The Washington Post dished out its peculiar brand of near-analysis recently in an article headed, Germany Debates 'Terrorist Chic': Art and Fashion Stir Memories of Leftist Violence in '70s.  Apparently it’s cool in Deutschland to wear designer duds with references to Andreas and Ulrike of Baader-Meinhof fame.  Catching the wave, counter-cultural artists, including the children of former Red Army Faction members, have mounted an exhibition featuring images of the left-radical gang that critics have charged present the R.A.F. as “‘misguided, sensitive young people,’ and not ‘murderers— killers . . . who held no regard for democracy.’”

        Naturally the artists dismiss these allegations.  After all, the art happening “is an exhibition on the perception of the RAF, not on the RAF itself.”  …jeez, why does Dieter from Sprockets keep popping into my head?  Both statements have merit, and both, luckily I suppose, miss a critical point:  an exhibit at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin is by definition irrelevant.  The show cannot have an effect on society at large.  Same goes for all the MoCAs and MoMAs in the world.  There’s little as socially insignificant—dare I say, as last year— as an exhibit at MoCA.  Put your terrorist agitprop in a museum—please—because nobody will see it there.

            Similarly, the wearing of t-shirts sporting slogans like “Prada-Meinhof” signals the death of any political relevance for an idea.  Indeed, Shannon Smiley’s Post article acknowledges this axiom.  Smiley quotes a Munich political science professor who observes that “people wear the RAF insignia, but only because it looks chic…One could argue that this is the real, true end of the RAF.”  It’s likely that the majority of the people wearing the t-shirts not only “were too young to remember the 1970s” as Smiley suggests, but had not been born.  Do the math, Shannon.  For that matter, kids also wore t-shirts shouting “Frankie says, relax.”  This feverish craze, however, neither signalled nor ensured lasting cultural relevance for Frankie Goes to Hollywood.  Of course, that was the ‘80s.  A very different time.

            So I’m not worried about new German terrorist cells coalescing among the young and the trendy.  Nothing spells political apathy quite like an ironic t-shirt, especially “on a side street in Berlin lined with galleries, alternative bookstores and Turkish fast-food joints.”  Come on, Shannon, be more specific.  That’s every street in Berlin.  I’m worried about the old and the stodgy.  Smiley’s article edges this direction, but misses the target. 

        The article reminds us that “as attorneys in the 1970s, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Interior Minister Otto Schily both defended RAF members in court.”  Granted, even terrorists deserve competent legal counsel.  And yet, it’s always interesting to see the kinds of lawyers attracted to these cases.  Somehow, it's not terribly surprising that Gerhard Schroeder glommed on to such disreputable clients.  In his grown-up incarnation, Schroeder doesn't have to waste his time on small-time thugs like Andreas and Ulrike.  All the R.A.F. managed to do was blow up a few American soldiers and assorted German civilians.  As Kanzler, Schroeder can attack the U.S. directly and rally a surprising number of his followers around him. 

        And so he has done.  It's turned out to be a bitter Bildungsroman for Gerhard:  from angry activist, to sour spoiler.  As a youthful, anarchic attorney defending the R.A.F,  Schroeder mirrors Lynne Stewart, recently convicted of abetting Blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman.  Except for the youthful part, of course.  Stewart has been on the left-wing fringe for a long time.  Of late, Stewart has become a fixture on the vile KPFK Pacifica Radio Network affiliate here in L.A.  Apparently, instead of aiding terrorists as determined by her conviction on that charge, she's instead a victim of fascist oppression.  I hadn't realized.   Directions on the History bottle:  lather, rinse, repeat.

            Smiley’s article sees the growth and success of the R.A.F. in 1970 as a response to two factors:  Germany's compliance with the Vietnam War and its struggle to break with its Nazi past.  How little has changed.  Unification resurrected the Nazi debate in Germany.  Communist East Germany never wallowed in the collective guilt of the West.  They were too busy dodging collapsing Plattenbau apartment buildings and shooting more steroids than Jose Conseco—and that’s just the women.  As good socialists, East Germans were the vanguard fighting fascist oppression.  The bourgeois West bore sole responsibility for the atrocities of the War.  Ahem…anyway, the issue has roared back to life.

            Vietnam, of course, is over.  But now we have Iraq.  The two wars share a couple of remarkable similarities:  Germans opposed them both and Germans had nothing to do with either one.  Which makes for very clean, guilt-free protest rallies.  A glorious second chance for the aging Achtundsechziger —we called them hippies.  The war of Schroeder’s youth, waged by his long-time nemesis—the United States—has revived.  But this time, he’s got an international pulpit.  In fairness—to someone—opposition to the war in Iraq among Germans appears widespread and genuine.  Additionally, an amorphous anti-Americanism has long been common.  What's different now?  A counterbalancing, overwhelmingly positive feeling toward the U.S. normally holds most negative feelings in check, or at least, the visible manifestations.  Especially when a vigorously pro-American chancellor steers the ship.  But today this moderating factor is absent:  obviously, no one has ever accused Schroeder of being vigorously pro-American.

            Clearly modern German society exhibits, and to its disaster always has had, a top-down leadership style, tired jokes and all.  Although Germans debate issues endlessly in the press and in other fora, ultimately, they do what they’re told.  Right now, sadly, Germany is saddled with a chancellor who dislikes the U.S.—and always has.  Remember that U.S. soldiers stationed in Germany were among the victims of the R.A.F. terrorists Schroeder defended.  The message broadcast from the Reichstag for the past four years has been decidedly anti-U.S.  The effect?  A startlingly angry unwillingness to concede that anything good can come from U.S. efforts in Iraq, as well as a vehement unwillingness to assist the process.  Iraq has just got to be another Viet Nam; they don’t want it any other way. 

        So why worry about amateur thugs in Germany?  The Profis are in charge.