12. mai 2008

Chavez says Merkel is a political descendant of Hitler Venezuela's thug-in-charge, Hugo Chavez, plays the Nazi card against German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "She is from the German right, the same that supported Hitler, that supported fascism, that's the Chancellor of Germany today," he said. It is not only vicious, it is, like almost everything Chavez says, extremely ignorant. When the National Socialists came to power in Germany in the early 1930s, they were not in any way, shape or form a conservative party. They were a radical, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic party. Hitler and his followers were also extremely anti-communist, or anti-Bolshevik, considering communism to be a part of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. The very name of the party, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) should give more than a little hint that this was a movement that didn't fit into simplistic left-right dichotomies. National is normally right, socialist means left, German indicates right, Worker's party is certainly associated with the left. This enmity between Soviet communism and German national-socialism is a main reason that Nazism is typically located on the political right. You could be just as justified, or as unjustified, placing Nazism on the left and consider its opposition to communism as yet another violent intra-left quarrel. However, in Germany, the Nazis rose to power because they were radical, violently opposed to the Versailles peace treaty (as were all Germans!) and because the economic and political crisis had thoroughly delegitimized the at least nominally democratic Weimar republic. A German conservative would certainly not vote for the national socialists more than he or she would vote for the communists. The most significant conservative party in Germany at the time was the Catholic Centre Party, and it is worth noting that along with the left-leaning Berliners, the conservative strongholds were those who demonstrated the least support for the Nazis in the  elections that brought them to power. However, in the early 1930s, Germans were almost universally disgusted with the established political parties - including the conservatives in the Centre Party and the social-democratic SPD, leading to the rise in popularity of the extremists: National Socialists and Communists. Many Germans, left or right, thought "it can't get worse; let's give these crazies a chance." The rest, as they say, is sad history. Angela Merkel's party, Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands (CDU) was formed after World War II mostly by ex-members of the Centre Party. Among the early leaders of the CDU was Germany's first Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, a former Centre Party politician who had risked his life in opposition to Hitler and had been imprisoned several times by the Nazis. 10:53:43 PM    comment []  trackback []

Barack Obama 'an apostate Muslim' Edward N. Luttwark, writing in the New York Times, points out a potential problem for those who hope that Barack Obama having a Muslim father can help him bridge differences between the west and the Islamic world. Quite the opposite: In Islam, however, there is no such thing as a half-Muslim. Like all monotheistic religions, Islam is an exclusive faith. As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant. Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him. His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive). With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings. It is a source of much worry in the west that even many who are too easily labeled moderate Muslims do not voice any opposition to Islamic death sentences over people like Salman Rushdie or Taslima Nasreem, and in fact appears to support such atrocities. If the US President is declared, or understood, to be an apostate under Islamic law, it could be problematic to give foreign, Muslim security officers some responsibility for his security while visiting a Muslim country. On the other hand, this could perhaps make conservative Americans, among whom many believe that Obama is a Muslim, somewhat more sympathetic to him. PS: Barack Obama discusses Zionism and Israel with Jeffrey Goldberg. If Obama is hiding a secret Jimmy Carter persona, he does it darned well, and has done so for a long time. 10:03:16 PM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2008 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.06.2008; 00:06:03.