In addition to contributing pieces such as this one to TMV, I also translate Dutch news and opinion articles from the Dutch press for the web site “Watching America” (WatchingAmerica.com).
Perhaps I am naïve, but when a couple of months ago I came across a Dutch article in the Netherlands periodical Elsevier titled, “Hoe groot is kans dat Obama wordt vermoord?” I was shocked. Shocked to see such sinister, morbid, and scandalous words about one of our presidential candidates screaming at me from the opinion pages of a reputable international periodical.
After I calmed down, I had to decide whether to translate and post the article on an American web site at all. What kind of repercussions could such a story have? Would it be called sensationalism of the worst kind? Would my Editor even post it?
Finally, after I decided to go ahead with the translation, my next decision was how to translate the word “vermoord“? You see, the Dutch word vermoord has at least two meanings, “murdered” and “assassinated.” After consulting my trusted dictionary and thesaurus, I decided to go with “assassinated,” because according to my dictionary, to assassinate means “to kill (esp. a political or religious leader) for political, fanatical, or religious motives.”
(By the way, the word “Assassin,” derived from the name of the Hashshashin sect, has a fascinating–albeit disputed–linguistic, historical, religious and political etymology going back to the eleventh century.)
Since Obama is a political leader, and since his murder, in my opinion, would be for “political, fanatical, or (even) religious motives,“ I decided to use the ugly word “assassinated,” and a slightly modified title: “What is the Chance that Obama is Assassinated?“
The article itself (available at Watching America) recalls the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and other “charismatic” American leaders. The author advances the theory that such “charismatic politicians in America always summon great opposition. So much that malignant forces consider it a solemn duty to extinguish ‘the ignited light‘, if necessary by murder,” and expresses concern for another charismatic leader, called Barack Obama…
After translating and posting the article, I did not give the subject further thought, until the now-famous Hillary Clinton interview where she so insensitively recalled and evoked the Robert Kennedy assassination. There were others and other equally indefensible comments about Senator Obama.
The Dutch press picked up on Senator Clinton’s remarks and wrote extensively about it, as did the media, worldwide.
A May 29 opinion piece in the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant caught my eye, again because of its sensational title. This time the title, “Obama Vermoord,” was not only shocking, but also insinuated a terrible fait-accompli. You see, literally–and correctly–translated, the title is “Obama Assassinated.”
The article by Dutch columnist Iris Koppe, relates the author’s recent experiences in the United States while following the McCain and Obama campaigns and her conversations with Washington D.C. and New York residents.
In her column, Koppe is preoccupied with the safety of Barack Obama and, after quoting a Washington taxi driver who appears genuinely worried that Obama might be assassinated before November 4, she writes: “At first, this seemed to be an incident, but soon it turned out that the pronouncement was a more common line of thought. Nine out of ten people whom I approached on the streets of New York and Washington, and whom I asked about their preference for the Democratic presidential candidate, said something similar.”
After lambasting Clinton for her unfortunate remarks, Koppe concludes: “It is appalling how she dared to put into words the fears of Americans over a possible assassination, for her own gain. And everyone knows that Robert Kennedy was assassinated on June 5 and that Republican Nixon won the election.”
I did translate and post the article on Watching America, but not before changing the title to, “Dutch Columnist Writes Article, ‘Obama Assassinated‘” and even adding a caveat to explain.
Still conflicted, and still naïve about using and writing such inflammatory words, titles and articles dealing with assassinations, especially during our highly charged political campaigns and elections this year, I decided to do some research to see if anyone else, besides Hillary and the Dutch press, was talking or writing about this subject.
Naturally, I went to Google first and “googled” “Obama Assassinated. “ I did not need to go any further. There were a whopping–give or take a few–198,000 “results” for that search term. When I removed the quotation marks, the number of results went up to 397,000.
In fact, the very first result in the long list of entries under “Obama Assassination” was a link to “An ugly, popular search term grows: ‘assassinate Obama.’”
The link to the site–Seattlelepi.com– took me to a post that began as follows, “An ugly topic is capturing attention on the Internet: Today the phrase “assassinate Obama” appeared on a list of the top 100 Google search terms.” This comment was posted back on January 8, 2008–more than four month ago!
It thus turns out that I was very naïve when I first registered shock when reading that ominous headline in the Dutch periodical. Such naiveté is sadly gone now, but so is –I am afraid–America’s naiveté, and some more of our innocence as a nation.
Following Hillary Clinton’s inappropriate comments on the assassination of Robert Kennedy, presidential historian Doug Brinkley is reported to have said that “assassination” is well known to be a third rail, an off-limits word in American politics.
I am afraid that more and more people are recklessly stepping on this third rail. They are doing so at their own risk.
Finally, I realize that this post may push the “Google count” for that dreaded phrase even higer. That is truly an unintended consequence.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.