Saturday, May 7, 2011

Germany's Advanced Moral Decrepitude, Or: Germany as Lady Macbeth?

And no, I am not talking about their "Nazi" period - yet.

Yesterday, Deutschland was convinced we were barbarians on par with the Palestinians on their worst days for celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden.  Not satisfied with our collective shrug and "f*ck you" response, they are now turning on their own:

A Hamburg judge has filed a criminal complaint against Chancellor Angela Merkel for "endorsing a crime" after she stated she was "glad" that Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces. Meanwhile a new poll reveals that a majority of Germans do not see the terrorist's death as a reason to celebrate.

In his two-page document, Uthmann, a judge for 21 years, cites section 140 of the German Criminal Code, which forbids the "rewarding and approving" of crimes. In this case, Merkel endorsed a "homicide," Uthmann claimed. The violation is punishable by up to three years' imprisonment or a fine.

"For the daughter of a Christian pastor, the comment is astonishing and at odds with the values of human dignity, charity and the rule of law," Uthmann told the newspaper.


But I suppose were she a daughter of a Nazi, it would be excusable.

The next paragraph, by the way, is subtitled "A Sober German Reaction". Get the hint, barbarian?


While the judge's reaction may seem extreme, his sentiments are apparently shared by 64 percent of the German population. That was the proportion of Germans who said bin Laden's death was "no reason to rejoice" in a poll published by broadcaster ARD on Friday.

Among respondents who said they identified with Germany's three main opposition parties, an even greater proportion were disgusted with the jubilation over the al-Qaida leader's death. Their views mirror recent comments made by opposition politicians on the issue....

I wonder if the Germans, having awoken from the ashes of WWII as the most reviled people on Earth, if not in all of world history, are morally adrift with no compass.  Having lost the war, and thus the narrative on why it was necessary to rape the entirety of Europe and kill six million Jews in the process, they swung towards a sort of shamed passivity, not daring to raise a voice in anger lest the old ghosts arise and the victors come to smash the remnants of the Fatherland once again.  In pretending to oppose all forms of violence, they now refuse to separate right from wrong, victim from aggressor, or good from evil.
 
With no clear North Star of morality, with cries for "justice" and "dignity" masking their own self-loathing, the Germans lash out at everyone around them, including the Jews, hoping against hope that an international condemnation of  Israel can somehow wash the blood off their hands.  As if they were a national version of Lady Macbeth:
 
Doctor: What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
 
Woman: It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her to continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Lady Macbeth. Yet here’s a spot....

Lady Macbeth.  Out, damned spot! out, I say! One; two: why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?.....Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!
 
The spot will never wash out, and the Germans, spinning around wildly without a guiding light, are doomed to fall, unless they can come to terms with their heinous past while still finding a way to move forward with some kind of moral certitude.

Until that moment - should it ever come - the German people are simply acting as architects of their own self-destruction. A long, drawn-out suicide over a national guilt, perhaps, but even I -  missing a whole segment of my family tree due to their insatiable blood lust - hopes that their jump off the bridge can somehow be averted...