die "Volksgemeinschaft" verkörpert werde. (This first study showed that right-wing extremist views are not fringe phenomena but are rather rooted in the center of society. Hostility towards foreigners is the most widespread right-wing extremist attitude: 26.7 % responded in the affirmative to items expressing this viewpoint. 9% indicated that a dictatorship is a preferable system of government under certain circumstances; 15.2% long for a  "Führer"  with a strong hand, and 26% would welcome a one-party system that embodies the values of the Volk.)

So according to this study approximately one quarter of the German population could be described as having an authoritarian orientation. How does this compare with the United States? We pride ourselves as being the font of democratic ideals, the beacon of liberty for the entire world.  And yet studies show that a sizable portion of the American population would gladly trade civil liberties for the security of a police state.

John Dean's 2006 book  Conservatives Without Conscience examined the latest research into authoritarian attitudes in America and found that 23% of Americans could be described as ``enemies of freedom, antidemocratic, antiequality, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, power hungry, Machiavellian and amoral." 23% of America is close to the entire population of Germany. Can authoritarianism be eradicated?  Probably not.  The writer and psychologist Eric Fromm showed that the authoritarian impulse is a feature of modern existence in his brilliant book Escape from Freedom. But the threat can be diminished to some extent through educational programs and contained through vigorous defense of hard-won civil liberties.   

In Praise of Bad Translations

The New York Times reviews Adam Thirlwells' book The Delighted States and has this interesting observation concerning translations:

As he swirls together his international troupe of writers, along with a fine prodigality of portraits, anecdotes and quotations, Mr. Thirlwell argues and sometimes goads at a universal mutual connection and influence.

That leads to the question of translation. Though he gives many examples of what is lost, he insists that even a mediocre translation will convey a writer’s essence; his style, in other words. Style, he writes, citing Proust, is a matter of vision, not language.

Is this true? Can a bad or mediocre translation convey a writer's essence? This made me think about the case of H.T. Lowe-Porter (1877-1963), who, under the Knopf contract,  had a monopoly on the English translations for the entire works of Thomas Mann until 1980.  It is now generally acknowledged that Lowe-Porter's Mann translations leave much to be desired; they are mediocre, at best.  And yet, it is her translations that brought Thomas Mann to generations of Brits and Americans, propelling his fame to Nobel Prize stratosphere.  And Lowe-Porter was pretty open about her disdain for precision in translation.  In her notes in the preface to the English version of Buddenbrooks she wrote that her commitment as translator was to "the spirit first and the letter so far as might be".  She found Mann's style to be a bit ponderous for English readers, so she "livened it up" a bit, shortened the sentences - and the readers enthusiastically ate it up.  But in the process she also sanitized Mann's prose, eliminating or changing the sexual allusions (Lowe-Porter found Mann's homosexuality distasteful). Lowe-Porter's "renditions" of Mann, then, fit the puritanical orientation of America, making Thomas Mann perhaps more acceptable to American readers than a precise translation may have done. 

After Lowe-Porter's copyright expired in the 1980s, a flurry of new - more precise - translations emerged. But was something lost here as well?  Mann's influence, in America, at least, has ebbed. Or is it Lowe-Porter that we miss?

Review: Nicholson Baker's "Human Smoke"

Last year Americans were transfixed by Ken Burns' mega-documentary The War which told the story of World War II from the perspective of ordinary American soldiers. We were told that this was a Necessary War, and the heroic sacrifice of everyday Americans saved civilization. This is the narrative that we all find familiar and comforting.  But what if World War II was not necessary, and what if it really ushered in the end of civilization?  That is the perspective of Nicholson Baker's astonishing book Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization.

Baker is a fellow Mainer, and lives just a few towns over from me. He has made a name for himself as a literary minimalist with unusual novels such as The Mezzanine and A Box of Matches. But he is also a passionate collector of old print newspapers, including the New York TImes, the vanished New York Herald Tribune, and 6,000 volumes of bound newspapers from the British Library.  The thing is, Baker didn't just collect these old newspapers, he also started to read them.  And in the process of reading old newspapers from 1920 on, he discovered that a different narrative for the origins of world war is possible  - a narrative that often goes against the grain of everything we thought we knew.

German Hypocrisy on the US Court's Guantanamo Ruling

The other day I touched on the reaction of relief and jubilation in the German press to the ruling of the US Supreme Court that upheld the right to due process under US law for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The sanctimonious headlines in the German press continue to flash on Google-Nachrichten: "The Nightmare is Over; Allerhöchste Zeit (It's about Time) screams a commentator on Deutsche Welle; "A Slap in Bush's Face; 5 to 4 for Human Rights. Don't get me wrong, the ruling did put the spotlight on the unlawful actions for the Bush Administration, and was a victory for human rights advocates around the world.

But what was has been missing from the commentary I've read so far in Germany is the admission that Germany was complicit in violating human rights at Guantanamo and elsewhere. Even Spain has been more open in acknowledging its role in legal abomination at Guantanamo.  The Spanish daily El Pais wrote on Friday, the day after the ruling:

We should not forget that Spanish police officers and secret service agents [also] interrogated prisoners who are now at that prison. Nor should we forget that Spanish airports and military bases were used to transport the prisoners to Guantánamo. It is time for Spain to put an end to this legal shilly-shallying and investigate how [Spanish] functionaries and politicians were involved [in this affair]." (13/06/2008)

I recently wrote a review of the book by Murat Kurnaz - "Five Years of my Lift: an Innocent Man in Guantanamo" -  in which the writer describes being interrogated by at the camp by two representatives of the German BND intelligence. Rather than trying to help the young man secure his release from wrongful captivity, the agents participated in his inhumane mistreatment. We now know that the US military had determined as early as 2002 that Murat Kurnaz was did not have any terrorist connections and asked Berlin to take him back.  The Red/Green Government at the time refused.  Frank Steinmeier - now Germany's foreign secretary - was involved in the decision. The details surrounding this decision remain murky even now, but Steinmeier has not suffered any consequences. We know that the mother of Murat Kurnaz wrote to the former foreign secretary Joschka Fischer, pleading that he intervene with Washington for the release of her son.  Fischer wrote back that his hands were tied since Kurnaz was not a German citizen.

Article One of German Basic Law (Grundgesetz) reads:  (1) Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar (The dignity of the human being shall be invoilable). But with respect to the actions of the German government in Guantanamo it should read: Die Würde des Deutschen ist unantastbar (The dignity of the German shall be inviolable.)