[lit-ideas] from Der Spiegel
- From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Lit-Ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 11:08:48 -0400
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,372425,00.html
GERMAN CALLOUSNESS
Kicking Hurricane Victims While They're Down
By Claus Christian Malzahn
Hurricane Katrina has cost the lives of hundreds and devastated the
US Gulf Coast. But instead of aid donations and sympathy, the
Americans have heard little more than a haughty "I told you so" from
Germany. It's another low point for trans-Atlantic relations -- and
set off by a German minister. How pathetic.
Hurricane Katrina was, says one German minister, America's own fault.
For the record: German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder offered his
condolences to US President George W. Bush for the Hurricane Katrina
disaster that has hit the Gulf Coast. Both he and his fellow
Germans, Schröder wrote, feel "great sympathy for the fate of those
people affected by the hurricane."
Nice words to be sure, but that was it. No pledges of aid money, no
announcements of immediate help -- although finally, two days later,
the German interior minister did manage to come out with a hesitant
offer of assistance. And let's be honest, the crisis region this
time around isn't in the Third World, but is in the United States of
America. There really isn't much of a need for German helpers --
experienced as they may be from aid missions from Kosovo to
Afghanistan -- because the American authorities are already doing as
much as can be done.
Nevertheless, German aid money delivered to American aid agencies
would surely be welcome on the other side of the Atlantic. But
apparently, people over here believe that the Americans over there
don't really need help. Strange. The same people who normally spend
their time pointing their holier-than-thou fingers at the ghettos
and slums in the US, the same ones who describe America as an
out-of-control capitalist monster, are now, when the Americans could
really use a bit of help, oddly quiet.
Cold and malicious
Apparently the Americans had it coming: "The American president has
closed his eyes to the economic and human damage that natural
catastrophes such as Katrina -- in other words, disasters caused by
a lack of climate protection measures -- can visit on his country."
Who wrote this? None other than Jürgen Trittin, Germany's minister
of the environment.
At a moment when the dead on the Gulf Coast are still being counted,
the German minister of the environment could think of nothing better
to do than -- in an essay published Tuesday in the center-left daily
Frankfurter Rundschau -- to blame the US itself for the catastrophe.
The piece is 493 words long, and not a single one of them is wasted
to express any sort of sympathy for the victims of the storm. The
worst of it is that Trittin isn't alone with his cold, malicious
tenor. The coverage from much of the German media tends in the same
direction: If Bush had only listened to Uncle Trittin and signed the
Kyoto Protocol, then this never would have happened.
Bullshit. Trittin's article is a slap in the face to all the
victims. Let's just assume that the environment minister is right,
that there is a direct relationship between greenhouse gases and
Hurricane Katrina. Even still this would hardly be the time for yet
another round of America bashing and finger pointing. Three years
ago, just before the US election, former Minister of Justice Hertha
Däubler Gmelin compared US President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler.
This time, with German elections looming, the environment minister
is using a natural catastrophe as an excuse to once again campaign
with subtle anti-Americanism and to unabashedly pat himself on the
back. A "Kyoto Two" is "desperately needed" screamed the headline
over his insensitive attack.
There are scientists and Nobel Prize winners who see the problem of
global warming totally different than Trittin. Many consider the
fight against AIDS, hunger and malaria as higher priorities than a
reduction of carbon dioxide output. Last year, some of these experts
jointly published the "Copenhagen Consensus," in which they outlined
the greatest problems facing the world. Global warming figured low
on the list. And believe it or not, the scientists are not on the
payroll of the Texas oil industry. But that's hardly the point at
the moment. Right now, the situation calls for empathy with the
people in the American south who are suffering the after effects of
the massive storm.
It's not the American people's fault that the storm hit and they
couldn't have stopped it. The Germans, on the other hand, could have
done a lot to prevent World War II. And yet, care packages still
rained down from US troops. Trittin's know-it-all stance is
therefore not only tasteless, it is also historically blind.
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