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A German poll came out in February showing that a relatively large portion of German youth thought the World War II bombing of Dresden by the Allies was wrong. 27% of Germans under 30 called it a "bombing holocaust." Yet among those over age 60, only 15% said so.
The use of the term "holocaust" draws a deliberate and snide comparison to the Holocaust of Jews, and thus we doubt that many of those 27% are principled pacifists. The international proletariat opposes the German neo-Nazis who commemorated the Dresden bombing February 13 2005. We are not surprised that the hard-fought results of the "collective responsibility" movement in 1945 and 1946 are eroding in Germany as older people die and younger people live in a still decadent imperialist system, which could yet give rise to another internal fascism.
Dresden city officials taking the correct approach commemorated the bombing while emphasizing: "the contributions of citizens and institutions in Dresden to war- mongering, National Socialist oppression and the crimes committed -- for example on the Jewish inhabitants of the city."
On February 13, 1945, hundreds of British bombers killed tens of thousands of Dresden residents in a raid. Even if the wildest propaganda stories are true though, the total civilian deaths were small compared with what happened at the hands of Nazi Germans.
The February 2005 commemorations in Dresden demonstrate again why the MIM line is correct. Without the theme of "collective responsibility," there would be no way to oppose the neo-Nazis wanting to gear up for more wars and World War II revenge. It was a huge advance to get the German majority to accept responsibility for countless oppressive actions in the Nazi period. That lesson needs to be learned and extended.
The only possible alternative would be a militant pacifist approach, but people able to take such an approach are less than 1%, especially in the number one rampaging country today, the united $tates. Before trying to criticize Ward Churchill from the peace angle, would-be critics should check whether they are consistent pacifists themselves. Then even if they are rare members of that infinitesimal minority of consistent pacifists, that MIM calls pacifist-anarchists, would-be critics should look at survey data or interview a few hundred people to realize how unlikely it is that such a view will prevail at this time, within the imperialist system. The "collective responsibility" movement in Germany showed that it is possible for people to own up to their responsibilities for making predatory wars, much more than we see in the united $tates today.
The problem is that for those raised in a society of violence such as the highest stage of capitalism known as imperialism, it is not yet possible to take a political stand consistent with the immediate cessation of all violence. The political tools for that are lacking to the public thanks to the imperialist system's culture and upbringing of children. A much more plausible advance and serious contribution to peace is only possible through "collective responsibility."
Too often, the petty-bourgeoisie picks and chooses from pacifism instead of taking up consistent pacifism and this is actually one of the major obstacles in our work. By picking and choosing, these petty-bourgeois activists who have not studied the overall public opinion situation (something Maoists call having "rational knowledge") come up with strange and highly individual conglomerations of reasons to criticize Ward Churchill, while his position is actually simple and consistent. Individualists with their own spiritual and psychological reasons for everything and their own individual experiences as the ultimate touchstone, hold back the anti-militarist movement in Amerika. They don't realize that we have to be able to relate to hundreds of millions of people consistently to be able to build something that is going to work, build unity and move forward.
The united $tates illustrates the problem by the number of people who say the World Trade Center bombing victims were innocent, but the Dresden victims were not. That would be the most common single opinion in Amerika today. It's at the root of our global political difficulties.
We at MIM are tired of these hypocrites risking our lives with backward nationalist ideologies that are never going to work. If northern Koreans can get nukes, anyone can and it's about time the Ann Coulters, David Horowitzes and other unreconstructed McCarthyists of the white trash figured it out. We did not hear them calling Dresden city officials at the 2005 commemoration speaking of collective responsibility (essentially admitting Germany was composed of "little Eichmanns") "quasi-traitorous" or "anti-German" and "pro-terrorist," though several times more German civilians died in Dresden than American civilians did in the World Trade Center.
Too often petty-bourgeois critics focus on their own inner spiritual questions when they take to political activism, and this results in criticism of Ward Churchill who is actually advancing a more consistent and advanced line of ethics than 99% of the public. The bottom line is that people who think the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima was right cannot turn around and complain when anti-Amerikan fighters also bomb civilians. In fact, even those of us who are consistent pacifists or Maoists cannot complain, because as of yet we have not been effective, so we must join in collective responsibility and not think that our own inner spiritual purity is good enough.
The people complaining about the World Trade Center obviously do not know or don't care about the CIA office destroyed there and the ex-French secret service in charge of pursuing Bin Laden killed in the World Trade Center or they would have realized they cannot complain about what the U.$. military commanders called "collateral damage" in killing civilians in Iraq. Christians upholding the golden rule cannot believe only Amerikan civilians are innocent. Only uber-patriotic scum believe that and they're going to get us all killed. Maybe if Amerika were not so wrapped up in military bases, there could actually be a place where people could live and not become "collateral damage" in the event of a conflict.
If the bombing of Dresden were right, then so was the bombing of the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, given the public opinion situation in Germany then and Amerika now, reality is on Ward Churchill's side, not the anarchist-pacifists'. Had the anarchist-pacifists had any clue how to get something done, Ward Churchill would not have needed to say what he did. If the bombing of Iraqi citizens was right and the killing of 500,000 Iraqi children through sanctions was right, then like the participants of World War II, we should not be shocked by retaliation.
Most people in the world are concerned about the loss of civilian lives everywhere. It's only the war-mongers--the Coulters, Horowitzes, Bu$hes--who are saying that American civilian lives are innocent but no one else's civilians are. The imperialist war-mongers must be removed from power, before the world's northern Koreas teach us all a lesson.
Note:
http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/02/10/do1001.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/02/10/ixportal.html
Passer-by: What's that?
Activist: It's a petition for Ward Churchill, a professor at the University
of Colorado. He's in the process of being fired for a speech about 9/11.
Passer-by: What did he say?
Activist: He called Amerikans "little Eichmanns."
Passer-by: Who was Eichmann?
Activist: He was a Nazi.
Passer-by: But those World Trade Center people were totally innocent.
Activist: We believe we are little Eichmanns and have to take collective responsibility.
Passer-by: How can you say that about the World Trade Center victims?
Activist: Did you favor the bombing of Dresden in World War II?
Passer-by: What?
Activist: The German city. The Allies bombed civilians in Nazi Germany.
Passery-by: Why?
Activist: They said it was making industrial contributions to the war.
Passer-by: Yes. [Pointer: This is the single most common white trash view in Amerika,
combining the view that German civilians were worthy of bombing but Amerikan ones were not.]
Activist: So you only think American civilians are innocent?
Passer-by: How can you make that comparison?
Activist: Ward Churchill pointed out that 500,000 Iraqi children died from
U.$. sanctions and that was admitted by Secretary of State Madelaine
Albright. We've been engaged in countless wars since World War II.
We can't be surprised by the World Trade Center.
Passer-by: No, I think the bombing of German civilians was wrong. [Will come
up more often in more advanced places.]
Activist: Ok, I see you are consistent then. Are you a pacifist?