COMMON HISTORICAL ROOTS
583
something temporary, to fill the vacuum created by the Communist to–
talitarian societies, or will it become a better norm, something like the
military coming to cure the social order, except that it is the artist
coming to cure the human soul and the imagination?
Susan Sontag:
The question was, is the fact that some of the people
who led the intellectual opposition in Communist countries are now in
leading government positions, as in Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia, only a
phenomenon of transition, or something that cou ld endure?
Blaga Dirnitrova:
Yes , this is a transitional event. It occurred to fill the
gap, the vacuum, the lack of real political figures. Weare still in a period
of struggle; we are not yet in a state of real politics. And because we, the
intellectuals, were the people who started the fight and are still engaged
in this struggle, we must continue.
Susan Sontag: I
want to interject that it always shocks me a bit when
intellectuals from Europe are so quick to assert that intellectuals are not
qualified to be political leaders. As a citizen of the country in which a
Dan Quayle can stand in line for the presidency, I don't see why intel–
lectuals, only intellectuals it seems, are thought to be unqualified for ex–
ecutive roles.
Qllest;OIl:
My name, Vera Perlmutter Markovin, tells you something
about my background. Yet I was born in this country and have never
lived anywhere else. And I ask any member of the panel, or any other
participant, to comment on the rise of anti - Semitism in this country and
elsewhere, including Eastern Europe and Russia.
George Konrad:
When people lose a great common enemy, they
would like to find another one in the neighborhood. In that respect, I
completely agree with Tatyana Tolstaya. Because the Jews are ev–
erywhere, they can be hated everywhere. But in countries where the level
of hatred is quite high, other ethnic minorities are also the focus of such
hatred. Yet because the presence of those other minorities is not as
pervasive as the presence of Jews, it is the Jews who hold the
championship of being hated everywhere.
Susan Sontag:
Thank you very much.
