Günter Grass on the west’s moral hypocrisy

The Guardian has a good interview with Günter Grass on the occasion of the publication in the UK of his latest autobiographical work – The Box: Tales from the Darkroom ( thanks to Katy for the link).  In the interview Grass offers some good insight into his life's work – including some surprises: I wasn't aware he knew Paul Celan in Paris.  But of course Grass wouldn't be Grass if he didn't also muse about history:

"Although some younger Germans chide Grass for an obsession with the country's past, he applies its lessons widely. Victory, he wrote, "makes you stupid." It is ironic, he says, that the "Germans, who lost the war, had the chance – were forced – to think about the past. The winners didn't. Perhaps in time, your country, England, will think about its colonial crimes . . . No country has the right to point only at the Germans. Everybody has to empty their own latrine."

But it is not only Britain that has yet to "empty its own latrine".

For him, the "west's moral voice lacks credibility. How do we prevent Iran developing an atomic bomb, when, on the American side, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not recognised as a war crime?" The Nuremberg trials "rightly sentenced war criminals. But by the same token, the Bush and Cheney administration belongs in front of a war crimes tribunal. That will never happen, so the Nuremberg trials retrospectively become a farce, granting rightwing extremists an argument they wouldn't have had." Yet for Grass, more dangerous than neo-Nazi parties are "politicians in the democratic parties who make a big circus to win votes from the far right – as in the Netherlands, with Islam enemy number one."

Grass is right, of course.  And his comments coincide with the publication of George W. Bush's memoir Decision Points in which he boasts of personally authorizing the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This is an egregious violation of the US Constitution and international lasw, but, predictably, this "news" has been met by the US media the public with a "ho-hum", while right-wing outlets such as Fox News celebrate the former president as a great patriot.  Writing in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Hubert Wetzel states what the US press refuses to admit:

Bisher ist die staatlich sanktionierte, nach geltendem US-Recht aber trotzdem illegale Folter während der Bush-Jahre juristisch nicht aufgearbeitet worden. Die Veröffentlichung der Memoiren des Ex-Präsidenten wären ein guter Anlass, um damit anzufangen. Das US-Justizministerium sollte prüfen, ob gegen den früheren Staatschef nicht ein Verfahren wegen Amtsmissbrauchs und Beihilfe zur Folter eröffnet werden muss.

(So far, the state sanctioned, but under US law still illegal, torture during the Bush years has not been legally processed. The publication of the memoirs of the former president would be a good occasion to start this process . The U.S. Department of Justice should consider whether oe nor an investigation into the former head of state should be opened for abuse of office and abetting the torture.)