Tolerance Only Helps the Ruthless
By Henryk Broder

Page One of Three
In his acceptance speech for the Ludwig Börne Award, belligerent author Henryk M. Broder asked himself: "Am I crazy, or is it the others?" His argument: Western values can only be salvaged by means of intolerance. Spiegel Online documents this text.

Thank you for coming here today to celebrate with me. As you can imagine, my receiving the Ludwig Börne Award is merely a small step ahead for humankind, but a great step for me towards the Hall of Fame of great minds. I am saying this with utter immodesty and completely aware that it is part of the courtesy and ritual of celebrations such as this one to appear taken aback and completely surprised that no one more deserving has been honored.

Even Cardinal Ratzinger, before being elected pope, implored the Almighty to let this cup pass from him. No, I think Helmut Markwort has made the right choice here.

The more I thought about what to say here today, the more I realized that the less I say, the better. As I did recently in front of the Munich County Court, I could step in front of you, give you some personal data, refuse to testify and leave the rest to my lawyers, who are here today to keep me from doing anything stupid.

How do you do, Mr. Gelbart; nice to have you here, Mr. Hegemann. But that would be boring, and committing inanities is so much more fun than avoiding them. This is why I would like to take this opportunity to say something, even at the risk of embarrassing myself and appearing incompetent.

In two months' time, I will be sixty-one years old. Fifty years ago, I came to Germany with my parents; I have been writing for forty years. I am a German citizen with an immigrant background, or an expellee. My parents survived World War II and the Holocaust; when I came to Berlin in 1990, the wall had already come down, the Glienicke Bridge was freely accessible and Potsdamer Platz was as yet barren.

I realize that I'm a lucky fellow. So far, I have survived every charter flight; last year, I wrote a bestseller and I have a daughter who has just graduated from high school with a grade point average that makes me doubt my paternity.

And yet, as soon as I leave my office and step out into the world, even if only to read a newspaper at Café Einstein, I feel slightly discomfited more and more often. This is no hangover resulting from affluence, no world weariness that is enough to itself, but it is the feeling of: am I crazy, or is it the others?

Oskar Panizza once said, "When insanity becomes pandemic, it is dubbed sanity." And this kind of insane sanity seems ubiquitous. What do you think about Secretary for the Environment Sigmar Gabriel ostensibly traveling by train, while having his personal chauffeur follow him in his official car? Thus, the secretary and his chauffeur are cruising the country from one end to the other; traveling separately, but still united in their effort to save the environment and set an example. And nobody is laughing.

Isn't it strange how fiercely the pros and cons of Ursula van der Leyen's new hairstyle had been discussed? And following the debate concerning the successors of Sabine Christiansen and Anne Will, one had to draw the conclusion that this was not a debate about filling jobs at TV shows, but one about reorganizing the hereditary succession of the Habsburg house.

I am trying to understand why a missile defense system to be built by the Americans in the Czech Republic scares people and has politicians fantasizing about a revival of the Cold War, while the fact that Iran has declared itself a nuclear power is being accepted as calmly as an inevitable force of nature. There was no outcry of indignation when the director of the Oriental Institute in Hamburg declared that Iran was merely striving for atomic weapons in order to be able to negotiate with the West on a level playing field. All Tehran cared about was to be respected.

Europe had no need to be scared, this renowned Middle East expert said, since "Europe would certainly be the last target Iran would pick, should its intentions actually be aggressive." Iran as a nuclear power would merely pose problems "for its neighbors," "for a secular Turkey and of course for Israel," but Europe, good old Europe, had "no reason to be intimidated by Iran."

It appears this man assumes that his Oriental Institute will be spared from the nuclear fallout in case of an Iranian nuclear attack on Turkey or Israel, simply because he had always spoken so nicely and respectfully about the mullahs and their policies. This kind of accommodation seems to be more effective and more inexpensive than any missile defense system. Alternatively, one might put up the expert himself as a defense system on an open field somewhere in the Lüneburger Heide or in Brandenburg. There he would stand with his arms extended, facing the oncoming missiles and shouting: "Spare us! We are the good ones!"

These are the moments when I earnestly ask myself: am I crazy, or is it the others? And when it is said that Israel's right to existence is non-negotiable, it is not up for discussion, I seem to be hearing the very opposite in these assurances.

How would you react if your neighbor were to assure you every day that he was not planning to murder you, rape your wife and afterwards set your house on fire? Most of you would probably ignore the problem; some brave ones might invite the neighbor over for a therapeutic session, have him tell you about his awful childhood, and try to convince him that violence does not solve any problems.

And this is exactly what is happening in Europe right now. Everybody knows there is a problem. Nobody knows how it might be solved. Thus, it is being ignored, or a therapeutic method is searched for to gain more time. The man in Tehran who wishes for a "World without Zionism" denies the last holocaust and is planning the next one, is allegedly merely a show-off and busybody, a verbal radical trying to distinguish himself from his competition at home by means of tough talk. He is not really serious, and even if he is building an atomic bomb, it will not be completed for another three to five years. Thus, there is no reason to get upset, especially since in the worst case only secular Turkey and "Israel, of course," would be affected.

To continue reading this speech, please click here.

Henryk Broder is one of Germany's best known journalists and commentators. A former AICGS Fellow, Broder has been a reporter for Der Spiegel and Der Spiegel Online since 1995.

This speech originally appeared in German in the June 25, 2007, edition of Der Spiegel Online and is available by clicking here. It also appeared in the July 6, 2007, AICGS Advisor, and was translated into English by Anke Irgang.