AM: I look at the war in Iraq from three points
of view.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a totalitarian state. It was
a country where people were murdered and tortured. So I'm looking
at this through the eyes of the political prisoner in Baghdad,
and from this point of view I'm very grateful to those who opened
the gates of the prison and who stopped the killing and the torture.
Second, Iraq was a country that supported terrorist attacks in
the Middle East and all over the world. I consider that 9/11 was
the day when war was started against my own work and against myself.
Even though we are not sure of the links, Iraq was one of the
countries that did not lower its flags in mourning on 9/11. There
are those who think this war could have been avoided by democratic
and peaceful means. But I think that no negotiations with Saddam
Hussein made sense, just as I believe that negotiations with Hitler
did not make sense.
And there is a third reason. Poland is an
ally of the United States of America. It was our duty to show
that we are a reliable, loyal, and predictable ally. America needed
our help, and we had to give it. This was not only my position.
It was also the position of Havel, Konrad, and others.
TC:
Yes, you specifically mention that this is a view you share with
Vaclav Havel and Gyorgy Konrad.
AM: We take this position because we know what dictatorship
is. And in the conflict between totalitarian regimes and democracy
you must not hesitate to declare which side you are on. Even if
a dictatorship is not an ideal typical one, and even if the democratic
countries are ruled by people whom you do not like. I think you
can be an enemy of Saddam Hussein even if Donald Rumsfield is
also an enemy of Saddam Hussein.
...
TC:
In your writing you often criticize utopian politics. It seems
that George W. Bush's vision (or that of his neoconservative advisers)
is a utopian vision: destroying totalitarianism and instituting
democracy. A large part of the reaction against Bush seems to
be focused on his revival of some kind of American messianism.
How do you reconcile your criticism of utopian thinking with support
of this seeming American utopianism?
AM: Bush has a utopian ideology . . . maybe not Bush, but
maybe his circle. Perhaps I'm being naïve, but I don't think
it is utopian to want to install democratic rule in Iraq. If it
won't be an ideal democracy, let it be a crippled democracy, but
let it not be a totalitarian dictatorship. I don't like many things
in today's Russia, but we have to say that there is a difference
between Putin and Stalin. In my opinion, the religious visions
of Bush's circle are anachronistic. I can't believe that John
Ashcroft has personal conversations with God every day, who tells
him what to do. But if God told him that he should destroy Saddam,
then this was the right advice, because a world without Saddam
Hussein is better than a world with Saddam Hussein.
TC:
This is a fundamental political ideological position.
AM: Yes, but I can imagine that even a bad government guided
by a bad ideology can enter into a just war.
...
TC:
Throughout your revolutionary period, when you were fighting against
communism, you always took a position of nonviolence. Now, in
supporting the war you are advocating violence. Can you explain
this? I ask this because many people in the United States admired
you for your nonviolent stance against communism. But now they
say, "Michnik advocates nonviolence, but he's supporting
this war." Isn't it paradoxical to advocate the promotion
of human rights through violent means? I realize that this is
a difficult question
AM: No, it's a very easy one. I can't remember any text
of mine where I said that one should fight Hitler without violence;
I'm not an idiot. AgainstJaruzelski
you could fight without violence, even against Brezhnev. This
is clear if you look atAndrei Sakharov and
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. But never against Saddam Hussein. In the
state of Saddam, the opposition could find a place only in cemeteries.
TC:
So some situations call for violence in order to overthrow totalitarianism,
fascism?
AM: Of course. I've never been a pacifist.
TC:
No, I know that. But I repeat: in the United States, people say
that Michnik was for nonviolence, and now he's for violence. This
is what people tell me.
AM: There are dictatorships against which you can fight
without violence; for example, the British Empire in India. But
in the Third Reich of Hitler, there was no possibility of this.
Read the whole interview at http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/articles/sp04/cushman.htm
