Der Spiegel, a German magazine, has published a truly fascinating interview with Iranian president Ahmadinejad. Since I have no idea whether he speaks German, I’m assuming that his portion of the published interview (here) underwent two translations: Farsi to German, and German to English.
Even allowing for translation, though, there is some truly strange thinking going on, much of it around the Holocaust and Israel:
Ahmadinejad: Look here, my views are quite clear. We are saying that if the Holocaust occurred, then Europe must draw the consequences and that it is not Palestine that should pay the price for it. If it did not occur, then the Jews have to go back to where they came from. I believe that the German people today are also prisoners of the Holocaust. Sixty million people died in the Second World War. World War II was a gigantic crime. We condemn it all. We are against bloodshed, regardless of whether a crime was committed against a Muslim or against a Christian or a Jew. But the question is: Why among these 60 million victims are only the Jews the center of attention?
SPIEGEL: That’s just not the case. All peoples mourn the victims claimed by the Second World War, Germans and Russians and Poles and others as well. Yet, we as Germans cannot absolve ourselves of a special guilt, namely for the systematic murder of the Jews. But perhaps we should now move on to the next subject.
Ahmadinejad: No, I have a question for you. What kind of a role did today’s youth play in World War II?
SPIEGEL: None.
Ahmadinejad: Why should they have feelings of guilt toward Zionists? Why should the costs of the Zionists be paid out of their pockets? If people committed crimes in the past, then they would have to have been tried 60 years ago. End of story! Why must the German people be humiliated today because a group of people committed crimes in the name of the Germans during the course of history?
The German people are humiliated today? I’d ask if he’s being serious, but I think I know the answer… (Does somebody have some input for me there?)
You really must read the entire interview – both pages. I came away with enormous respect for Der Spiegel’s interviewers, who somehow managed to keep the discussion going in the face of Ahmadinejad’s um….. interesting thoughts. His apparent view of the world (and in particular, Europe) is beyond strange, and the theme travels throughout the interview.
Polimom’s not sure, actually, what to make of this, overall, other than he’s quite unhinged in a few places. It’s interesting, but his attempts at emotional manipulation were exceedingly transparent; I found myself continually shaking my head in disbelief.
Ahmadinejad is, however, adept at the politician’s time-honored art of the non-answer, and he gave a wonderful demonstration of it on the subject of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
That’s unfortunate, because as unlikely as it was that he’d give a straight answer to a magazine, we already knew what he thinks about Israel.
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Captain Ed at Captain’s Quarters has more thoughts.
One thing I love most about Ahmadinejad and Iran is the level of rationalization. In that interview he argues that because the Holocost did not occur during the lifetimes of the majority of German Citizens, that the guilt should not be theirs.
Yet… If we follow that pretty stream of logic… what right does Iran have to fight the state of Isreal, which was created over 40 years ago… especially given this fun statistic provided by the Teheran Times: ” At present the Iranian population is about 70 million, 60 percent of which is under 30 years old.”
It’s the typical line of Iranian Logic that Ahmadinejad tends to throw out asking “why should you care?” While he quickly and quietly moves behind the curtain doing whatever he wants.
Even in the interview you quoted, Ahmadinejad argues that the US is part of a ‘ruling power’ which is unjust. As such, he does not believe that anything said by the western nations is binding, he does not need to hold himself accountable to any agreements made with the west because they are ruling un-righteously (or so the logic goes). I blogged on this quite a bit when i used to read the Tehran Times regularly (out of gross fascination).
That’s a wonderful statistic / contribution, Bloogist, thanks.
And while we’re on the subject of the Germans, and residual guilt: Just lately, I’ve been thinking rather a lot about how successful the emotional manipulation of much of the US population has been…. and finding a bit of empathy for pre-WWII German citizens.
(And before anybody starts foaming at the mouth and throwing things at me — the above paragraph is not meant as anything more than an indictment of our current easily-provoked hysteria)