Friday, May 21st, 1999

Point of View (textparts), From Guernikka to Belgrade

    Paris, first Wednesday in the month. Noon sirens were heard. Nobody reacts. Speaking level haven't been reduced. Frenchmen are unaware, like under anesthesia. When I heard sirens, I want, as usual, to hide under the table. That's a reflex of a 1940 born kid, suddenly awoken, with his father who took him in his hands and went in subway. When alert passed we were scared to see our house destroyed. There is a common line among leaders of countries that declared war to Belgrade: they are born between 1945 and 1955 and don't know what war is. Hose Maria Asnair, Blair, Schroeder... all of then have yappi generation face. Clinton manages the country that was never bombarded. We are swimming in unreality pool. Awakening will be rough.

    In April 1937, Guernikka was a real shock. First time in history, citizens were targets of planes that flew so high that could be hardly even seen. Until then, wars were led as soldiers versus soldiers. Yes, killings, but to protect fragile one in the name of law was on of the basic rules. That military chivalry was replaced with a shame of the world - soldiers are now ones who are protected, civilians are only hostages and victims. Pentagon doctrine of concentric circles is well knows: inside circle is civilian circle, that one is first one to be affected. Then administrative and political circle comes... Last circle, outer one, is a soldier's circle that is supposed to be exempted.

    One American pilot took off one of the numerous bases in the northern Italy, was responsible because he turned his pilot flight into looping, cut off cableway's cable and brings twenty persons to death. At the end of the March he was prosecuted in the name of justice in his own country. Court decided that he is not guilty. It came out that lives of two dozens of European civilians worth less than life of one American soldier.

    Few days later, NATO proclaimed war to Serbia. Massacres of civilians, in front of UN and involved countries parliaments became legal.

    How that qualm suddenly comes when voice of Jamie Shea is heard? He is using words like "strike" or "collateral damage", he have a voice of hypnotic person - it remind me of The Third Raich bombastic language which hide awful reality under apparent neutrality of technical term.

    In his letter to Le Monde (May 14th), he said nothing but what I can find in the Italian, German, American and Canadian press and hardly find it in my own country. If France is last warlike country in Europe, that's because France public opinion, speaking in generally terms, is manipulated by weird spacious press. Can we read, for instance, something about real nature of KLA, about Mafia and parts of KLA who are fighting among themselves? We cannot understand anything about catastrophe which hit Europe if there is lack of sense that America in 1999 is not the same country as 1945 one. Frenchmen's bliss admiration toward that country will be, with no doubt, one of the biggest mysteries at the end of this century. Technicians who pilot sneaking planes, ones who take tomahawk rockets aim, aren't the same respectable American men who invaded Normandy. No, today so often arrogant and self-proud America is not the same nervous and generous one that I got acquainted with in student dormitories at the end of sixties. That's the nation with the biggest analphabets growth in past twenty years. The country of biggest prosperity, but also the country where bloody riots do happen, the country where rich ones turn their homes into fortresses preserved by private police. One out of a hundred and fifty Americans are in jail or some other penalty area that is ratio that no other democracy reached... That is the nation which have death penalty for women, underage kids and mental morons. Prisons for one, war for others: American democracy have it ways to solve problems of its own ethnic minorities, too. That's the nation that Europe accredited to defend "human rights". But, there is something else. It is implied that not a single American isn't one who have to risk his life to save those "human rights" which had to be restored. In his cabin, 15 thousands feet from earth, he do the blind bombardment. Power of the Nazis was in blindness also. They refused to reach their victims level. There is no way to see ones you killed - not in Ukraine, not in the "camps". If you face your enemy, that would mean to admit he is a human being as well as you are. To save American life is an obsession of the new race of masters. This new nation which is assured that it's the one who personify fortune, power and charm on Earth, have the biggest dream: immortality. American should not die and therefor cannot die. That cult of always young body that cannot get old, that fear of habits which can educe illness or death, like cigarettes or alcohol.

    Child dreams about immortality and almighty is a cloak for earth that feels bad in its body, under a phony glory intolerable hygiene.

    Human rights? Was it about defending human rights ever? If we should start a war in everywhere human rights are in danger, whole planet will be inflamed, from Korea to Turkey, from Africa to China. Which army was ever mobilized to defend human rights? Year II soldiers didn't perished in Valmey to defend just proclaimed rights, but to defend nation borders. France was a human rights bodyguard: it was, in the first line, defending France performance. France, as a country with safe territory, principles of human rights that France established could impose on themselves.

    One who lost sense of borders defense and values that those borders defend - that one lost his sanity. In the name of supra-sovereignty, Europe abandoned borders between countries it consists of, and in the same move change political point of view with "humanitarian" one. That was the day when Europe went in the wrong way and sink into world of nonsense.

    War in the heart of Europe led by other power and started in the name of supranational Europe: end of the century brought us that bloody absurd that could be uncovered only by Jonathan Swift's irony or Voltaire's humor. Who will believe that in the eve of XXI century, some nations become so backward, like some computers will be after this year? Send this question to Mayor of Barcelona, Pasqual Margal, who is proud not only on the cultural identity of his town and on the fact that "people are speaking Catalonian in Monpellie, Narbone, Valencia, Perpignone, Sardinia, Balers... today", but also who imposed Catalonian as a official language in Catalonia. Send that question to Basquians, who uncovered arsenal that could be in use tomorrow.

    Flammans, Corsicans, Irish people... Selection is wide. What is privilege of KLA? Why do Americans secretly arm KLA? Why does "NATO-ed" Europe adulate KLA on its televisions? Why do KLA have more charm than any other army or terrorist gang that work on destroying old nations all across Europe? When small ones are in conflict, big ones devour themselves. When you proclaim supranational Europe, dream about it and its power - which means flee away. In reality, you are not capable to maintain rampart of nations that Europe consists of and which guarantee unity and equality inside Europe and freedom outside from immanent dangers. Closed between Turkey and Albania, Greeks know exactly the price of sacrifice, sacrifice of principles of European nation to the big "humanitarian" principles, the principles that poorly hide obscure politicians' vision. If war on Balkan looks so awful, that's because it an experimental laboratory - tomorrow, balkanization is going to happen to whole Europe.

Jean Claire
Director of Piccaso Museum, liter ate and art history professor