Clicking first and ranting later.
Thursday, September 19th, 2002
I would normally not read William Safire’s editorials because he doesn’t ever seem to contribute anything to my understanding of world affairs - he just says inflammatory stuff that ticks me off. But seeing as I have a personal interest in Germany and I was writing about Germany myself just a few days ago, I clicked on The German Problem (login: wrreaders), read it and, naturally, got all riled up. I have four things to say about it.
1) I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I am sick to death of hearing that when a country doesn’t just blindly go along with anything and everything America decides to do, this country is "thumbing its nose at America." For pity’s sake - it’s an independent country! With its own government! With its own policies and problems and ideas! Why is this always treated as some sort of deeply personal insult to America? Why is it always hailed as the "rise of anti-Americanism"? Why is it treated as a given that when America snaps its fingers, everyone else should jump?
And in this case in particular (Schroeder’s refusal to get involved in an attack on Iraq), Safire completely misses the point. He latches on to some pretty dodgy comments by Rudolf Scharping (a discredited politician anyway, as Safire himself points out) about the Jewish lobby’s influence on Bush being the reason Schroeder doesn’t want to ship the German army to the Middle East. Safire seems to have a critical lack of understanding of, amongst other things, the deep-seated, uniquely German issues that Germany is always faced with when confronting the prospect of sending German troops into battle - particularly into a pre-emptive battle. Germany doesn’t do stuff like that lightly - for good reason.
2) William Safire must be completely ignorant on the subject of German politics if he can write in all seriousness that Edmund Stoiber is "semi-conservative". Semi-conservative! I almost fell out of my chair reading that. Edmund Stoiber is probably the most extremely conservative major politician in Germany. Of course, labeling Stoiber as only semi-conservative says reams about Safire’s own political leanings - and that’s rather frightening.
3) Referring to Saddam Hussein as "the Hitler of the Persian Gulf"… Don’t. Just don’t go there.
4) Um, equating "American superpower hegemony" with "German book-publishing hegemony"? Huh? German companies "gaining a stranglehold on U.S. books"? The "unilateral cultural imperialism by literary tycoons in the Fatherland" which is resented by "every red-blooded American author"? For crying out loud. This is the random (supposedly humorous?) stuff that leaves me shaking my head in disbelief. I can’t for the life of me figure out how the fact that Bertelsmann owns Random House has anything at all to do with Gerhard Schroeder not wanting to send German troops to invade Iraq, but then, my mind obviously does not work the way William Safire’s does.
Which went without saying long before I ever read this silly editorial.
Comments
1
Well, maybe you’re missing the point yourself, maybe for lack or want of information: first, Scharping has discredited himself as a politician all right, but he is today one of vice-chairmans of the Social Democrats where Chancellor Schroeder is the chairman and who govern Germany, so he is no man from the street but an official voice of the Social Democrats who has a substantial say in how Germany is run. Second, Stoiber IS a semi-conservative, for thousand of different reasons which you would probably see yourself were you living for fifteen years as I do - as a non-German - in Germany. There are practically no "conservatives" in the CDU an only a few in the Stoiber’s CSU, both parties that form the "Christian-Democratic" parliamentary coalition. So, I’m sorry to say, both of your "factual" observations are wrong.
2
While Scharping may still be a prominent (as far as the media is concerned, anyway) figure in the SPD, he is no longer in the cabinet. He became an embarrassment and a liability to the government, and I hardly think Schroeder and the rest of the SPD wants him to be seen as their "official voice" - or want him to have a "substantial say" in how they run the country.
My point about Scharping being discredited was precisely that he is *not* the official voice of the SPD, and his opinions do not (necessarily) reflect those of the entire German government. It’s kind of like Jesse Helms saying something controversial - it may gain a lot of attention because he’s a prominent politician, but just because he says something doesn’t mean that 1) it’s policy or that 2) he speaks for the entire US government. Scharping’s words do not hail the end of good relations between Germany and the US, as Safire seems to want to have us believe. He’s just another trouble-prone politician getting himself in hot water again. Herta Daeubler-Gmelin’s alleged remarks, on the other hand, seem a lot more - um, *problematic* in this situation.
And what, pray tell, is your definition of conservative? Please tell me some of the "thousands of different reasons" that neither Stoiber, nor the CDU, nor even the CSU are actually conservative. I would really like to know what I apparently missed for the 15 years that *I* lived in Germany as a non-German.
3
As a German born and bred, I feel I have to leave my comment here as well. For the very first time since I I’ve been allowed to vote, I have felt it a real obligation to go and vote in this particular election. I live in a city which used to be THE stronghold for the SPD for 50 years. and only last year a coalition of the CDU and a right-wing extremist party got into power here, with 18% of the voters voting for the fascists. It was all about how it wasn’t safe to walk the streets anymore etc, etc, because dark-skinned drug pushers were all over the place etc, etc. Now, I have really learned a lesson from all this: It does not make a difference for people like me (white, German passport, male, university education and all that) whether it’s the CDU or the SPD governing the place. But it does make an enourmous difference for people who do not fulfill the criteria cited above. You would not believe how quickly you noticed the outward changes after the mob had its say in Hamburg. Police and private security forces all over the place, I get to witness at least one black person a day being randomly stopped in the street and questioned, all the junkies who used to gather around the central station are now gone, and I don’t know where to… I could cite examples for pages and pages and pages. So, knowing how it could work, worst come to worst, I’ll tell you that the CDU CAN actually be considered to be semi-conservative, because they’ll leave the dirty work, the outright racism or anti-semitism, to their coalition partners. They would have done exactly the same with a wanker like Moellemann, had they won the elections. I have lived here for 30 years as a German. And I despise the SPD and the Greens. But let me tell you, we have been bloody lucky here. Daeubler-Gmelin’s anti-americanisms are, on the generally acceptable scale of stupid resentment, harmless compared to what lurks in the CDU, the FDP and, really, the German psyche, if there is such a thing. Jessica put it very well when she simply wrote "phew, that was close".
4
Oh come on. Any american whose been to europe has soon realized why americans are founded by people who left europe never looking back!
What’s the problem, here? Are Americans daring to treat the europeans as they’ve treated americans for centuries? The nerve! Don’t give it out unless you can take it. Europe is hateful. I’ve had two friends spit on for merely walking the streets of germany when they were in reasonably usual american attire, blue jeans and a shirt.
Lying isn’t an art form in america. To deny what is going on is so "euro".
5
Judy, have *you* ever actually been to Europe? Do you know any Europeans personally? I can’t imagine that you have any in-depth, first-hand experience of what attitudes are really like over here if you can so blithely brand the entire continent as "hateful". What an extraordinary claim - and one that is as insulting and uninsightful as the claim that all of America is "ignorant".
And what exactly do you think is "going on"? I’m sorry, but in general, I just don’t get the point of your post.
6
One might add, that Scharping never said the things reported above. Repeat: they were a product of Safire’s imagination. Judy: I can hardly belive the things you are telling me. It is very common to have an american flag on the clothes in Germany - nobody I know has ever been spit upon because of his clothes - well one has, but he was walking through a punk area in suit.
Safire’s newest comment is funny as well: — In a gesture that only Eastern Europeans with long memories can fully grasp, the Polish defense minister sweetly invited his German counterpart to contribute troops to this Polish-led European force. Officials under the anti-American Chancellor Gerhard Schröder seethed at the notion of German soldiers’ saluting Polish officers, and angrily rejected the generous Polish offer. — Wow - he seems to grasp the gesture all right, but he could have informed himself first. The troops in question are the Poland-based German-Danish-Polish Force and they ARE already saluting Polish officers. As well, Schroeder is a liberal and anti-war, hardly anti-american.
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