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Geopolitics

French Sociologist To Media, Feminists: Show Strauss-Kahn The Respect He Deserves

The “spectacle” that the American judicial system has made of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is not only “unbearable,” it is also “disgraceful,” argues French sociologist Michel Fize.

Michel Fize

Have journalists been practicing "omertà" in the sexual harassment cases in which Dominique Strauss-Kahn is implicated?

Should they have published photos of the IMF head being led out of the police station? Was there any collusion?

The American "judicial spectacle," which surely takes after certain Hollywood blockbuster portrayals, is utterly abominable. The images last week of Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) leaving the Harlem police station under the flicker of camera flashes, handcuffed from behind, surrounded by sinister-looking police officers, are reminiscent of those of Lee Harvey Oswald, John Fitzgerald Kennedy's alleged assassin, leaving the police building in Dallas in November 1963. Oswald was similarly escorted –and then shot on live television by Jack Ruby. DSK got lucky!

These images are unbearable and above all disgraceful to a nation that sees itself as a great democracy. The French judicial system deserves a bit of appreciation, as at least it prohibits, since the year 2000, the circulation of such images.

This "perp walk," we're told from across the Atlantic, is done to both humiliate the suspect (though presumed innocent!) and to dissuade potential criminals from breaking the law. On this last point, we must reiterate that no penalty has ever dissuaded anyone from breaking the law; everyone has his or her own social or personal reasons for obeying the law.

As far as the humiliation argument is concerned, the objective has been reached (we'll add to these images the other no less degrading ones of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, dejected, in the courtroom, barely keeping himself on his feet in front of the judge who wouldn't even dare crack a smile at the end of the hearing).

Whether or not Mr. Strauss-Kahn is guilty, it is unacceptable to treat a man in this way – first of all because he is a human being, and second because he was the general director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Listen to me well: like everyone, I believe in and am therefore committed to the principle of equality of all citizens in the eyes of the law. Nevertheless, I think that there are certain individuals (Mr. Strauss-Kahn is one of them) who, by reason of his or her distinguished responsibilities, or for the services they rendered to their nation or the world, have the right to a certain respect that would neither mean impunity from their acts nor a mitigation of their penalties. In this case, it seems that Mr. Strauss-Kahn was not and is still not treated respectfully, that he is treated even more poorly than a "regular" defendant. This is not, in my opinion, justifiable.

"The respect of women"

There are those who resent such empathy toward a man suspected of aggravated sexual assault. We mention in particular the recent pronouncements of some feminists. "Respect for women must prevail," Gisèle Halimi tells us, for example. "Does anyone care what the young maid might have felt and feels?" adds Clémentine Autain, the former deputy mayor of Paris. I believe, as a response to Mrs. Halimi, that it is the respect of victims, no matter who they are, that must be called for.

But in the current case, having heard nothing to this day but the words of the accuser, it is dangerous for anyone to identify with certitude the victim. The maid did not lie, Gisèle Halimi tells us. "What would her motive be?" I'm sorry, madam, but at this stage in the investigation, the possibility of manipulation should not be discounted. They say the assaulted woman was "beautiful." When one knows Mr. Strauss-Kahns penchant for "beautiful women," how could we not imagine a generous "gift" (from who knows who?) to DSK and consensual sexual relations, as argued by the accused's defense?

Let me conclude with the important grey areas of the case. Here we have a man, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who – after allegedly committing serious crimes – leaves calmly to eat breakfast with his daughter. Then, on his way to the airport, he calls the hotel (which has been alerted of the supposed assault since 12:30 p.m.) in order to report a forgotten cell phone in his room. Is this normal behavior for someone who has committed such crimes?

Not at all. DSK's accusers are at this point nowhere close to proving his alleged crimes. Let's therefore restrain ourselves just a bit for the time being. I think this applies to both politicians in power, who, alas, are slowly leaving behind their privacy, and to feminists whose legitimate struggle for women's rights should not cause them to forget the clearheadedness and prudence that befits such circumstances.

(Michel Fize is a sociologist and national delegate to justice and liberties at the Mouvement unitaire progressiste)

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Germany

Where 'The Zone Of Interest' Won't Go On Auschwitz — A German Critique Of New Nazi Film

Rudolf Höss was the commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp who lived with his family close to the camp. Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest, a favorite to win at the Cannes Festival, tells Höss' story, but fails to address the true inhumanity of Nazism, says Die Welt's film critic.

Where 'The Zone Of Interest' Won't Go On Auschwitz — A German Critique Of New Nazi Film

A still from The Zone of Interest by

Hanns-Georg Rodek

-Essay-

BERLIN — This garden is the pride and joy of Hedwig, the housewife. She has planned and laid out everything — the vegetable beds and fruit trees and the greenhouse and the bathtub.

Her kingdom is bordered on one long side by a high, barbed-wire wall. Gravel paths lead to the family home, a two-story building with clean lines, no architectural frills. Her husband praises her when he comes home after work, and their three children — ages two to five — play carefree in the little "paradise," as the mother calls her refuge.

The wall is the outer wall of the concentration camp Auschwitz; in the "paradise" lives the camp commander Rudolf Höss with his family.

The film is called The Zone of Interest — after the German term "Interessengebiet," which the Nazis used to euphemistically name the restricted zone around Auschwitz — and it is a favorite among critics at this week's Cannes Film Festival.

The audacity of director Jonathan Glazer's style takes your breath away, and it doesn't quickly come back.

It is a British-Polish production in which only German is spoken. The real house of the Höss family was not directly on the wall, but some distance away, but from the upper floor, Höss's daughter Brigitte later recalled, she could see the prisoners' quarters and the chimneys of the old crematorium.

Glazer moved the house right up against the wall for the sake of his experimental arrangement, a piece of artistic license that can certainly be justified.

And so one watches the Höss family go about their daily lives: guiding visitors through the little garden, splashing in the tub, eating dinner in the house, being served by the domestic help, who are all silent prisoners. What happens behind the wall, they could hear and smell. They must have heard and smelled it. You can see the red glow over the crematorium at night. You hear the screams of the tortured and the shots of the guards. The Höss family blocks all this out.

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