The attention of the world’s media has been focused in recent days on the start of the trial against Saddam Hussein. “From where to begin?”, says the German daily Die Welt (19/10): “That is the question posed by the judges of the special tribunal in view of the incredible quantity and violence of the crimes to be investigated. If Saddam is now standing trial today, it is only for a relatively secondary question: the massacre of some 150 Shiites in a village with the name of Dujail. […] It is neither the greatest nor more brutal crime in his long career: it’s only the easiest to prove. If someone really wanted to attempt to demonstrate all the atrocities he committed, Saddam would die of old age long before the end of the trial. […] Was Saddam no more than that? A bloodthirsty beast, violator and destroyer of his own country? His methods were brutal but not always aimed at destruction. Today it is difficult to imagine that he received a prize from UNESCO in 1976: in a short space of time he had succeeded in teaching all Iraqis to read and write: in his way. Anyone who refused to take part in the lessons, was sent to prison for three years”. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung comments: “At least this is something new for the Arab world. A fallen despot, his hands stained with the blood of hundreds of thousands of people, is put on trial. What long-term effect this trial against Saddam and against the seven columns of his regime may have on the country, on the Arab world it is difficult to predict. Seeing the way in which Saddam presented himself in the court room on Wednesday, one would hesitate to speak of a national reconciliation that has now begun”. And the weekly Der Spiegel (17/10) writes: “However great the expectations, no less irrefutable are the doubts whether here anything more than victor’s justice is being meted out, or whether the judicial process of coming to terms with the past can really contribute to the reconciliation of Iraqi ethnic groups. On the contrary: there is growing concern that the trial of the former dictator may seriously threaten the stability of post-war Iraq”. “ The Nuremberg of the Gulf But ‘no’ to the death penalty” is the title of the editorial in the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire (19/10), signed by Giorgio Ferrari, who reflects on the trial of Saddam, shown on television throughout the world. “ Against (Saddam) writes Ferrari there is an interminable list of charges: at least 300,000 Iraqis were massacred under his regime…“, even though “ the trial itself that the lawyers of the former dictator are obviously trying to de-legitimise if compared with Western judicial principles is undoubtedly unbalanced, given that the prosecution has been able to enjoy time and financial resources denied to Saddam“. “ The narrow gate to democracy in Iraq also passes through here,– continues Ferrari from the first shaky trial against Saddam Hussein: a trial whose outcome could in turn lead to an unacceptable (at least to us) sentence of death“. The French Catholic daily La Croix (19/10) also comments on the trial against Saddam in a long report with the title “ Confronted by his crimes“. On Tuesday, 18 October, however, the same paper dedicated its editorial, signed by Dominique Quinto, to the Middle East. “ The Palestinians in search of support” is the title: the occasion was the meeting of Palestinian President Habbas with Bush, after the previous legs of his diplomatic shuttle in Cairo, Paris and Madrid. The editorial stresses that “ the withdrawal of Israeli colonists from Gaza, if it marked a spectacular and widely welcomed stage, does not appear sufficient to re-launch dialogue and reduce tensions“. “ The difficulties faced by Mahmoud Abbas (Palestinian President) are immense. He has to fight on two fronts: he must succeed in convincing people abroad of his determination to take the peace process forward and of his capacity to disarm terrorists, and, at home, he must combat the extremist movements that, through violence, are striving to wreck any form of dialogue“. In The Catholic Herald (14/10) attention is focused on an essentially Catholic issue: “ The Church cannot do without intellectuals“, says a comment by John Haldane, professor of philosophy at the University of St. Andrews and author of the book “Faithful Reason: Essays Catholic and Philosophical”. According to Haldane, “ the need for Catholic intellectuals is no less than it was in the twentieth century”. And he continues: “ in an age in which ideas have been vulgarized, or where they still seem to be taken seriously, it is particularly important to encourage Catholic intellectuals. As in other fields of life, however, if there must be a growth of such presences, that also demands exemplariness and capacity for leadership, and these qualities are clearly declining today“.———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1424 N.ro relativo : 73 Data pubblicazione : 21/10/2005
