(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
“In the fall, I would like to go to Cuba to work there for a long time. This decision is not a sacrifice. I simply have the impression that I can be Cuban to a greater advantage than the students at this university, and that I have more to learn from Cubans, ”writes Hans Magnus Enzensberger, among others. in this letter to the president of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, forfeiting his scholarship and leaving the United States. He also has a number of other reasons for traveling.
To the President at Wesleyan University, Mr. Edwin D. Etherington, Middletown, Connecticut.
Highly honored President.
With this letter I waive my scholarship at Wesleyan University. I am bound by the hospitality you have shown me. Already for that reason, I owe reason to why I go to this step.
Let me start with some basic things. I count the ruling class of the United States, and the government that runs this class's business, to represent a general threat. In different ways and to varying degrees, it threatens us all. It lies in unexplained war with over a billion people. It wages this war by all means, from mass extinction to consciousness manipulation. Its goal is the political, economic and military world domination. Its enemy of death is the revolution.
Many Americans are deeply disturbed by the situation the United States is in. They do not support the war that is being waged on their behalf against the Vietnamese people. They are looking for ways to end the latent civil war in American cities. Still, they hold on to the notion that the crises are merely accidents, which can be traced back to a wrong assessment of the situation or failure of the political leadership. In short: That it is a tragic fate, which has affected an otherwise peace-loving, sensible and benevolent nation.
I cannot agree with such an assessment. The war in Vietnam is no exception. It is only the largest, bloodiest, and clearest manifestation of the example the US ruling class is trying to statue on five continents. The war stems from a political logic that has led to armed US intervention in Guatemala and Indonesia, Laos and Bolivia, Korea and Colombia, the Philippines and Venezuela, the Congo and the Domingo Republic. The list could be made longer. No one can feel safe anymore – not in Europe, nor in the United States itself.
There is nothing surprising and new in these simple truths. This is not the place to coat and differentiate them scientifically. Others have taken on this work. Many of these are learned Americans, such as Baran and Horowitz, Huberman and Sweezy, Zinn and Chomski. From what I have been able to bring to experience, none of these writers enjoy a special reputation with their academic colleagues. Many people think their works are boring, old-fashioned and tirade-like, that they are created by a paranoid imagination, or even worse, that they are just communist propaganda. These defense mechanisms today belong to the intellectual house council of the Western world. Since I have often met them at this university, I allow myself to go a little closer to them.
The first objections are limited to a semantic reflex movement. The old taboo words – the famous four letter words – are in our society released for public and public use. Instead, words like "imperialism" and "exploitation" are cursed. The political sciences therefore operate with paraphrases, reminiscent of the neurotic substitute words from the Victoria period. Many sociologists go so far as to dispute the existence of a ruling class. Just the word is embarrassing to them. It is certain and certain that the word "exploitation" is easier to abolish than the exploitation itself. However, I do not see that the problem is thus solved.
Another defense mechanism uses psychological arguments. I have been told that it is paranoid and sickening to imagine that the world is threatened by a dangerous group of powerful people. It is therefore important to pay attention to the patient, not to what he says. Now it is not an easy matter to defend against amateur psychiatrists. I have to limit myself to a few references. I am not a supporter of a conspiracy theory: it is superfluous. A class community, and in particular a community of a ruling class, manifests itself through public interests, which are often open to the public – not through secret agreements and conspiracies. Furthermore: I do not paint anything outrageous. Financiers, generals and members of the supervisory board are, as everyone knows, not comic heroes a la Frankenstein, but well-behaved, amiable gentlemen, whom one could also meet in thirty-year-old Germany. They are no strangers to classical chamber music or caring tendencies. Their immoral unhealthiness is manifested not through their individual characters, but through their social function.
The third political defense mechanism operates with the simple reproach that communist propaganda is being pursued here. I do not fear this accusation. It is inaccurate, inaccurate and irrational. "Communism" no longer has any precise meaning. The word implies a wide range of conflicting ideas, which even partly exclude each other. In addition, my view of American politics in the world is shared by Greek liberals, and Latin American archbishops, by Norwegian peasants and French industrialists – in short, by a lot of people who can not be said to be supporters, by "communism".
The truth is: Most Americans do not know what they look like. They do not know how their country looks in a non-American perspective. They do not know what kind of gaze rests on them: on tourists in Mexico, on soldiers on missions in Far Eastern cities, on businessmen in Sweden or Italy. The same gaze rests on American troops, envoys and light commercials around the world. It is a horrible sight, for it knows no nuances and no mitigating circumstances. I'll tell you why I know this look. I know it because I'm German: because in the late forties it was also directed at me. If you analyze this gaze, you will find that it expresses distrust and aversion, fear and disgust, contempt and open hatred. It hits your president, who has barely been able to appear in public in any of the world's capitals. But it also meets harmless ladies on a tourist trip between Dehli and Benares. It's an unabashed, manic look. I'm not happy about that.
I do not share your President's sincere belief in collective desire and collective guilt. "Do not forget," he said to a soldier in Korea, "that we are two hundred million. Almost three billion are facing us. They want what we have. But they will not get it – not from us! " Now it is right that we all have a part in the plunder of the third world. Social economists Like Dobb and Bettelheim, Jalée and Robinson, have adequately proven that the poor countries we have kept down actually contribute to our economy. Still, mr. Johnson undoubtedly goes too far when he perceives the American people as a single, gigantic and unified corporation, which stands together for a common exchange. Personally, I find more to admire than mr. Johnson will admit. Europe has little that can be equated with the struggle waged by groups such as the SNNC, "Students for a Democratic Society" and the resistance movement against the Vietnam War. And I must say that I have little left for the self-righteousness that many Europeans today show towards the United States. They seem to count the downfall of their own colonial rule as a moral merit. This is, of course, pure hypocrisy.
On the other hand, there is a personal responsibility that everyone must bear for what their country does in the world. After two lost wars, the Germans have had to get used to this idea. Today's situation in the United States reminds me in more ways than one of the German situation in the XNUMXs. Before refuting this comparison, I would ask you to keep in mind that there were no gas chambers at the time, that well-respected statesmen visited Berlin and shook the Driver's hand, and that most people refused to believe that the Germans were aiming for world domination. . Nevertheless, it was clear that a racial minority was constantly subjected to persecution and retaliation, that the armaments budget grew at an alarming rate, and that the government with increasing force took part in counter-revolutionary war.
At this point, the analogy breaks down correctly. For the gentlemen of today's world have at their disposal not only a potential for destruction that the Nazis could not even dream of. Since then, the methods of repression have also been wonderfully refined. As long as the opposition today confines itself to the written word, it becomes a harmless spectator sport, which the rulers allow, regulates – yes to a certain extent desires. The American universities have become a suitable scene for this ambiguous game. Instead of open censorship and undisguised repression, we are dealing with a precarious and deceitful freedom: And only a dogmatist of the most abominable kind can regret it. On the other hand: Only an idiot can overlook that any freedom has provided the opposition with new alibis, barriers and dilemmas.
It took me three months to realize that the benefits you have given me at this university disarm me – that I compromised my credibility when I received the scholarship, and that the main consequence of being here as a guest was that the sting was taken away from it. I have to say. "To judge an intellectual, it is not enough to try his thoughts. The decisive factor is the connection between what he thinks and what he does ». This advice (which comes from Regis Debray) is useful to me in my current situation. To show you that I mean what I say, there is only one way to go: Hence the parting.
This is a necessary but not sufficient step. It is a matter of studying imperialism at home. Another is to meet it where it shows a less benevolent face. I have just returned from a trip to Cuba. At the airport in Mexico, I saw CIA agents photograph all the passengers in Cuba. Off the Cuban coast, I saw the silhouettes of American warships. I saw the traces of the American invasion in the Bay of Pigs. I saw the consequences of an imperialist economy – the scars it has left in the consciousness and society of a small country. I saw that the Cubans were forced to get every spoonful they ate from Czechoslovakia, and every liter of gasoline they burned from the Soviet Union – because the United States had been trying to starve the Cuban revolution for seven years.
In the autumn, I would like to travel to Cuba to work there for a longer period of time. This decision is not a victim. I simply have the impression that I can be of greater benefit to Cubans than the students at this university, and that I have more to learn from Cubans.
I know this letter is a meager thank you for your hospitality. And it hurts me that I can not provide better retribution for the three quiet months I have spent here. It is clear that my case in isolation is without significance and interest to the public. However, the questions the case raises do not only concern me. Therefore, allow me in this way to publicly justify my decision.
Sincerely,
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
