Opting Out of Reality

My parents were born at the beginning of the 20th century, in Holland. Holland has not, in the memory of living man done anything to anyone. You would think that leading life as poor but honest people in a small country on the edge of the European continent with no natural resources except salt water would be rather dull.

They were anything but.

Holland was neutral in WW1 and the Kaiser fled there after the war to live in exile.

WW2 visited Holland – and my family – in a big way. We went to the countryside to escape starvation. We ducked bombs and bullets. We hid our bicycle tires to keep them from the Germans. And we hid my mother’s ancestry to avoid the gas chambers.

Our experience in WW2 taught us this thing: there is no escape from history. As Trotsky said, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."

It is 150 years since American has a real war in their country, and that war was primarily fought in the South. For almost all Americans, war and man-made destruction is unreal; something that happens on the TV newscasts … to other people.

That is why 9/11 is now something that is rarely remembered as part of our history. For a majority of Americans, it does not fit into any narrative of history. It is a one-off; an artifact of Osama bin Laden. It is totally unconnected with Islam as it is practiced in many parts of the world, divorced from the suicide bombers in Israel, ridiculed as an excuse for the war on terror or the conflict in the Middle East.

And if the war in Iraq is not related in any way to 9/11 the only thing that makes sense is that the war is for oil, for Halliburton, for … Evil Bushhitler.

Of course this is not universally accepted. Some people do have a sense of history, a realistic overview of the challenge we face. And an awful sense of the tragedy in the clash of civilizations. A clash that includes Osama and Saddam, but that is much bigger than either of these people. It is also bigger than George Bush.

That is why this essay by Peggy Noonan “A Separate Peace” is so relevant; so disturbing and such a wake up call to those who believe, with a childlike trust that everything will be all right.

That is what my family believed before the Anschluss. That is when history became real and war became interested in us.