It is believed that the processes of transformation of the communist systems started with Gorbachev. It seems to me, and I am almost positive, that they started with your successful, patient, and gradual revisionism, which materially and politically supported the West in its open conflict with communism, and also the East in its slow advance toward prosperity, with an ever greater gap between party bureaucracy and mass of the people. Because of its rapid industrial development, the opening of its borders toward the world, and happier and freer lives of its people after the 1960s, your Yugoslavia became the love of its own people, and in Eastern European countries it was called America. “Yugoslavian syndrome” became the obsession of many countries and peoples in the world because it prevailed under the pressure of big powers. The past outrage in the communist countries at your revisionism turned into a more and more heated urge for opening their borders toward the world and the democratization of their political and economic conditions.
T I T O: At first we were stubborn and self-confident, and later world affairs played into our hands, supporting our endeavor to prosper quickly in peace and freedom. Squeezed between the orthodox-communist East and the capitalist West, we were taking good recipes from both and wove them into our concept of self-governed socialism. People fell in love with us during the revolution, and their love was strengthened as workers were given greater rights. Self-governed socialism was a system that placed people above all other values, labor above profit - which was even the doctrine of some great Americans such as Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. I am fond of most of the philosophy called “communist doctrine”. However, I have never been slave to anything except the desire to help people to live happily. I was not slave to the communist doctrine, but I have always thought that profit keeps the true riches of civilization – humanity and freedom – behind bars. Profit is the deception of people, a black force that destroys morality and dignity. For the sake of profit, Bush’s America wants to enslave the world. For its sake Princess Diana cannot rest in peace. For its sake, super-developed societies destroy the concept of family, one of the strongest human institutions ever, so that teenagers can sooner start working for meager pay, caught in the claws of profiteers. Then I realized that this process is an unstoppable force implanted in human genes, along with egoism, but that it is possible to humanize the ways people make profit, making it available for all. The problem with communist systems lay in their narrow-mindedness, in hatred of any revisionism, as if changes were not the power engine of all societies.
I had prepared a few more questions, but Tito had vanished. He disappeared in the mass of former Titoists, who destroyed his work and brought evil upon those he had loved. I mostly regretted that I had not criticized him more directly for having been devoted to the unity of nations but, at the same time, not having tried as devotedly to eliminate the divisions along nationalist lines in his own country. Also, I regretted not having asked if he really believed that people could accept the philosophy of peaceful coexistence and eliminate the human thirst for profit and fanatic terror.
When Tito died in 1980, my friends in France told me that it is pity that Tito was a Yugoslavian because Yugoslavians would soon completely bury him. If he had been French, they said, he would have been bigger then Napoleon. And I was angry. I told them he was ours, but, at the same time, he was guilty of the murder of my grandfather, as my mother had told me at bedtime when I was young. And that is a big minus for him in my feelings.
And America?! America is my big sorrow. Faith in its goodness weaned me of the communist ideology, attracted me to the American continent, and then hurled me face-first into the realization that I am naïve and silly like most idealists. To secure survival one needs to be stronger and bigger than others – if not by peaceful means, then by force. Clinton was my last American spring, a charming leader possessing human values, like the Roman imperator Hadrian. When he had to relinquish power, I cursed the system of mandates, which shortens the times when good leaders sow happiness and enables their successors to be even the blind and mentally ill. The media’s and politicians’ desire to guillotine him because of an affair with a young woman gave me a warning that such a democracy looks very much like a church’s dogma. Clinton’s case shook America as a distant earthquake, but after the earthquake came a destructive tsunami in the shape of Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush. This president reminded me of a magnificent star turned into a white dwarf in the universe, which can grow only in creating a destructive explosion. He led America into a war against humanity, institutionally proclaimed that the war is a sacred affair of every American patriot, and on the title page engraved a bleeding cross, not unlike a swastika, far from my faith in goodness and God.
I wanted to talk to Bush, but I was afraid of him and, instead, decided to talk to Michael Moore in order to test if I was right in losing my second hope for the happiness of humanity and to justify my attempts to find hope beyond the limits of our Mother Earth.
I met Michael on Granville Island in Vancouver. He was standing ten meters away from a poster for his movie Fahrenheit 9/11 and was jotting down the passersby’s reactions. It seemed to me he could not wait for somebody to recognize him and start talking to him.
What is closer to truth, I started our conversation , my idea that democracy will bring about America’s fall or your thought that America will make democracy ashamed? Or, maybe, simpler, is democracy one of the inevitable postulates on the path to human happiness? Moore was looking somewhere above my head as he replied.
M O O R E: The word democracy, meaning political and social relationships among people, is always the same. However, every case of democracy is specific. Democracy is not always positive. Not unlike tyranny, democracy can also be a choice for evil because the evil is often attractive, smooth-tongued, dishonest and full of empty promises. Democracy should depend on the intellectual conscience of people, but it depends mostly on the socio-economic conditions of those participating in democracy. For example, George W. Bush was elected the president of the United States for the second time by cheating the nation, bribing the greedy, and telling lies to the gullible. And by persuading half of the nation that, without him, each one of them would have a terrorist behind his back. Only he is capable of spreading the fear of terrorism worldwide. However, he did not tell his people the truth that he and his gang instigate hatred of America in the world and make the number of terrorists multiply, especially by committing crimes against the Iraqi people.
I believe these are crimes against the American people, against our entire civilization, I added.
M O O R E: We are used to being respected in the world, and people do not have enough information on how quickly we are sinking. America had a great role in the Second World War, with the exception of the dropping of the atomic bombs, but in all the successive wars, its role was disputable. Recently, looking historically, America has started wars in the world under the pretext of fighting the communist tyranny, then of establishing democracy and freedom for people, and finally of fighting terrorism and its helpers. Why? Because all wars became the means of creating profit, not for the American people but for the owners of American capital, which thrives on the unhappiness of others. Bush is only a marionette of that intent and a despicable liar. In Cambodia, Congo, Brazil, Indonesia, the Middle East … America helped tyrants to gain power, but preached the battle for democracy. These tyrants succeeded with American help and destroyed people mercilessly. Those who make decisions about America’s war moves are not concerned about liberating people from oppressive regimes. No, they also talk about their concern for our security, but, in fact, they are more concerned about their own interests.
Bush’s Administration has several times changed its reasons for going to war in Iraq.
M O O R E: We all know that. They did not try to deceive their people by playing a smart intellectual game. They used poor lies, covertly provoked protests in the world community and broug
ht a terrible disaster upon the Iraqi people. Iraqi people, instead of wholeheartedly greeting American liberation from Saddam’s tyranny, very soon wished Saddam were back. When Iraqis were asked if they wanted the inauguration of American-style democracy, the polls showed that they massively cried against democracy, and begged the Americans to reestablish tyranny or fundamentalism. Why? Because even Iraqi children know that the Americans did not come to establish well-being but to occupy their oil-rich country and to establish their power in that part of the world. Bush managed to sentence Saddam to death, but who is going to sentence to death an even bigger criminal, Bush Junior?
The fear of America’s power is growing in the world.
M O O R E: We are talking about dominance in the world. For that purpose, Americans under this Administration will go and occupy any part of the world, if that is in their interest. They will even block science and scientific truths and achievements in order to longer exploit what brings them profit. For example, they say the hydrogen fueled engine is a nonsense because of its production cost, but they fail to tell people that such a fuel will save the resources for life on Earth, and that, by relying on oil, which will be exhausted by 2015, humanity will face a catastrophe. I can imagine what America will do to prevent Brazil from starting massive production of the hydrogen based fuel.
I was naïve. When Orwell’s book 1984 was published, I thought it could apply to anything but America.
M O O R E: It applies to America most. The America directed by Bush II. He convinces the American people that the threat of terrorism is so great that one would imagine millions of terrorists pointing their weapons at us. If that is his opinion, why doesn’t he objectively explain to his people why terrorists target America above all? He convinces people that anti-American terrorism is not a temporary state of affairs but an eternal threat. Isn’t that Orwell? The instigation of fear among people produces aggression, or, I may well say, it gives legitimacy to war machinery and war profiteers to attack wherever they estimate there is economic interest, regardless of the consequences for the people who are under attack or for Americans. In whose hands are we, O great American democracy, the land of great minds, artists and philanthropes?!
When people sense a real danger, it is natural that they react instinctively in defense. When they are drawn into irrational fear, a terrible murderer is created. This prompts us to hide guns under our pillows, to refuse to live beside people of different races or ethnicities or beside any foreigner. This is the best way to take from us our 200 years of freedom and to have the American people fall into the hands of the instigator of the “terrorist threat”. Poor Statue of Liberty at the entrance to New York Harbor. They want to endlessly manipulate us with fear. They are worse than any exploiter ever. They took God into their own hands, and now they want to take eternal time into their hands too.
I, myself, am very scared. Isn’t that, God forbid, proof that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were correct when they said that capitalism will enter the last stage of the development of human society, imperialism, after which comes the agony and cataclysm? It will happen only because capitalists will invest more in technology and less in workers. Are we going to face the sort of deluge described in the Kur’an and the Bible?
M O O R E: I am thinking about how we Americans have so easily accepted that game Bush II plays. What’s happened to our intellect? We have also accepted the demagogy that we are far more powerful than others, and that we are the masters of the world. Number one in the world. I am positive that the average American does not want to dominate anybody. Then they invented fear. To scare the hell out of us, they need a big enemy. It is not the Soviet Union anymore. The extreme right-wing ideologists and politicians Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Kristal and Perle pushed a weakling, Bush II, into the fire. They invented the eternal war against terror. It is a very dangerous war doctrine for the entire world. In that manner, they create an eternal means for creating profit. How many of our lives and the lives of our children are they prepared to sacrifice for their interests? We are not going to get killed by terrorists but by our leaders and unscrupulous profiteers. We are almost at the stage when capitalists possess everything in the world, and all others are their slaves. Capitalists even now possess almost all land, houses, factories and money. And today, if somebody confronts them, they throw him in jail or take his job from him, letting him die of starvation. Instead, we, who are economically at the top of the world’s civilization, should ensure that all people in the world have their basic needs met and can realistically dream of a better life. Instead of terrible destruction, fear, and absolute exploitation, we should have offered the world the solution for the drinking-water problem for all, enough water for all, and enough health care and medications for all – instead of paying the shameful 24 cents an hour for manufacturing our NBA uniforms in El Salvador, or 12 cents an hour to the Chinese for making cute Disney toys. Instead, we keep quiet while pregnant workers in Bangladesh are being beaten for making mistakes when sewing Gap clothes.
Bush II was elected again. He was elected even though he does not comply with the United Nations resolutions and disregards the Geneva Convention and the Hague Tribunal, and even though many great people in the world declare him a war criminal and demand his punishment. Some female musicians from Texas travel the world singing that they are ashamed of the fact that Bush is a Texan. Hollywood actors, writers, scientists, priests have raised their voices against him, yet he is elected again. It seems as if Al Capone’s Chicago mafia has moved to the world’s political and social scene.
M O O R E: I am not surprised. Nor even disappointed. Bush II did not surprise me by manifesting the victory of belligerent radicalism in the world’s politics at the onset of the third millennium. He has already put America on a pedestal as the most hated country on our planet now. The world now is more afraid of America, which was its hope in the past, than it is afraid of communism or any tyranny. How about people? People have always been unpredictable. Most people think solely about their own interest, whatever that is, or they swim down the current that gets hold of them or that promises golden fields or other lies. I wake up at night scared of the question: Where is my country? I am positive that millions of Americans are asking themselves the same question. And American capital with Bush as leader reforms affairs on Earth using the Machiavellian principle that: In politics all means are allowed that help to conquer, then establish and spread the utmost power.
How about civilization?
In front of the poster for Moore’s movie, a bunch of teenagers gathered, eagerly commenting on the photograph in which Michael Moore holds a statue of Bush II and is about to throw it into the abyss, in the same way people have thrown the statues of Hitler, Stalin, Ceausescu, Saddam Hussein … Moore joined the group and started dancing to the rhythm of the music coming from the restaurant called Bridges. The teenagers began dancing too, then the passersby, and soon the entire crowd on Vancouver’s Granville Island. Even the bakers came out of their bakeries, the waiters and chefs from the restaurants, the merchants from the stores … They were all dancing. For me, it was the proof that people will outlive Bush II and his wars around the world, and that life is unstoppable. I was also dancing, and, following the rhythm of the music, I was coming closer to the spot where Moore was dancing in a trance. I managed to hear him telling those gathered around him that a new David was needed to gain victory over Goliath.
I do not think that Bush II imposed himself on Americans. In that powerful country, the conditions for the arrival of a radical president had already been created. The people were ready for such a government. Today in America, tomorrow … Bush II is an artist in manipulating people. He and his big capitalists, not only in the President’s party but also in the Democratic Party, and in other political movements, have invented a game to divide the poor and middle-class masses, making one half affiliate themselves with the elephants, and the other half with the donkeys so that they confr
ont each other. While the people’s masses fight with each other over politics, big capitalists from both sides fulfill their profit-making plans. I worry that others in the world might start emulating Bush II’s recipe, in the same manner as Hollywood, Coca Cola, McDonald’s …
At the onset of the third millennium America finds itself in the position of a superpower without deep roots and without a strong gravitation capable of balancing the centrifugal forces at play in the world, and of grounding America in the spheres useful for civilization. There has been the same problem with all destroyers in the world’s history. America’s centrifugal forces are dangerous because, with their growth, the balance gets weaker, and the centripetal forces of that society are not capable of holding the balance with those forces that hasten out into the world and destroy all that is weaker. Doesn’t the speed of America’s means of transportation pose the threat of overpowering the force of gravitation and of separating itself from the Earth? Doesn’t its computer technology threaten to put itself above the human mind and to drag all, including man, into the places of no return? Doesn’t its war machinery threaten to take away the keys of peace and democracy and to enforce the autocracy and tyranny of murderous machines? Isn’t the absurd dictatorial institution of the President, who can start a war without anything to stop him, already placed on top of America’s democracy? Who can today believe in an electoral machinery which can, by the rule of insane inertia, elect an idiot, a moron, as the leader of the people’s masses?
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