The warmonger pacifists (April 2003)
When I saw the joy on the faces of the Iraqis, when it had became clear to them that Saddam Hussein was gone forever, dead or alive or wherever he may be, I asked myself: Are the pacifists going to go through with their anti-war demonstrations anyway? And if they are, what ever for? We are the ones who should be taking to the streets to celebrate, together with the Iraqi people, their freedom and a real peace, that is, a life free from oppression.
However, I’m afraid no doubt was to be had. When it comes to a choice between reason and rhetoric, the communists are truly a resolute lot; they’ll always and only opt for the latter. You thought communism had come down with the Berlin Wall? Not in Italy. Besides the reformed Democrats of the Left, the former Italian Communist Party, there are the die-hard Italian Communists and the Refound Communist Party. These parties have shamelessly embraced the peace movement, waving the rainbow peace flag together with their red, hammered and sickled flags, notwithstanding the blood with which communist ideology marked the four corners of the Earth for 70 years of the last century, and continues to claim victims in the isolated communist regimes that still manage to plague this century. I sometimes wonder, if a new party were to form by the name of Refound Fascist party and pretend to embrace the ideal of peace, would it be equally acceptable, ignoring its errors and horrors of the past?
Provocative propositions aside, the pacifists did indeed, of course, take to the streets to point their finger at the United States and voice their protests: “There were other means to bring down Saddam Hussein,” but of course they never mention WHAT other means. “We’re not sure that a government set up by the United States would be any better than that of Saddam Hussein.” “No, it doesn’t make us happy to see the Iraqis celebrating in the streets.”
Of course it doesn’t, it spoils their wildest dreams. I’m sure my American readers will find the truth that I am about to tell unbelievable. So would I if I hadn’t read it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. A week after the war began, the managing editor of “Il Manifesto” wrote a front page editorial in which he confessed: When we look at ourselves in the mirror and we ask ourselves what we really want to happen…. Our answer is that we hope this war lasts for a long, long time, even if it means the death of many civilians and soldiers on both sides. That’ll teach the Americans and what’s more important, it’ll teach those who have any doubt about what an evil violent force America is.
This delirium was embraced and repeated by various communist party members and by other leftist intellectuals. These are the people who organized the “peace” demonstrations and who made tons of money selling their esthetically ugly and ideologically hypocritical rainbow flags with what for me has become a dirty four-letter word, PACE, considering the mouths of the pacifist warmongers out of which it comes.
In hearing the ranting madness of their rhetoric, I was reminded of a story that a friend of mine’s father used to tell her and her brothers and sisters when they were teenagers: When God created human beings, he gave them three virtues: good faith, intelligence, and communism. However, to punish them for their original sin, he decided to take one of their virtues away. Then, taking pity on them when hearing their protests, he decided to allow them to choose which virtue they preferred to renounce. So with this gift of free will, you have to decide: If you want to be communist and intelligent, you have to give up being in good faith. If you want to be communist and in good faith, you have to give up being intelligent. And if you want to be intelligent and in good faith, you obviously can’t be a communist!
Sandra Giovanna Giacomazzi writes for the Roman daily, L'Opinione della Libertà. She also received the Mario Soldati Prize for Journalism and Criticism for 2002.
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