Thank you, Aggo, for posting this. It brought tears to my eyes. They
were in part because I felt pride, for the first time in a long
while, for my Pennsylvania Dutch (essentially German) heritage. Like
the author of this piece, I feel the burden of answering questions
about pride in my cultural heritage as an accident of birth.

I am also crying for my country (my other cultural heritage). She has
been taken over by a man who does not speak for me, by a machine of
war built on the stacked bones of wars not fought on our soil--bones
that will one day (millions of years in the twinkling of Mother
Earth's eye) become the crude oil that I hope by then we have learned
not to fight over.

In secondary school, we studied World Word II. My teacher, who was
more full of energy than wisdom, asked a schoolmate (my rival) and me
to roleplay the part of SS officers and separate my classmates into
two groups: those who would go to the gas chambers and those who
would be permitted to live. We were asked to sort through our peers
as if they were beans on a plate, throwing out the stones and
worm-eaten shells. I was young. I felt powerless. I completed the
assignment with reassurances that the results would never be shared
with my classmates, so no one's feelings would be hurt.

My teacher lied. Our decisions were shared among my classmates. A
young woman came up to me in the halls and told me I had ruined her
life by uncovering her disability. She was hard of hearing, an
imperfection punished by death in Nazi Germany. Even though it was
common knowledge that she had a hearing problem, she said I had
ruined her chances of realizing her life's dream to become a
professional flutist. Last I heard, she was studying veterinary
medicine at Iowa State University.

The lesson I learned that day has kept on giving throughout the
years, often in surprising ways. The piece you posted made me flash
back to that day. It struck a chord when I read, "the rhetoric of the
aggressor increasingly resembles that of his enemy."

I was reminded that while it is important to teach our children
lessons, it matters how we teach those lessons. If I had a moment of
Mr. Bush's attention, that is the message I would try my hardest to
impart "by whatever means necessary."

Kind regards,
Anita

>Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune
>http://www.iht.com/articles/92876.htm
>
>The moral decline of a superpower
>Günter Grass Tribune Media Services International
>Friday, April 11, 2003
>
>Preemptive war
>
>BEHLENDORF, Germany A war long sought and planned is now under way.
>All deliberations and warnings of the United Nations
>notwithstanding, an overpowering military apparatus has attacked
>preemptively in violation of international law. No objections were
>heeded. The Security Council was disdained and scorned as
>irrelevant. As the bombs fall and the battle for Baghdad continues,
>the law of might prevails.
>
>Based on this injustice, the mighty have the power to buy and reward
>those who might be willing and to disdain and even punish the
>unwilling. The words of the current American president - "Those who
>are not with us are against us" - weigh on current events with the
>resonance of barbaric times.
>
>It is hardly surprising that the rhetoric of the aggressor
>increasingly resembles that of his enemy. Religious fundamentalism
>leads both sides to abuse what belongs to all religions, taking the
>notion of God hostage in accordance with their own fanatical
>understanding. Even the passionate warnings of the Pope, who knows
>how lasting and devastating the disasters wrought by the mentality
>and actions of Christian crusaders have been, were unsuccessful.
>
>Disturbed and powerless, but also filled with anger, we are
>witnessing the moral decline of the world's only superpower,
>burdened by the knowledge that only one consequence of this
>organized madness is certain: Motivation for more terrorism is being
>provided, for more violence and counterviolence. Is this really the
>United States of America, the country we fondly remember? The
>generous benefactor of the Marshall Plan? The forbearing instructor
>in the lessons of democracy? The candid self-critic? The country
>that once made use of the teachings of the European Enlightenment to
>throw off its colonial masters and to provide itself with an
>exemplary constitution? Is this the country that made freedom of
>speech an incontrovertible human right?
>
>It is not just foreigners who cringe as this ideal pales to the
>point where it is now a caricature of itself. There are many
>Americans who love their country too, people who are horrified by
>the betrayal of their founding values and by the hubris of those
>holding the power. I stand with them. By their side, I declare
>myself pro-American. I protest with them against the brutalities
>brought about by the injustice of the mighty, against all
>restrictions of the freedom of expression, against information
>control reminiscent of the practices of totalitarian states and
>against the cynical equations that make the deaths of so many
>innocents acceptable so long as economic and political interests are
>protected.
>
>No, it is not anti-Americanism that is damaging the image of the
>United States; nor do the dictator Saddam Hussein and his
>extensively disarmed country endanger the most powerful country in
>the world. It is President Bush and his government that are
>diminishing democratic values, bringing sure disaster to their own
>country, ignoring the United Nations, and that are now terrifying
>the world with a war in violation of international law.
>
>We Germans are often asked if we are proud of our country. To answer
>this question has always been a burden. There were reasons for our
>doubts. But now I can say that the rejection of this preemptive war
>by a majority in my country has made me proud of Germany. After
>having been largely responsible for two world wars and their
>criminal consequences, we have made a difficult step. We seem to
>have learned from history.
>
>The Federal Republic of Germany has been a sovereign country since
>1990. Our government made use of this sovereignty by having the
>courage to object to those allied in this cause, the courage to
>protect Germany from a step back to a kind of adolescent behavior. I
>thank Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his foreign minister, Joschka
>Fischer, for their fortitude in spite of all the attacks and
>accusations.
>
>Many people find themselves in a state of despair these days, and
>with good reason. Yet we must not let our voices, our No to war and
>Yes to peace, be silenced. What has happened? The stone that we
>pushed to the peak is once again at the foot of the mountain. But we
>must push it back up, even with the knowledge that we can expect it
>to roll back down again.
>
>Günter Grass was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize for literature. This
>comment was translated from German by Daniel Slager and distributed
>by Global Viewpoint for Tribune Media Services International.
>
>
>
>Aggo Akyea
>608-274-7409
>
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Anita H. Makuluni * Madison WI * [log in to unmask]

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