European sentiment on the space shuttle (February 2003)
Newspapers are always in search of the sensational and the tragedy of the space shuttle is the just the kind of emotional event that removes the usual limits on copy space. However, something tells me that the shuttle coverage of the three major Italian newspapers probably beat even many of the U.S. papers: 9 pages in the Corriere della Sera, 13 pages in La Repubblica, and 7 pages in La Stampa of straight reporting of the tragedy, accounts of past missions and past tragedies, technical data, graphs, tables, photos, biographies, as well as editorials and op-eds from some of the country’s most famous pens.
There were some who shared the sorrow and grief of Americans for the lives lost, and the sense of defeat for its ambitions in space, almost sharing our spirit of patriotism. Others who pointed out the irony of destiny: while America is preparing for a technological war in a distant land, it’s having to deal with death in a peaceful domestic scientific endeavor.
Others had more malignant observations. Although Americans are in the midst of their grief, NASA and its astronauts are already promising to carry the torch and to carry on. Oblivious to such American resilience and determination, one editor claimed that the event was a sign of the decline of the myth of technology and questioned the ability of the Americans to conduct a war with the technological and surgical sophistication that it would take to limit casualties.
Whenever there’s a tragedy there’s always someone who gloats over the grief of others, demonstrating the very darkest side of human nature. The Italian papers reported the glee from Bagdad: “It’s God’s revenge. God wanted to show that he is more powerful than the Americans.” Sad, but understandable, perhaps, from the Iraqis.
Less comprehensible is the rejoicing from the Italian No Globals who pretend to be pacifists. On the Italian web site: www.italy.indymedia.org, they held a toast to the death of the seven astronauts, but their joy was directed particularly toward the death of the Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, proof of the Red strain of anti-Semitic sentiment. There were some dissenters to the enthusiasm, but they were a very small minority. One of the enthusiasts entitled his message “Come on guys, let’s party: there’ll be no Sionist colonies on the moon!” And another, “Just think if he had come back, surely he would have claimed that the moon belongs to the Jews and they would have started building colonies up there.” Yet another, “I’m an atheist, but sometimes I think that maybe God does exist.”
The target of their derision had a truly respectable military resume. He was a pilot during the Yom Kippur War and in the war in Lebanon. Moreover, he is one of the men the world can thank for the fact that the Iraq of Saddam Hussein is not a nuclear power: He participated in the historic raid against the Iraqi nuclear reactor Osirak, near Bagdad, in 1981. For those who frequent Indymedia, he’s a war criminal. For those who share our values of freedom and democracy, he’s a hero in space as well as on earth.
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