Guest 938- Registered: 13 May 2013
- Posts: 36
#1
One hundred years that just don´t want to pass:
with the Great War our present age began. But how will it continue? Angela Merkel's European policy and China's action in the Pacific foreshadow, that any history may repeat itself, even the most horrible.
One hundred years - we cannot evade the magic of this number. Incessantly there is an anniversary of something. But this one is special. One hundred years ago the history of our present age began. We enter a different past. One that does not wither.
The First World War and everything that happened ever since differs in its relevance to Germans compared to e.g. the Battle of Dybbøl (war of Prussia and Austria-Hungary against Denmark 1864, the first of the three German unifying wars):
"It is too close, too horrible" Gustav Seibt just wrote (German historian, literary critic, journalist).
But it´s not over, yet: in the Pacific, China is led by the same infatuation that once devastated Germany.
And in Europe the Germans prove, that they still have not realised that the continent cannot be dominated unpunished. Neither by their weapons, nor by their economy.
"We want to glorify war - this only hygiene of the world -, the militarism, the patriotism, the annihilation act of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas to die for, and the disdain of the woman."
Thus sound the famous lines in the manifest of the Italian futurists of 1909. Meanwhile we know the path this dionysian thinking leads.
We know the industrialised killing in the trenches of Verdun and in the extermination camps of the Germans.
Does this knowledge protect us?
This centenary will be celebrated all over the world. Particularly in France, Belgium, and Great Britain. But also in Australia and New Zealand. The German magazine Der Spiegel writes:
"In the media this will be the biggest history event of the 21st century".
But the decisive question is: are we different from the people of 1914? Sadly the answer is: no.
In his rightfully critically acclaimed book about the onset of the Great war Australian historian Christopher Clark calls the protagonists of 1914 "our contemporaries".
They knew they were playing with fire, nonetheless they tried to use the imminent threat for their own benefit.
That´s how today´s responsible ones act in the Euro-crisis. In France, in Greece, in Italy, and also in Germany.
Angela Merkel does not look like an incarnation of Wilhelm 2. But that´s misleading. Just like the Kaiser, Merkel plays the riskiest game of all those involved.
No one can win as much by the Euro as well as lose as much like the Germans. And still the success of German politics depends on an absolute improbable event: that the South Europeans all act like Germans.
Sure, Merkel believes to be in the right regarding the European crisis. And the majority of Germans feel alike. But this feeling of being in the right just triggers the greatest cataclysm.
That emphatic August joy of 1914 that let the Germans tumble into their own doom was even the more beautiful since it was preceded by this feeling of being in the right.
There already are publicists and politicians in Europe and in Germany that would greet a faltering Euro with this kind of August joy.
If Merkel continues on her path of destroying the European idea, then without a doubt there again will be writers perceiving the demise of the Euro as liberation, just like Thomas Mann extolled the beginning of the Great War.
Does that mean, there will be war once the Euro shatters? One is tempted to negate this question at once. And at once one pauses.
The less likely a catastrophic course of the future seems, the more we should recall the past.
There is no easy escape from the parallels: the war that started 1914 looked just as unlikely and irrational as it would look today.
There is a downright reenactment of the European world-crisis going on right now in the East and South China Sea. China takes up the role of Germany of those days: the international upstart, longing for recognition, seeing enemies all around himself.
And the USA are like Great Britain: the international leader passed her zenith, that may exhaust herself in the battle with the new opponent.
There is not much phantasy needed to see a wavering president Obama as the hapless premier Asquith, who governed a deeply divided nation that was unable and unwilling to execute the leading role in the world.
"Once you send up fighter jets, it´s the opportunity for someone to mess up." retired Admiral William Fowler, former commanding general of the US-Forces in the Pacific, once quipped.
This time the game with the fire will be played over the Senkaku Islands.
A policy, that disregards fortuity, acts irresponsibly.
Fortuity is a problem. If events could have gone any other way, history does not make any sense. What could have become of Europe, of the world, without the assassination of Sarajevo?
We are not immune against this kind of fortuity: what will happen to the world, if some fighter pilot loses his head above those islands?
And what will become of Europe, if eventually Italy rids itself of the burden of German austerity?
One might look grim onto the new year: seemingly by an unforgiving force history is driven into its own repetition.
And we sense, that we are not safe.
Guest 1033- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 509
#3
Thats a nice bit of doom and gloom for the new year.
If the EU collapses, we're in for another world war, and if it doesn't collapse the yanks will start an accidental war with the Chinese. Not much hope for us either way then.
Here's one thats puzzled me for a long time now, serious question, not flippant:
Why is it that quite a few countries who were under German occupation during the last war have strong and well supported right wing political parties ?
Posted at the same time as Howard...
Lord Voldemort ? If thats the level of thinking, god help us all !
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#4
another question is why many of the eastern bloc countries when given democracy voted in many of the politicians that oppressed them previously.
romania is a classic case where a brutal family repressed and terrified the inhabitants but most of their henchpersons came back via the ballot box - maybe a version of stockholm syndrome?