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§ German Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policy was not a
masterpiece of humanitarian politics; it was dictated by the fear of television
images spread all over the world.
§ Even the suffering of our enemies disturbs us, in the humanitarian
culture of the West. We are therefore increasingly amenable to policies of
appeasement, censorship and retreat in order not to have to face the
possibility of such horribleness and actually having to fight it. That is why
radical Islam has been able to horrify the West into submission. We have
paralyzed ourselves. We censor the cartoons, the graphic photos of the
terrorists' victims and even the faces and names of the jihadists. The Islamic
terrorists, on the other hand, are not publicity-seekers; they are soldiers
ready to kill and die in the name of what they care about.
§ Images, as in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, are published only if
they amplify the West's sense of guilt and turn the "war on terror"
into something more even more dangerous than the jihad causing the war. The
result is to erase our enemy from our imagination. This is how the "war on
terror" has become synonymous with lawlessness throughout the West.
September 2015. Thousands of Syrian migrants crossing the Balkan
route were heading toward Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel was on the phone
with Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, talking about a number of measures
to protect the borders, where thousands of policemen were secretly located
along with buses and helicopters. De Maizière turned for advice to Dieter
Romann, then head of the police. "Can we live with the images that will
come out?" de Mazière asked.
"What happens if 500 refugees with children in their arms run toward the
border guards?"
De Maiziére was told that the appropriate use of the measures to
be taken would have be decided by the police on the field. When de Maizière
relayed Romann's response to the Chancellor, Merkel reversed her original
commitment. And the borders were opened for 180 days.
"For historical reasons, the Chancellor feared images of
armed German police confronting civilians on our borders," writes Robin Alexander, Die
Welt's leading journalist, who revealed these details in a new
book, Die Getriebenen ("The Driven Ones"). Alexander
reveals the real reason that pushed Merkel to open the door to a million and a
half migrants in a few weeks: "In the end, Merkel refused to take
responsibility, governing through the polls." This is how the famous
Merkel's motto "Wir schaffen das" was born: "We can do it."
According to Die Zeit:
"Merkel and her people are convinced that the marchers could
only be stopped with the help of violence: with water cannons, truncheons and
pepper spray. It would be chaotic and the images would be horrific. Merkel is
extremely wary of such images and of their political impact, and she is
convinced that Germany wouldn't tolerate them. Merkel once said that Germany
wouldn't be able to stand the images from the dismal conditions in the refugee
camp at Calais for more than three days. But how much more devastating would
images be of refugees being beaten as they try to get to Austria or
Germany?"
Merkel's refugee policy was not a masterpiece of humanitarian
politics; it was dictated by the fear of television images spread all over the
world. In so many key moments, it is the photograph that dictates our behavior:
the image that dishonors us, that makes us cringe in horror.
Now, the main German sentiment that seems to be driving public
opinion and politics is a dramatic sense of guilt. It is a "secular
sin", according to a new book by German sociologist Rolf Peter Sieferle
that is topping the German bestseller list, "Finis Germania".
The behavior of Germans during the current migrant crisis,
however, is symbolic of a more general Western condition. On April 30, 1975,
the fall of Saigon was part of a war fought and lost by the United States as
much on television as in the Vietnamese forests and rice paddies. It ended with
the the escape of helicopters from the rooftop of the US embassy.
In 1991, the imagery of the "highway of death"
of Saddam Hussein's bombed army of thugs fleeing a plundered Kuwait also
shocked the public in the West, and led to calls for an immediate cessation of
the fighting in Iraq and Kuwait. The result was that Saddam Hussein's air force
and Republican Guard divisions were spared; during the "peace" that
followed, it was these troops who butchered Kurds and Shiites.
The photograph of a dead American
soldier dragged through the streets of Mogadishu after the
"Black Hawk Down" incident pushed President Bill Clinton to order a
shameful retreat from Somalia. That photograph also led the US Administration
to rethink and cancel plans to use US troops for United Nations peace
operations in Bosnia, Haiti and other strategic points. General David Petraeus
would describe America's engagement in Afghanistan as a "war of perception".
Even the suffering of our enemies disturbs us, in the humanitarian
culture of the West. We are therefore increasingly amenable to policies of
appeasement, censorship and retreat, in order not to have to face the
possibility of such horribleness and actually having to fight it.
That is why radical Islam has been able to horrify the West into
submission. We have paralysed ourselves. We censor the cartoons, the graphic
photos of the terrorists' victims and even the faces and names of the
jihadists. The Islamic terrorists, on the other hand, are not
publicity-seekers; they are soldiers ready to die and kill in the name of what
they care about.
This week, the German media was shocked by the revelation that the
German air force will probably come under fire during its Syrian mission.
"Endangering German soldiers!"
-- with an exclamation point -- wrote Bild, the largest-selling
newspaper in Germany. The statement exposed the anxiety of what John Vinocur of
the Wall Street Journal called a "country where the army
and air force basically do not fight". A pacifist Germany is now a source
of trouble also for its own neighbors, such as Poland. "For centuries, our
main worry in Poland was a very strong German army", said former Polish
Defense Minister Janusz Onyszkiewicz.
"Today, we're seriously worried about German armed forces that are too
weak."
The Western establishment censors images of our enemies' crimes
while giving prominence to our "guilt". The French government censored
the "gruesome torture" of the victims at the Bataclan Theater, who
were castrated, disemboweled and had their eyes gouged out by the Islamist
terrorists. It was a mistake: it was in the public interest to know exactly
what enemy we are facing.
The FBI and Department of Justice released
a transcript of the Orlando jihadist's 911 call, but omitted all reference to
the terror group ISIS and to Islam. These authorities did not want the public
to know that Omar Mateen identified himself as an "Islamic soldier".
The European Commission against Racism
and Intolerance then told the British press it should not
report when terrorists are Muslim.
The CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo, suspended
accounts that showed photographs of the beheading of John Foley, along with
other Islamist beheadings and savagery. But Twitter did not mind being flooded
by images of a little dead boy, Alan (Aylan) Kurdi on a beach.
The mainstream media in the US fought hard to lift the photo ban on military coffins during
the war in Iraq. Its goal, apparently, was to humiliate and intimidate the
public, to lower the support for the war.
Images, as in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, are published only if
they amplify the West's sense of guilt and turn the "war on terror"
into something more even more dangerous than the jihad causing the war.
Amnesty International's Secretary General, Irene Khan -- referring
to concentration camps in the Soviet Union, where millions of people perished
-- infamously called Guantanamo "the Gulag of our time".
The result is to erase our enemy from our imagination. This is how the
"war on terror" has become synonymous with lawlessness throughout the
West.
Ten years ago, after the brave surge in Iraq, US soldiers
discovered Al Qaeda's torture chambers.
No one -- not ABC, not CBS, not the New York Times --
published one photo of them; they just filled our eyes with naked bodies at Abu
Ghraib.
We are utopian technophiles and, contrary to the traditional
Western view that we are flawed human beings in a tragic world. We now believe
in Mark Zuckerberg's brave new world where no one should ever suffer and
everyone should be happy and peaceful all the time. That is an exorbitant
dream. For a short time we can afford it, as with Angela Merkel and Europe's
migrant crisis. Unfortunately, that fantasy will not last. The conflicts at our
gates, together with our aversion to making hard choices, will exact a far
higher price.
Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il
Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
