“What must be said” by Günter Grass

Günter Grass

 Günter Grass pada tahun 2004.

          Günter Wilhelm Grass (lahir pada 16 Oktober 1927 di Kota Bebas Danzig) adalah seorang penulis asal Jerman. Ia adalah pemenang Penghargaan Nobel dalam Sastra pada tahun 1999.

      Grass sering dianggap sebagai bagian dari gerakan seni bernama Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Novelnya yang paling terkenal adalah novel pertamanya, Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum dalam bahasa Inggris) yang diterbitkan tahun 1959. Bersama dengan Katz und Maus (1961) dan Hundejahre (1963), ketiganya membentuk apa yang disebut Trilogi Danzig dan berkisah tentang bangkitnya Nazisme dan pengalaman masa perang di Danzig.

         Karya-karyanya sering mempunyai dimensi politik yang kuat, dan Grass sendiri adalah pendukung aktif Partai Demokratik Sosial dan lama berkecimpung dalam politik sayap kiri. Ia dipandang oleh banyak pihak sebagai suara moral yang penting yang menentang xenofobia dan perang.^[1] Pada tahun 2006, Grass mengakui bahwa pada usia 17 tahun ia sendiri pernah bergabung dengan pasukan Jerman Nazi Waffen-SS pada sekitar akhir Perang Dunia II.^[2]

Günter Grass lelah dengan kemunafikan Barat, sanksi Iran karena kegiatan nuklirnya, sementara memasok Israel dengan kapal selam nuklir Dolphin berisi  500 bom nuklirnya. Dalam puisi barunya, What Must be Said, ia menyatakan:

Why I am silent, silent for too much time,

    how much is clear and we made it

    in war games, where, as survivors,

    we are just the footnotes

  

 That is the claimed right to the formal preventive aggression

    which could erase the Iranian people

    dominated by a bouncer and moved to an organized jubilation,

    because in the area of his competence there is

    the construction of the atomic bomb

And then why do I avoid myself

    to call the other country with its name,

    where since years – even if secretly covered -

    there is an increasing nuclear power,

    without control, because unreachable

    by every inspection?

  

 I feel the everybody silence on this state of affairs,

    which my silence is slave to,

    as an oppressive lie and an inhibition that presents punishment

    we don’t pay attention to;

    the verdict “anti-Semitism” is common

Now, since my country,

    from time to time touched by unique and exclusive crimes,

    obliged to justify itself,

    again for pure business aims – even if

    with fast tongue we call it “reparation” -

    should deliver another submarine to Israel,

    with the specialty of addressing

    annihilating warheads where the

    existence of one atomic bomb is not proved

    but it wants evidence as a scarecrow,

    I say what must be said

Why did I stay silent until now?

    Because the thought about my origin,

    burdened by an unclearing stain,

    had avoiding to wait this fact

    like a truth declared by the State of Israel

    that I want to be connected to

Why did I say it only now,

    old and with the last ink:

    the nuclear power of Israel

    threat the world peace?

    Because it must be said

    what tomorrow will be too late;

    Because – as Germans and with

    enough faults on the back -

    we might also become deliverers of a predictable

    crime, and no excuse would erase our complicity

And I admit: I won’t be silent

    because I had enough of the Western hypocrisy;

    Because I wish that many will want

    to get rid of the silence,

    exhorting the cause of a recognizable

    risk to the abdication, asking that a free and permanent control

    of the Israel atomic power

    and the Iran nuclear bases

    will be made by both the governments

    with an international supervision

Only in this way, Israelis, Palestinians, and everybody,

    all people living hostile face to face in that

    country occupied by the craziness,

    will have a way out,

     so us too

sumber:
http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Grass
http://themovingsilent.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/what-must-be-said-by-gunter-grass/
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www.akheyical.blogspot.com

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