The tragic situation in Iraq, with the horror of the periodic execution of hostages and anxiety for the fate of those (such as the two Italian girl volunteers seized on 7 September) still in the hands of terrorist groups, continues to monopolise the attention of the European press. “Another round of deceit in Iraq”, is the headline carried for instance by the Herald Tribune (22/9), over an article in which Paul Krugman comments on the words of praise addressed by US President Bush to Iraqi President Allawi, whom he called the “leader of a sovereign nation on the road to democracy”. At the same time the commentator reflects on the lack of “alternatives” in a country in which “ any leader closely associated with America becomes hated in the eyes of Iraqi public opinion“. “ Faced by the chaos in Iraq, Kerry is alarmed by a ‘war without end’“, is the front-page headline in Le Monde (22/9), over an article noting that after the decapitation of Eugene Jack Armstrong (on 20 September) the contender for the White House accused President Bush of “colossal blame” over Iraq, and the gravest charge against him is that he has made more concrete the scenario of a “war without end”. The situation of the “widespread fear” that characterises the present international scenario is commented on, in turn, by Bruno Frappat, who signs an article in the French Catholic daily La Croix of 22/9. “With the diffusion on Internet of the decapitation of the American hostage says Frappat the staging of terror, its transformation into spectacle, has reached its culmination. Even if the images of this filmed execution were not re-transmitted by television channels, it’s enough to know that they exist (…). The transmitted image and its opposite (the hidden image) have acquired in the end the same brutal force”. Hence the dilemma posed “to the conscience of those who diffuse” these images : “to show them or not?”. “Neither solution is satisfactory”, replies Frappat: “To show is horrible, to conceal is terrible. To look pollutes our vision. To close our eyes does not stop the silent work of fear”. The German press seeks the reasons for the electoral defeat of the largest German parties and the victory of the extreme right- and left-wing parties in the elections held in the former East German Länder of Saxony and Brandenburg. This is the analysis of Ernst Cramer in Die Welt (22/9): “ The result of over a third of the electorate voting for the parties opposed whether on the left or right to the current parliamentary democratic system is even more terrible if we consider that in Brandenburg and Saxony it was especially the young who voted for the anti-democratic parties […] The defeated… will continue for the time to govern, with unstable, probably shifting coalitions. The politicians at party headquarters are licking their wounds. The question is whether they are able to learn from Sunday’s disaster. Just as the free world is faced by a new danger, terrorism of religious origin, so the German democratic party system is threatened by its ideological enemies on the right and on the left“. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ( Faz – 23/9) comments as follows on the calmness of the SPD of Chancellor Schröder in spite of its electoral defeat: “ The Chancellor has an easy conscience, like the doctor who says he has done everything possible (for a social-democrat) to save the patient (Germany). Schröder too must know that the reforms so far made by his government are not enough to revive the sick man at the heart of Europe“. “The European Parliament considers terrorism its top priority” is the headline in the Spanish daily ABC (22/9) that quotes the proposal of Jaime Mayor Oreja, of the People’s Party, according to whom it would be useful to “create a European office of aid to the victims of terrorism”. The EP has approved a resolution asking the European Commission for this new structure, explains the paper’s correspondent in Brussels. “An alliance of civilizations”: that’s the proposal made by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spanish premier, to the UNO, in his first international address as head of the executive. It was reported by Marco Schwartz in a dispatch from New York in El Periódico (22/9): “Zapatero frontally attacks the anti-terrorist policy of Bush and the war in Iraq and proposes an alliance of civilizations to bring closer together the West and the Islamic and Arab world”. The journalist reports that after his intervention the Spanish premier received a long ovation, the most resounding heard yesterday in the UN General Assembly. ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1326 N.ro relativo : 66 Data pubblicazione : 25/09/04
