Wednesday, June 16, 2004
If this is the future of Europe... please let us get off!
D-Day: Veterans, teenagers and history
Dominique Moïsi IHT
Friday, June 11, 2004
Lessons of D-Day
SAINT-LO, France The D-Day ceremonies on June 6 opened in the American military cemetery over Omaha Beach and ended at the Peace Memorial in Caen. The first event was Franco-American and was dominated by the presence of World War II veterans. The second event was Franco-German, and, alongside veterans of both nations, was marked by the attendance of a large number of young people.
At Omaha Beach, the past was celebrated with a solemn emotion which did not fully hide the differences between France and America. President Jacques Chirac emphasized the UN Charter, while President George W. Bush's main reference was the Bible.
In Caen, the past was closed, and the future was celebrated - a European future, full of emotions and promises, between two former enemies who had become friends and even "brothers," to quote Chirac.
To a large extent the nuance of emotions between the two moments was legitimate. France and Germany were celebrating their reconciliation 60 years after D-Day, demonstrating to the rest of the world the success of the European model. Reconciliation is not necessary in Franco-American relations; after all, we have only exchanged words, not bullets.
Yet the linkage between the two ceremonies was not made, as it might have been. Franco-German reconciliation would not have been possible without American involvement in European affairs after World War II. It was the climate of prosperity and security provided by the United States in the cold war that allowed Old Europe to blossom and to become New Europe - a Europe reconciled with itself.
We in Europe should be full of praise for our liberators and creators, and Americans, in turn, should be full of satisfaction with what their creation has become. They achieved in Europe what they want to create in the "Greater Middle East" - a continent at peace with itself and the world. A formidable task indeed, and one that cannot be achieved by the United States alone.
In Normandy, I had the privilege of spending a lot of time with veterans of the 29th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army National Guard, who landed in the first two waves at Omaha beach and then proceed to liberate Saint-Lô, a city destroyed by intense American air bombings on the night of June 6.
They all told me of the warm reception they had received in the city where liberation and freedom came intertwined with so much destruction and suffering. They said they were hugged and kissed by people who stopped them in the streets to thank them for their heroism 60 years ago.
Yet I am afraid the torch of memory may stop with these old veterans if new generations are not taught history.
On the eve of D-Day ceremonies, an association dedicated to the memory of Saint-Lô as it was before the destruction of the city organized a debate in the local theater involving two veterans, survivors of the bombing of the city and high school students aged 15 to 17.
The title of the debate, suggested by questions from the students, was "The Battle of Normandy, Invasion or Liberation?" It was the first troubling sign of the deterioration of the knowledge and understanding of the past.
The questions from the students were even worse. It was clear they were reading D-Day through the filter of Iraq. Their conversation with the survivors of the bombing of the city was most revealing. How could you welcome Americans as liberators, asked the young boys and girls, after they had reduced your city to ashes? Because "it was a sacrifice for France," replied their elders, shocked by the question.
For a generation that does not understand what the absence of freedom and peace may mean, such questions may come naturally. But one takes the present for granted all the more easily if one ignores the past.
What can the future of trans-Atlantic relations be if the past is not taught properly in France, and European history is completely ignored in the United States? The risk is that the day will come in Europe when only very old Americans are greeted warmly - the way until recently only very young Germans were greeted outside of Germany. What was celebrated in Normandy earlier this week was very much a family affair - a reconciliation between brothers, in the case of France and Germany, and the evocation of a father-son relationship in the case of France and the United States. The American was clearly in the role of the father, and the son was full of thanks for the past - and yet not hiding his fear of what the father was turning into, as if he was recognizing in the present imperial temptation of the United States the ghost of Europe's own pre-war past.
The heavy security measures that surrounded the commemorations of D-Day reminded us all that our "family affair" was being celebrated in an environment dominated by the threat of the "absolute other." We were paying tribute to those who sacrificed their life to the cause of freedom while we were protecting ourselves from those who see ultimate value in death, and not in life.
Our quarrels will inevitably rebound after a week in which the past was called upon to soften the tensions of the present. But let's not be confused about the nature of the enemy, and let's not be wrong, as well, in the choice of ways to fight him.
Dominique Moïsi is a senior adviser at IFRI, the French Institute of International Relations.
D-Day: Veterans, teenagers and history
Dominique Moïsi IHT
Friday, June 11, 2004
Lessons of D-Day
SAINT-LO, France The D-Day ceremonies on June 6 opened in the American military cemetery over Omaha Beach and ended at the Peace Memorial in Caen. The first event was Franco-American and was dominated by the presence of World War II veterans. The second event was Franco-German, and, alongside veterans of both nations, was marked by the attendance of a large number of young people.
At Omaha Beach, the past was celebrated with a solemn emotion which did not fully hide the differences between France and America. President Jacques Chirac emphasized the UN Charter, while President George W. Bush's main reference was the Bible.
In Caen, the past was closed, and the future was celebrated - a European future, full of emotions and promises, between two former enemies who had become friends and even "brothers," to quote Chirac.
To a large extent the nuance of emotions between the two moments was legitimate. France and Germany were celebrating their reconciliation 60 years after D-Day, demonstrating to the rest of the world the success of the European model. Reconciliation is not necessary in Franco-American relations; after all, we have only exchanged words, not bullets.
Yet the linkage between the two ceremonies was not made, as it might have been. Franco-German reconciliation would not have been possible without American involvement in European affairs after World War II. It was the climate of prosperity and security provided by the United States in the cold war that allowed Old Europe to blossom and to become New Europe - a Europe reconciled with itself.
We in Europe should be full of praise for our liberators and creators, and Americans, in turn, should be full of satisfaction with what their creation has become. They achieved in Europe what they want to create in the "Greater Middle East" - a continent at peace with itself and the world. A formidable task indeed, and one that cannot be achieved by the United States alone.
In Normandy, I had the privilege of spending a lot of time with veterans of the 29th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army National Guard, who landed in the first two waves at Omaha beach and then proceed to liberate Saint-Lô, a city destroyed by intense American air bombings on the night of June 6.
They all told me of the warm reception they had received in the city where liberation and freedom came intertwined with so much destruction and suffering. They said they were hugged and kissed by people who stopped them in the streets to thank them for their heroism 60 years ago.
Yet I am afraid the torch of memory may stop with these old veterans if new generations are not taught history.
On the eve of D-Day ceremonies, an association dedicated to the memory of Saint-Lô as it was before the destruction of the city organized a debate in the local theater involving two veterans, survivors of the bombing of the city and high school students aged 15 to 17.
The title of the debate, suggested by questions from the students, was "The Battle of Normandy, Invasion or Liberation?" It was the first troubling sign of the deterioration of the knowledge and understanding of the past.
The questions from the students were even worse. It was clear they were reading D-Day through the filter of Iraq. Their conversation with the survivors of the bombing of the city was most revealing. How could you welcome Americans as liberators, asked the young boys and girls, after they had reduced your city to ashes? Because "it was a sacrifice for France," replied their elders, shocked by the question.
For a generation that does not understand what the absence of freedom and peace may mean, such questions may come naturally. But one takes the present for granted all the more easily if one ignores the past.
What can the future of trans-Atlantic relations be if the past is not taught properly in France, and European history is completely ignored in the United States? The risk is that the day will come in Europe when only very old Americans are greeted warmly - the way until recently only very young Germans were greeted outside of Germany. What was celebrated in Normandy earlier this week was very much a family affair - a reconciliation between brothers, in the case of France and Germany, and the evocation of a father-son relationship in the case of France and the United States. The American was clearly in the role of the father, and the son was full of thanks for the past - and yet not hiding his fear of what the father was turning into, as if he was recognizing in the present imperial temptation of the United States the ghost of Europe's own pre-war past.
The heavy security measures that surrounded the commemorations of D-Day reminded us all that our "family affair" was being celebrated in an environment dominated by the threat of the "absolute other." We were paying tribute to those who sacrificed their life to the cause of freedom while we were protecting ourselves from those who see ultimate value in death, and not in life.
Our quarrels will inevitably rebound after a week in which the past was called upon to soften the tensions of the present. But let's not be confused about the nature of the enemy, and let's not be wrong, as well, in the choice of ways to fight him.
Dominique Moïsi is a senior adviser at IFRI, the French Institute of International Relations.
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