to ripen and mature. Instant tourism,rnthey lightheartedly assume, is a massrnrecipe for instant happiness, or at anyrnrate contentment. But one may wellrnwonder if what it really manufactures isrnnot ersatz entertainment, the illusion ofrnhappiness, and, when all is said andrndone, one more blase form of individualrnor collective boredom.rnLet no one think that I am here indulgingrnin fun-spoiling Schadenfreude.rnBut if you feel that you must absolutelyrnvisit Venice for the first time—and I sincerelyrnhope you do—let me offer you,rnfree of charge, four pieces of advice. Dornnot fly in by air, but approach by road orrnrail, or even better, if you can afford therntime, by ship, when this aquatic miracle,rnas E.M. Forster noted long ago in A Passagernto India, looms out of the mists ofrnthe Adriatic as a perfect architectural embodimentrnof the West’s sense of symmetryrnand order.rnDo not visit Venice during the stiflinglyrnhot summer months of July and August.rnDo not visit Venice during the nowrn”fashionable” months of September andrnOctober. Instead, choose one of thernmonths of early spring when, as GeorgernSand once wrote, the caged nightingalesrnregain their voices and the flower-boxesrnon the arched balconies blossom forthrnwith giant campanulas, honeysucklernclusters, and Greek roses.rnAbove all, discard your newspapersrnand vour magazines and prepare yourselfrn”for the occasion” by buying or borrowingrna volume of Gasanova’s Memoirs.rnOr, if you can possibly find a copy, ofrnLorenzo da Ponte’s almost as fascinatingrnautobiography (first published, oddlyrnenough, in New York). Don’t, whateverrnhappens, miss the hilarious story of howrnCasanova despoiled the Marquise d’Urfernof her jewels, only to be tricked by hisrnVenetian manservant, Gosta, who, whenrnthey later met again in Vienna, explainedrnto his former master that he hadrnmerely wanted in his turn to become anrnitinerant gentleman and poet; a morernsuccessful, real-life Leporello, whosernopening lament in Don Giovanni wasrnnot idly chosen by Da Ponte: “Voglio farrnil gentihiomo.” “I want to play the gentleman”rn—in other words, the opposite ofrnwhat today’s jet-propelled tourist tramprnwants to be and consequently becomes.rnCurtis Cate is the author of six books, includingrna biography of Andre Malraux,rnrecently published bv Fromm in NewrnYork.rnLetter FromrnGermanyrnby Josef SchiisslbumerrnTotalitarian Again?rnOn January 9, 1997, in an open letter inrnthe New York Times to German ChancellorrnHelmut Kohl, American artistsrnand intellectuals criticized the discriminatoryrntreatment of Scientologists inrnGermany. Although the petitionersrnclaimed not to be biased in their complaintrnby sympathy for this church, theirrnobjectivity has to be questioned, for therernare far more serious instances of discriminationrnand intolerance in Germany.rnThese social activists usually end uprn”Nazifying the Germans,” equating thern”victims” of the moment with the Jews ofrnthe holocaust. What they miss, however,rnis that the past most relevant for understandingrnGemiany today is not the periodrnof the 1930’s and 40’s but the periodrnof the communist dictatorship, when thernSoviet Union ruled the major part of ourrncountry.rnThough the unification of Germanyrnwas ostensibly a crushing defeat for thernleft who opposed it, this defeat has beenrnturned into a stunning victory, as therncommunist past is now repeating itself inrnGermany in the guise of liberalism. Thernvictorious left is currently represented inrnthe Bundestag by the Party of DemocraticrnSocialism (PDS), by the “Greens”rn(whose leaders came from the radical ’68rngeneration and were sympathetic to thernleft-wing terrorists of the 1970’s), as wellrnas by the Social Democrats, classified asrn”liberals” by American analysts. Afterrnunification, the leading communists ofrnthe East German regime dubbed themselvesrnthe “Party of the DemocraticrnLeft”; the Christian Democrats of thatrndictatorship were absorbed by Kohl’srnChristian Democratic Party (CDU), andrnthe Liberal Democratic Party was incorporatedrninto Kohl’s coalition partner, thernhberal Free Democratic Party. This inclusionrnof communists and their willingrnChristian and liberal collaborators intornthe “democratic bloc” has imposed arncommunist mindset on the culture ofrnunified Germany.rnUninformed people around the worldrnare used to identifying Kohl’s ChristianrnDemocratic Party as “conservative,”rnthough it is nothing of the sort; it is evenrnto the left of the neoconser’ative BritishrnTories and American Republicans. ThernCDU’s top leaders, in fact, would rejectrnthe label “conservative.” In its earlyrnyears, the part}’ openly embraced Christianrnsocialism and the nationalization ofrn”key” industries. Only the circumstancesrnof the Cold War and the expectationsrnof its supporters forced the CDUrnto appear more conservative than it reallyrnis. In the last European elections.rnChancellor Kohl favored Mr. Blair’srnNew Labour over the Europe-doubtingrnBritish Conservatives, and he was not unhappyrnwith the election results in Francernthat brought the united left, includingrncommunists, back into government.rnThe collapse of the Soviet Union andrnher tvrannical internationalism forcedrnthe left to find a new ideological fatherland,rnwhich ironically turned out to berneither liberal America or multiculturalrn”Europe,” meaning the left has had tornturn to political ideas it had previouslyrnassociated with the enemy. The majorityrnof Germans, at least 60 percent, arernhostile to the left’s agenda, especially thernabolition of Germany’s currency. ChancellorrnKohl, in his zealotry for a unitedrnEurope, must therefore buck the will ofrnhis people and forge left-wing internationalismrnwith the pan-Europeanismrnof the centrist Christian Democraticrnparties.rnAmericans may wonder how 60 percentrnof Germans can oppose the abolitionrnof their currency, but still have thernmeasure rammed down their throats by arn99 percent majority (a classic Soviet majority)rnof their freely and democraticallyrnelected representatives. Can this berndemocracy? Wliy not simply sack thesernrascals and throw them out of office?rnUnfortrmately, it is very difficult to dornthis within a party system based on proportionalrnrepresentation and ruled byrnparty bosses. It is therefore imprudent forrnmembers of Parliament to oppose thernparty leadership, which in the case of thern”governing party” is largely identicalrnwith the government. To comprehendrnthe totalitarian nature of the situation,rnkeep in mind that the original “anti-fascist”rnconstitution of communist EastrnGermany in 1949 was only a cunningrnversion of the previously adopted constitutionrnof West Germany, which is nowrnthe constitution of reunited Germany.rnThis similarity shows that one only has tornAPRIL 1998/37rnrnrn