Article
Günter Grass and the question of free speech
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April 12, 2012
A week ago, on 4 April 2012, a poem by former Nobel laureate Günter Grass appeared in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany’s most prominent newspapers. The poem, entitled ‘Was gesagt werden muss’ (What Must be Said), expresses Grass’ concerns about Israel’s nuclear capabilities, particularly with regards to the nation of Iran. This caused a near-immediate reaction from the international press and the broader poetry community, which culminated in Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai banning Grass from entering the country just a few days ago.
Many Israeli and Jewish news sources were especially acerbic towards Grass and his poem, particularly on the American front. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen of The Jerusalem Post argues that “Grass takes the common perversity – the inversion of the people of the victims into perpetrators – to a new level”. The opinion column of the New York Daily News was also overwhelmingly negative, including one article that bears the subtitle “He once served in the Nazi Waffen SS; today, he is attacking Israel”, and an equally angry article can be found over at The Jewish Voice.
In the other camp, Jumana Al Tamimi from the Iran branch of Gulf News writes sceptically about Israel’s protests, as well as talking about how “the poem was praised in Iran” for speaking the truth. He quotes Deputy Culture Minister Javad Shamaqdari as saying “Telling the truth in this way may awake the silent and dormant conscience of the West. Writers are able to single-handedly prevent human tragedies in a way that armies cannot.” Palestinian columnist Khalid Amayreh argues that “German poet and Nobel literature laureate Günter Grass deserves to be applauded for his moral courage, intellectual honesty, and audacity to challenge some of the established taboos pertaining to Israel and Jews”. A number of German peace activists also stood up for Grass and his message.
Whichever side these articles take, most still debate whether Israel was right to place a ban on Grass. The English-based news source TotallyJewish.com argued that banning such poetry would only serve to cause criticism that Israel is behaving exactly like Iran, and that Interior Minister Eli Yishai “should reconsider his actions, or he’s in danger of scoring a massive own-goal for Israel advocacy”. The Guardian weighed in with an article that urged protesters to counter Günter Grass “with poetry, not a travel ban”, and an article from the Poetry Foundation concurred, stating that “Our problem is to read his poem with the passion we bring to all our readings, and look at it critically, especially since it has created more hubbub than anything we’ve written lately.”
Instead of taking an obvious side, Time magazine’s blog Global Spin merely laments the escalation of this issue, pointing out that all parties could have handled things better.
Regardless of your own personal or political beliefs, the fact that a poem can cause so much public interest and political debate shows the ability that words can have to both inspire and destroy. Because it is always important to come to your own conclusions about poetry, here is the original German poem in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and an English translation by Breon Mitchell as published in The Guardian. We hope that you will continue to follow this story as it develops over the coming weeks.
MEGEN MOLÉ
Image from Marcus Brandt/AFP/Getty Images under a Creative Commons license.
Many Israeli and Jewish news sources were especially acerbic towards Grass and his poem, particularly on the American front. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen of The Jerusalem Post argues that “Grass takes the common perversity – the inversion of the people of the victims into perpetrators – to a new level”. The opinion column of the New York Daily News was also overwhelmingly negative, including one article that bears the subtitle “He once served in the Nazi Waffen SS; today, he is attacking Israel”, and an equally angry article can be found over at The Jewish Voice.
In the other camp, Jumana Al Tamimi from the Iran branch of Gulf News writes sceptically about Israel’s protests, as well as talking about how “the poem was praised in Iran” for speaking the truth. He quotes Deputy Culture Minister Javad Shamaqdari as saying “Telling the truth in this way may awake the silent and dormant conscience of the West. Writers are able to single-handedly prevent human tragedies in a way that armies cannot.” Palestinian columnist Khalid Amayreh argues that “German poet and Nobel literature laureate Günter Grass deserves to be applauded for his moral courage, intellectual honesty, and audacity to challenge some of the established taboos pertaining to Israel and Jews”. A number of German peace activists also stood up for Grass and his message.
Whichever side these articles take, most still debate whether Israel was right to place a ban on Grass. The English-based news source TotallyJewish.com argued that banning such poetry would only serve to cause criticism that Israel is behaving exactly like Iran, and that Interior Minister Eli Yishai “should reconsider his actions, or he’s in danger of scoring a massive own-goal for Israel advocacy”. The Guardian weighed in with an article that urged protesters to counter Günter Grass “with poetry, not a travel ban”, and an article from the Poetry Foundation concurred, stating that “Our problem is to read his poem with the passion we bring to all our readings, and look at it critically, especially since it has created more hubbub than anything we’ve written lately.”
Instead of taking an obvious side, Time magazine’s blog Global Spin merely laments the escalation of this issue, pointing out that all parties could have handled things better.
Regardless of your own personal or political beliefs, the fact that a poem can cause so much public interest and political debate shows the ability that words can have to both inspire and destroy. Because it is always important to come to your own conclusions about poetry, here is the original German poem in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and an English translation by Breon Mitchell as published in The Guardian. We hope that you will continue to follow this story as it develops over the coming weeks.
MEGEN MOLÉ
Image from Marcus Brandt/AFP/Getty Images under a Creative Commons license.
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