To PEN-Lers,
I am cross-posting this message on Bosnia from another list,
pnews, where there is a vigorous debate over whether the US Left is
collaborating with genocide in either opposing US intervention or merely
remaining silent. The real issue is whether simply dismissing all US
government intervention as "imperialist" has just become an excuse to
absolve the Left of responsibility for analyzing and engaging with the
rise of fascism around the world.
I am in the pro-bombing, pro-intervention camp (although I wish
there were alternatives), and I wonder how other PEN-Lers feel? This is
not strictly economic but it relates to European integration and the
global system.
So?
* Nathan Newman: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 1994 17:14:34 -0400 (EDT)
From:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Collective Responsiblity
To Nathan Newman & PNEWS
In OVERCOMING THE PAST from New Left Review, in that article
Nathan refers to, Adam Michnik writes about this collective
responsibility and colective memory. He says that they are "duty
bound to be ashamed of what Polish fascists have done." And he is
right. It matters not that we do no evil directly to anyone, but
to permit evil to be done and do nothing about ending it is also
evil and I think there is much to be ashamed of when we can see
the killing and not take any action towards stopping it.
Just as in Africa I was appalled at seeing the soldiers in Rwanda
hacking to death those women even though I've seen death before.
Politics doesn't prevent us from doing what is right and if it
does it may be the wrong politics.
In Somalia I was opposed to intervention. I felt the problem of
hunger and starvation could be solved by other means, and did
not recognize this kind of urgency, and sending in American
troops did result in more lives lost. And perhaps we also saved
some lives?
In the late 50s in my travels in Europe for the US Government, I
found a document which I still have. It is called "PAPERS
CONCERNING THE TREATMENT OF GERMAN NATIONALS IN GERMANY 1938-
1939." It was a document presented by the Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs to the Parliament in 1939 and it described
Buchenwald and the wholesale slaughter of Jewish German
Nationals. This was public knowledge in 39 and nothing was done.
In the article from New Left Review, Jurgen Haberman writes: "There is no
collective guilt. Whoever is guilty must answer for it individually. At
the same time, however, there is such a thing as collective responsibility
for the mental and cultural context in which mass crimes become possible."
Though Europe is the subject, I think this also applies to the US Left and
to the cavalier disregard we have taken towards these crimes while we
endlessly debate "political correctness" as if the killings are mere
abstractions.
Adam is right to be terrifyied by the message he is hearing from
Yugoslavia of the finish of democratic Europe and in its place
the "utopia of ethnically pure states." This fascism lies very
close to the surface and I would rather see as Haberman suggests
40 years a stable democracy under the Americans than for the
alternative to happen. That shouldn't imply I approve of American
sytle capitalism anymore than it does for Haberman to approve of
capitalism, but it is a clear picture of what the present
alternatives may be. I rather have capitalism and change it then
see the fascism of ethnically pure states arrise in Yugoslavia
and that's what we may get if we don't step in. An interesting
prospect, besides the cruelty which fascism leaves in its path,
as seen on nightly regularly on television.
Hank Roth
