Jaffa Lizards 

By Israel Shamir 

This May was a time of great disillusionment for Russians. Years have
passed since they parted with Communism, broke up the Soviet Union,
granted independence to (or gave away to the US) every land they ever
controlled, allowed Western companies to buy and sell their heirlooms
and livelihood, closed down their military bases, let their missiles and
submarines rust in peace, fulfilled every demand and desire of the US.
Then they prepared a great celebration of V-Day, invited guests, brushed
up their medals, retold the stories of supreme heroism – and were
cold-shouldered by the US and UK, their erstwhile allies in the World
War II. President Bush, tactful as ever, went to Tbilisi and declared
that there was no big difference between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

"O God, why did we fight for them?" thought many Russians. "Why did we
support the Anglo-American landing in Normandy instead of signing a
separate peace treaty with practically defeated Germany in the spring of
1944, when our territory was liberated? Why did so many Russian soldiers
have to fight and die while liberating Poland or Czechoslovakia or West
Ukraine? Now we see that the Czechs and the Poles prefer German
hegemony; they let them in via the EU treaty. The West Ukraine
celebrates their volunteers in the SS division and pushes for NATO
membership. We could let them have it their way; stay put behind the old
borders and let the Wehrmacht deal with Private Ryan." 

If time messaging were possible, have no doubt – that is what would
happen in 1944; and we would be living today in a different world. In
that alternative world, the Russians would not have to listen to the
complaints of an American president about why they were so rough with
their enemy. 

Such grossly unjust philippics appear in the Western media because the
Western and the Eastern visions of the War differ greatly. For the
Russians and their neighbours, the important thing was their great
victory over the German enemy; but in the West, the Jewish holocaust
blotted out the victory of Stalingrad and Berlin. The West adopted a
strange narrative centred on the Jewish fate. According to this
narrative, the Germans decided to exterminate all Jews, from babies to
the old men; that is why they fought the war. The world callously
disregarded the Jewish tragedy, but a miracle occurred: Jews were saved
and created their state of Israel from the ashes of the Holocaust. 

From the Russian point of view, the USSR did not ‘callously disregard’,
but shed the blood of its best sons and daughters. The war was not
fought for Jews or because of Jews; but Russia deserves their eternal
gratitude anyway for saving them from their peril. Because of this claim
on Jewish gratitude, the Russians went a long way with the creators of
the holocaust narrative; but Jewish gratitude was extremely short-lived
(as it usually is – google up my essay Prince Charming). 

In the present Jewish narrative that became the official version of
modern history in the West thanks to efforts of Jewish media lords, the
USSR/Russia is conspicuous by its absence. Even the Americans appear in
this story as people who failed to bomb Auschwitz and supplied their
know-how to the Germans. In the endless corridors of the Yad va-Shem
Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, the Red Army is not even mentioned.
Millions of perished Russian soldiers find no place in the Zionist
narrative of the Jewish tragedy, Jewish heroic fight and an indifferent
gentile world. 

The American and European leaders fully accepted the Jewish narrative,
not least because it released them from their obligations towards the
ally that shouldered the immense burden of the war. They watched with
incomprehension and irritation the V-Day celebrations in Moscow. For
them, the key event took place a few months earlier in Auschwitz: as
opposed to Moscow, none failed to appear there and to ask for Jewish
forgiveness. For them, the Jewish tragedy was the only important event
of 1945; as for victory – what victory? 

That Victory was stolen. In Israel this May 9 they spoke of the heroism
of Jewish soldiers and partisans, as if they had won the war
single-handedly. The Israeli school syllabus does not refer to the War
except in the context of the holocaust. Israeli well-nurtured ignorance
is complete: 

A Russian student wrote a thesis on the Battle of Moscow, in the winter
1941, and mentioned it while meeting with the Israeli students in Tel
Aviv. "Who actually fought whom at Moscow in 1941?" asked an Israeli
youth. After a brief silence, an Israeli teacher explained: the Germans
fought the Japanese! 

Thus the story of the Jewish holocaust obscured the war and the Soviet
victory. The Western anti-communists wanted to steal the victory; the
Zionists helped them while minding their own interests. Now they collect
billions in reparations, while the heroic feat of our fathers is
forgotten. For me, a dweller of Jaffa, this turn of events recalls the
myth of Perseus and his victory over the Sea Monster. You probably
remember how the Sea Monster threatened Jaffa with destruction lest the
Princess Andromeda were delivered into his paws; how Perseus beheaded
the Medusa Gorgona, donned the winged sandals of Hermes, flew to Jaffa
and turned the Sea Monster into stone, thus saving Princess Andromeda. 

Now imagine that a few years after this exploit, a young man named Jason
decided to check the story and have a peek at the Princess. He gathered
his friends, young Athenian gentlemen with much spare time on their
hands, and sailed his black ship east. Winds and currents were
favourable, and the ship reached Jaffa safely and speedily. If the
Athenians had any doubts about Perseus’s veracity, these were dispelled
most convincingly: the vast bulk of the sea monster was beached on the
rocks a hundred yards from the shore, thus creating a cosy nook of a
harbour. (It is still here, and is shown to tourists). 

In a café serving local arrack, a fiery, milky drink not dissimilar to
the Hellene Ouzo, the Athenians enquired about the Sea Monster. 

"Yes, this skeleton is timeless reminder of the great lizard tragedy,"
said the barman. 

"What lizard tragedy?" asked a sailor. 

"The Monster was devouring the lizards," said the barman. "The lizards,
these harmless, exquisite and gracious creatures, were his favourite
food. Every day he would swallow them by thousands. The lizards would be
eliminated if the Monster were not slain. Until now, we have a Lizard
tragedy remembrance day, and here is the memorial of the Devoured
Lizard." 

Indeed, our sailors had not noticed until now a modest sculpture
embellishing the city square. It depicted a lizard in a tortured pose,
his tail gone and small paws raised to the blue Jaffa sky. 

"Strange! We have never heard of this lizard angle from Perseus,"
muttered Jason. 

"Ah, Perseus!" exclaimed the barman. "He never cared for lizards. There
are dreadful stories that he killed many lizards himself. When he
carelessly flashed his weapon, the Medusa head, thousands of lizards
were turned into stone. Some people say that Perseus was not better than
the dragon." 

The barman’s son intruded into their conversation, "We learned in school
that this Perseus was very weak on morals, too. He had many sordid
adventures, took advantage of the old women Graiae, assassinated the
poor Gorgon in her sleep; and worse -- he murdered his own father!" 

"He was a mass murderer," intervened another Jaffaite, busy with his
arrack and olives, "he murdered his mother’s suitor Polydectes and many
others by means of the same Gorgon head. Perseus is not our hero, just
remember it!" 

"Every time we look at our harbour and see the Monster, we bless the
Almighty God for saving the lizards," piously intoned a priest. 

"But he vanquished the dragon!" – bellowed Jason. 

"The dragon was defeated by the joint efforts of brave lizards and their
human friends. Perseus played but a minor role in this drama. Anyone
could do what he did: he just flashed the Medusa head at the dragon and
turned it into stone. But before that, our Allied forces carried out a
dangerous and brutal war; thousands of lizards attacked the monster, and
we all prayed for the Monster’s end. Don’t you think that our prayers
should be mentioned first as the greatest reason for victory?" 

"But why are we talking about defeating the dragon?" asked the barman’s
son. "The dragon was defeated by everybody and anyway, the important
story is that of the Lizards’s Tragedy. And Perseus is not our hero." 

"Are you Lizards?" asked daring Jason. 

"Oh no, we are humans. But the lizards are the best thing that ever
happened to us. We always follow their advice." 

"And what happened to Andromeda?" – asked Jason. 

"Nothing special. Her house is out there, on Lizards Street." 

The sailors paid for their drinks and proceeded to the house which the
barman pointed out. Andromeda the Beautiful was there. She was obviously
astonished when the sailors brought her the regards of Perseus. 

"It seems the people of Jaffa forgot who saved them from the Dragon. But
you, Andromeda, surely you remember Perseus who saved you?" asked Jason.

"Perseus?" asked the Princess, gazing through the window at the monument
of the Devoured Lizard. "Perseus? He never cared about the Lizards." 

The Greek team rose and departed back home in visible disgust. Since
then, mankind has been divided into those who read the story of Perseus
the Victorious, and those who worship the Devoured Lizard. 

The Old Canard 

Such a paradigm shift occurred in the West. The East celebrates the
victory over the Dragon, while the West laments the Devoured Lizards.
Naïve folk think that the Lizard worshippers are moved by compassion and
try to copycat this narrative with stories of their own suffering: the
Ukrainians suffered the famine of 1930s, the Africans suffered under
slavery. Then they are amazed to discover that it does not bring in the
flood of compensations. 

They forget that every narrative has its moving interest. The Western
anti-communists and the Zionist Masters of Discourse are not moved by
compassion; they promote a story of suffering when it is suitable for
them. They promoted the story of the Ukrainian famine in order to set
the Ukrainians against the Russians and to break the Soviet Union. They
promoted the story of the Holocaust in order to obscure our victory.
They invented the stories of Communist atrocities in order to eradicate
Communism and privatise public assets from California to Siberia. 

For a while the ‘Red atrocities’ yarn was forgotten, but it came back
with a vengeance when Russians put the squeeze on the oligarchs and
slowed down the Western companies’ hostile takeover of the Russian
economy. The mad exaggerations of Conquest were resurrected, and
according to them, the Reds killed more people than were ever born in
Russia. 

If I may use a Jewish cliché much loved by ADL’s Abe Foxman and his kin,
it’s time to discard the old canard of "Communists killing millions".
Not only is it used to promote the American way-of-life-and-death, it is
simply not true. These wild holocaust-copycat stories were debunked not
only by left-wing Russian historians like Sergey Kara-Murza, but also by
Russian nationalist historians who can’t be suspected in pro-communist
sympathies: Vadim Kozhinov and Stanislav Kunyaev. 

Now, our erstwhile friend Patrick Buchanan whom I much admired for his
stand against the Iraqi war and against Zionism, went back to his Cold
War follies. He wrote another of his attacks on "Russian Commies": 

"Bush told the awful truth about what really triumphed in World War II
east of the Elbe. And it was not freedom. It was Stalin, the most odious
tyrant of the century. Where Hitler killed his millions, Stalin, Mao, Ho
Chi Minh, Pol Pot, and Castro murdered their tens of millions. Leninism
was the Black Death of the 20th century." 

Not more, not less – the Black Death! Indeed, Elie Wiesel holocaust
stories are Sunday Gospel reading in comparison with this raving.
Communists – Stalin and Mao and Castro – are forever guilty in the eyes
of Buchanan’s compatriots and fellow Mammon-worshippers; but not for
their alleged atrocities: their real crime was that they did not allow
the US to ravage their lands. The ‘Commies’ did not sell the goods, the
tangible assets, oil, gas, lands to the American Moloch. 

I began to doubt both sanity and sincerity of Buchanan. His sanity,
because he claims that "Castro murdered tens of millions" on an island
with total population of nine million. His sincerity, for what are his
anti-Zionist diatribes are worth if he wants to return Cuba to Meyer
Lansky and his mafia? 

Buchanan is not alone, oh no. On May 7, 2005, The Economist of London
condemned "Russian reluctance to acknowledge the Soviet Union's sins
before, during and after the war, such as the Katyn massacre of Polish
officers in 1940, the atrocities committed as the Red Army marched on
Berlin or the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939 that carved up Europe."
Russia was unfavourably compared with "Germany, that has fully admitted
the sins of its past: next week, for instance, it will open a new
Holocaust memorial in Berlin". 

Should the Russians repent for the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement between
the USSR and Germany? Hardly. The only regret is that it did not hold
for long. Brutal Hitler and cunning Churchill were equally hostile to
Russia. Churchill’s Fulton speech declaring the Cold War on Soviet
Russia came before the last Russian casualty of the war was laid to
rest. And this hostility is still strong: The Tbilisi speech of Bush is
but an update of Fulton. (I have a personal reason to be an ardent
supporter of Molotov-Ribbentrop -- this treaty sent the Red Army into
Galicia and saved my father-to-be from the Einsatzgruppen.) 

Should the Russians repent for Katyn? The Katyn story is promoted to set
the Poles against Russians and to restore le cordon sanitaire around
Russia. Our enemies do not care a fig for the slain Poles. Otherwise,
they would speak about tens of thousands of Poles slaughtered by Bandera
gangs, the ultra-Nationalist West Ukrainians. But they keep mum, for the
Bandera followers are their allies in the fight against Russians.
Indeed, after 1945 these allies of Hitler were supported, armed and
trained by the CIA, and survived up to our days when they were the
leading force of the Orange Putsch in December 2004. (The city of Lvov
named the main street after this mass murderer of Poles, Russians and
Jews.) 

Should the Russians repent for "the atrocities committed as the Red Army
marched on Berlin"? The fate of German civilians does not concern the
British hypocrites. London cherishes the memory of Air Marshal "Bomber"
Harris, and even raised a bronze statue to honour his memory ten years
ago, although this war criminal killed more people than Genghis Khan. In
the 1920s, Harris bombed and strafed Iraqis, and later planned and
executed the allied bombings of German cities, including the fiery
hecatomb of Dresden, turning a hundred thousand German refugees to
ashes. While this mass murderer is honoured in England, the Russians
have no reason to skip a heartbeat over their uphill struggle on the way
to Berlin. They are not guilty of Dresden, Hiroshima and Auschwitz, nor
did they pour Agent Orange on innocent civilians. 

Skip Apologies 

What the Russians do not need is your apologies. I tell you, curators of
holocaust museums and editors of the Economist, Mr Conquest and Mr
Buchanan, shove your catalogues of suffering and calls for pity and
repentance you-know-where. It befits beggars to brag about sores and
show off their deformities, not warriors and philosophers. Enough of
this flirting with death and suffering. Let the dead bury their own. The
worst legacy of Jews in this Jewish century is their obsession with
death, grief, mourning, and suffering: their two most holy sites in
Israel are the Wailing Wall and the Holocaust Museum, the most important
day of a year is the fast of repentance; it is backed up by the fallen
soldiers’ remembrance day, the holocaust day, the temple destruction
remembrance day and more. The favourite Jewish genre is kina,
lamentation. This disease of the mind spreads around the world in a
paroxysm of self-pity, guilt and angst. 

If you intend to follow the Jewish discourse of grief, follow it
consistently. Jews are not so silly as to recognise their guilt and
apologise. Nobody yet has got an apology from a Jew. A Jew would reply
with: "Did ALL Jews do it?". This marvellous reply can be equally well
used by all of us, by Russians regarding Katyn, by Germans regarding
Auschwitz, by English regarding Dresden, by the Yanks regarding Mai Lai
and Abu Ghraib. 

And do not go around demanding apologies or begging forgiveness. This is
sick. The late Pope opened the gates of Hell when he travelled around
the world and asked forgiveness for deeds he did not do, from the sack
of Constantinople to starvation in Dachau. Now we are asked daily to
apologise for something we did not do. We should leave it for the Sunday
of the Great Lent, like good Christians. 

Our Polish philosopher-friend Marek G. was right: "If one wants to have
a healthy society, he has to extinguish, not inflame, ancient ethnic and
other sores within it. In order to keep the people of Athens united, the
democratic government of this polis, after a bloody civil war, declared
"amnesia": it was forbidden, under the penalty of death, to recall
publicly who had killed whom in the preceding decades. Today’s
Judeo-American paradigm has decided otherwise: all wounds have to be
constantly kept bleeding". 

Enough whining! I can hardly read anymore the reports from Palestine
written by a good man (and a good reporter) Gideon Levy, for his story
is just a story of suffering. Yes, there is suffering, but there is also
courage, bravery, heroic mighty deeds and victory at the end, as I tried
to describe in the story of Farris Ode (google it!). Old Russian
chronicles tell us that the Mongol conquerors loved to listen to the sad
songs of the vanquished. Let us sing the songs our conquerors will hate.

This differing view of victory is not a lapse into some pagan belief, as
Nietzsche thought. It is a precious gift of the Eastern Orthodox
Christianity whose main image is one of Christ Triumphant. You won’t
find a suffering Christ on an Eastern icon. We remember His suffering on
Good Friday, but otherwise we live under the shining sun of His
Resurrection. Only after its fateful schism from the East, with Prima
Lumi, did Western art begin to present Christ tormented. Even our True
images differ: the 

Western True Image (of Veronica) shows Christ in a crown of thorns
on the Via Dolorosa, the Eastern True Image (of Edessa King Abgar) 
shows Him as the Ruler of the World. This masculine victorious
Christianity of the East found expression in the Eastern vision of the
great victory. 

These two paradigms – of the victorious Perseus and of the Devoured
Lizard - meet in Berlin represented by two monuments. One is the Soviet
Russian statue in Treptov Park, that of a powerful, somewhat Nordic
soldier; his proud shoulders proclaim his victory, his formidable foot
tramples the broken swastika, a mighty sword in one hand is lowered, a
little German girl sits on his other arm clinging to his neck. They
could be taken for a father and his daughter, an inverted Madonna with
Child. This is an Orthodox Christian symbol made familiar by the icon of
Christ holding his small Mother. The soldier apparently saved the little
girl in battle – like Christ saves His Mother and like Perseus saved
Andromeda. 

Soviet Russians indeed felt they had saved Germany and Europe from an
evil spirit, and never induced guilt feelings in the East Germans. That
is why East Germans are more masculine and less broken than their West
German brethren. 

The statue was cast by Eugene Vutechich, a great Soviet Russian
counterpart of the best contemporary German sculptor, Arno Breker. In
German eyes, this soldier does not look ethnically or aesthetically
foreign. It could have been made by Breker who created many fine and
noble warriors, though with a touch of Hellenic homoeroticism. Vuchetich
and Breker incarnated the aesthetic and moral ideals, even the spirit of
the Soviet and the National-Socialist societies. Despite so many
differences they were united in their Nordic and Hellenic masculinity,
the forcefulness of the Iliad heroes so admired by Simone Weil. 

A Russian art historian noted that the "brutal and heroic energy of
Vuchetich’s statues is near in spirit to the German plastics of the
Third Reich". Such a statue does not offend Germans – it is not a shame
to be defeated by a better warrior. The Russians and the Germans
courageously fought a hard war that cost millions of civilians and
soldiers’ their lives. Their efforts and their losses dwarfed those of
other participants of the European war. Their battle was a battle of
Titans, of Nordic Asar, of two strong heroes, and the best won, all
praise to the hero. (I despise those who describe their common
masculinity as ‘totalitarianism’.) 

But the best doesn't win in the long run, said Ecclesiastes. The
masculine heroic ideologies faded away, while we are living today under
an ideology that found its aesthetic and moral expression in another
piece of memorial art in Berlin, creating a cemetery-like sprawling
field of stone slabs near the Brandenburg Gate, namely, the Holocaust
Memorial. This aesthetically ugly, conceptually diminishing, intrusive
and insulting installation was made by their new occupying power. 

Our adversaries claim that the holocaust is a question of fact; and some
Revisionists argue the facts: whether gas chambers existed or not. But
for the Left, this is not a question of fact but of dominant narrative.
Even if all the facts they claim were true, we should refuse the
narrative and deny its importance. An important Dutch far left thinker,
Paul Treanor, wrote in an essay called Why Forget the holocaust: 

"The Holocaust was the primary historical reference used to justify
military intervention, by the US and its allies. Indirectly, it is also
used to legitimise social injustice in liberal-democratic nations, and
to imply a liberal-democratic entitlement to a monopoly of power. It is
used to legitimise global inequality, as if it entitled opponents of the
Holocaust to prosperity, while others starve. Remembering the Holocaust
is not a moral imperative: the memory serves no good purpose, only evil
purposes. The memory of the Holocaust has become an instrument of the
right. The Holocaust should be publicly forgotten, in the same sense as
it is now publicly remembered." 

Europe still can choose between the two narratives of the WWII, one of
masculine salvation expressed by the Russian soldier with the saved
German girl, and the other of emasculation, piling slabs of guilt on
your soul. After all, this is the choice of Andromeda, whether to
remember her saviour Perseus or to bewail the Lizards. 

Epilogue 

But the Lizard story did not end here. In his report from future, called
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy) tells what happened later. 

A spacecraft, a flying saucer landed on earth, and out of it marched
down a silver robot, a hundred feet tall, and said "I come in peace",
adding after a long moment of grinding, "take me to your Lizards". 

An experienced extra-terrestrial, Ford, explained this strange request:
"The robot comes from a very ancient democracy, you see". 

"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" 

"No," said Ford, "Nothing so simple. On its world, the people are
people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the
lizards rule the people." 

"I thought you said it was a democracy." 

"I did, "said Ford. "It is." 

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" 

"Oh yes, "said Ford, "Of course!" 

"Why?" 

"Because if they did not vote for a lizard," - said Ford, "the wrong
lizard might get in. Some people say that the lizards are the best thing
that ever happened to them. They're completely wrong of course, but
someone's got to say it." 

Apparently, the Lizards of Jaffa have moved elsewhere and found
themselves a fresh supply of gullible humans. 


------------------------------------------------------
Dear Israel,

You write:

"Should the Russians repent for the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement between the
USSR and Germany? Hardly. The only regret is that it did not hold for long.
Brutal Hitler and cunning Churchill were equally hostile to Russia.
Churchill's Fulton speech declaring the Cold War on Soviet Russia came before
the last Russian casualty of the war was laid to rest. And this hostility is
still strong: The Tbilisi speech of Bush is but an update of Fulton. (I have a
personal reason to be an ardent supporter of Molotov-Ribbentrop -- this treaty
sent the Red Army into Galicia and saved my father-to-be from the
Einsatzgruppen.)"

I answer:

"not before the British and French repent for their multiple treaties with the
Nazis and Italian fascists:

"The New Liberals are fondest of citing the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of
August 23, 1939 as authority for the doctrine formerly subscribed to only by
Mr. William Randolph Hearst and his peers. But search through their holy
writings as you may, you will find no mention of the French-Italian agreement
of January 7, 1935; the Anglo-Nazi Naval treaty of June 18, 1935; the British
Italian accord of April 16, 1938; the Munich Pact of September 29, 1938; the
Anglo-Nazi non-aggression pact of September 30, 1938; nor the French-Nazi
non-aggression pact of December 6, 1938 - all of which preceded and
considerably affected the one pact they cherish and recall."

Dalton Trumbo, THE TIME OF THE TOAD, A Study of Inquisition in America, The
Journeyman Press, London & West Nyack, (pp 37-38)

More later.

Best
George
------------------------------------------------------

From Mihaly Dohan, Hungary

Dear Israel

By chance I was away from my computer for some days, so I read your
Perseus story and the replies only today (20/06). I think this topic is
terribly hard to speak of and one has to pick his words very cautiously.
That’s why I like your Perseus parable, as a parable always simplifies
the reality and focuses only to some fundamental aspects stressed by the
author for a certain purpose. Eg. in the parable of Jesus on the
“merciful Samaritan” it does not matter whether the victim was
completely innocent, or he provoked the “robbers” by some sort of insult
previously. The lesson is clear without knowing that. Tha can be an
answer to many right objections of Mihkel Tammepuu. 

Nobody can deny the heroism of the soviet soldiers. But the same time
they made a terrible horde, fanaticized by authors, like Ilia Ehrenburg
and probably many others. Believe me: as a small child I was on the
other side. And my family was in a very exceptional position as my
parents were born on that part of Hungary which became attached to the
Soviet Union. That area had a mixed population, so they spoke more
Slavonic languages (Ruthenian, Slovak, Check). This fact meant some
protection. (Moreover my father, as a notary, spoke Jiddish, too, as
many Jews were living there, who had come there from Galicia.) The basic
requirement of a balanced approach is to put aside all the feelings and
studying the facts and sources without any emotion. It is not a small
task and perhaps the next generation is the first, who may be able to
start the work, if the hurts are not maintained for generations, and
mysticized and magnified by – for example - Holocaust remembrance days,
or arrangements of similar purpose. 

Years ago a dozen of Soviet engineers came to my company for two weeks
training. As there was a weekend during the course I took them for an
excursion. It was early summer, wonderful weather, so I arranged them a
tour around Lake Balaton. That area has many tourist targets, one of
which is the famous wine. The head of the delegation had been in Hungary
earlier and asked me to find a private cellar, because his Nordic
companions had never seen a vineyard and vine cellar. I turned away from
the main road on a dirt one and found a small, round, dished valley,
surrounded by small hills with wood on the very top and vineyards on the
hillsides and on the bottom of the valley spotted with small, white
press-houses. It was wonderful and utmost idyllic. In one of the
press-houses I found the proprietor, a white haired old farmer, who had
quite good vine, so the mission was successfully completed. When the
time of leaving arrived I wanted to pay, but he refused to accept any
money. When I asked him about the reason, he answered: “Look, I was a
soldier in WW2. I was fighting and shooting them many times. I am
pleased that I could give them some vine at last.” – He did not tell
that he himself was being shot, so the case was quitted. No! He want
them enjoy his wine free. This guy was not a highly educated man. In his
days the obligatory schooling was only five years. They finished
learning at ten and started to work hard on the fields. All the same
this men was wiser, then the majority of the world leaders. He did not
demonize the “enemy”. He did not follow Eli Wiesel’s inhuman advice to
preserve a corner in the soul for an everlasting “strong and healthy”
hatred, who - by this claim - presented his moral level as like that of
a human protozoa. He esteemed the “enemy”, he was sorry he had to fight
agqinst them and wanted to show an act of private reconciliation that
way, although a lot of his comrades were killed by the Soviet weapons. 

Concerning Katyn: When the Germans discovered the mass graves, they
assembled an international expert committee to examine the case. A
professor of the Medical University of Budapest participated in the job.
The results of the examination were published, so the judges of the
Nuremberg trial new exactly, what happened there. But they were not
interested in the truth. They had to preserve the appearance, which was
told at first by Wilson at the end of WWI: “We won over the Evil.” So
their aim was not to find the truth, but demonize Germany and the German
people and save their own hypocrisy from any damage. For this purpose
they had to polish their ally, too. And they did it against all evidnece
available. At the end of the war the professor had to escape, as he he
was accused by the defamation of the great Soviet nation. He was
fortunate that he was not deported back, like the Soviet
“collaborators”, captured by the Allied, as he could not have escaped
the execution in Hungary. 

A last remark about the statue problem: Mihkel Tammepuu wrote: “There's
some point in your argument, but please go and ask Germans how they like
the monument in Treptow park, do not guess. Yep, pretty sure the H
memorial is more aesthetically foreign than the Soviet soldier, but
could you imagine a monument of German soldier in Stalingrad (after all
Germans fought in Stalingrad at least as heroically as Russians in
Berlin)?” - And he is completely right. (By the way, his story about the
statue of the Esthonian soldiers is shocking. That fantastic and
sophisticated sensitivity of theirs! That is why I greatly appreciate
the job of the researchers nicknamed “holocaust denials”. The “gassing”
story is the reference point of this “sensitivity”. If there was no
gassing, they shall be what they really were together with many others:
people on forced labour under harsh war circumstances.) 

You know perhaps that the southern and central part of Hungary was under
Turkish rule for 150 years. The Habsburgs were successful in getting the
western and northern part of the country, and only the eastern part (now
Rumania) remained independent. Even our capital, Budapest was ruled by
Turks for that long. In Istanbul you spoke with reverence of the peace
the Turkish Empire provided for in the Middle East. We did not
experience something similar, as there was a long, permanent frontline
across our country. When the castle of Buda was liberated, the last
pasha of Buda, a certain Abdul Rahman, a 70 year old Albanian man,
personally fought with his sword against the assaulting Hungarian
soldiers and died in action. If you ever come to Budapest you can find
an obelisk where Abdul Rahman died, with an epigraph in Turkish and
Hungarian telling the event with the final remark: “He was a brave
enemy”. So, our values are different to the American ones, as also in
the case of the old farmer I mentioned. 

You referred to Suleiman, the Magnificent in a speech in Istanbul. I do
not believe that you know that he died in Hungary while attacking the
castle of Szigetvár, which was defended by a small group of Croatian and
Hungarian solders headed by Miklós Zrinyi, who himself came from a mixed
Croatian-Hungarian family. Not a single person of the defenders did
survive the siege. The Turkish wars were the greatest tragedy of our
history. All the same Suleiman has a statue erected by Turkey near the
place of his death. The Hungarian government did not refuse the request
of Turkey to erect the monument, as all hostilities, no matter how
painful or tragic they were, have to be ended at a time. The only sad
thing is in the story that mankind even now regard the conquerors as
great. We ought to find better criterions for greatness. (That is why I
was happy when the French historian, Francois Furet called Napoleon “the
fraud of liberty”.) 

In this respect I can tell you another educative story told me by a
Polish friend. Also the Poles fought against the Turks, although their
circumstances were more fortunate than ours. (Their frontline was in
Ukraine.) All the same, it was not a game. I was told that the Turkish
sultans had a big reception room in their Istanbul palace for the
foreign ambassadors, where each country had its assigned place. When
Poland was cut into three parts by its three neighbours and politically
ceased to exist, the Turks preserved the place for the Polish
ambassador. The old enemy was the only country of the world, which did
not stop regarding Poland as an existing country. They did not care
about the sensitivity of the Russians, the Prussians and the Habsburgs.
May be they were secretly laughing at the inconvenience of the
ambassadors concerned. Nice, wasn’t it? 

Excuse: just another “last remark”. I completely understand the
objections of Mihkel Tammepuu and his speaking of your “blind spot”. I
myself hated the political system I had to live in. But I understand
that the “lizard demagogism” always needs some “evil”. While they speak
of the “crimes of the (actual) evil” they can do much more evil under
the pretence of “fighting against evil”. They speak enough of the wrong
deeds of the Nazis and Commies, so it can be a good policy for us to
speak of their merits (without whitewashing their sins) and contrast
them to the sins of the self-qualified “Good Side”, ie. the “chosen
people” and the “chosen nation”. In this respect I should like to draw
your attention to the words of Saral Sarkar, the German Green of Indian
origin, who deeply investigated the possibilities of an
enwironment-friendly eco-society: “The (present) situation … has given
rise to a great confusion and lack of perspective. Socialism (as it
existed) has failed, radical environmentalism has failed to achieve
anything worth mentioning; but capitalism has also failed and is failing
increasingly to solve any of the problems of the world. One need think
only of the vehemence with which the ruling elites of even the richest
capitalist countries are today trying to dismantle the welfare state.
They are not even justifying this with the argument that it has to be
done in order to protect the environment.” … “I reject eco-capitalism,
not only because it cannot function, but also and mainly because of the
values the capitalism represents: exploitation, brutal competition,
worship of mammon, profit and greed as motive. And I am mainly for
socialism because of the values it represents: equality, co-operation,
solidarity. Freedom and democracy are compatible with these values,
although they did not exist in the socialist regimes we have experienced
up to now, but they are not compatible with the values of capitalism,
especially not with inequality in wealth and power.” (Saral Sarkar:
Eco-socialism or Eco-capitalism, Zed Books, London and New York, 1999)
And that is the essence. Is it possible that the class war, the
dictatorship of proletariat and militant atheism were the Judaist
elements of the Marxist theory? 

Best regards

Mihály from Hungary

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