How should one deal with Imperialists?

jW speaks with human rights award winner Norbert Bluem (CDU) Leipzig, Germany
June 11, 2001
http://www.jungewelt.de
Junge Welt (jW) (The federal parliamentary and former welfare minister was distinguished with the 2001 Leipzig Human Rights Award on Sunday. Last year it was handed out for the first time as the "Alternative Charlemagne Award.")

F: The European-American Citizens Committee is honoring your courageous appearances as a politician with the Alternative Charlemagne Award. Why does that take courage?

Courage - well, yes, I didn't see it so heroically. It's true that the Scientologists do not exactly deal with their opponents lighthandedly.

They have signed instructions which include eavesdropping upon and libelling people. Scientology acts on people's fears. For instance they threatened me by saying they would distribute their dossier on me to television. They've called me all kinds of names in their newspaper: the "Rasputin" of politics, for example. But I don't worry about that sort of thing. One only has to know that they are unscrupulous, that they have power and that they will use any means publicly.

F: Why are there so few politicians, then, who work against Scientology?

What we are dealing with here is violations of the mind, and those are not so conspicuous. If they were to break someone's arm then everyone could see that, but when the mind is broken, nobody sees that. The Scientologists' control is noiseless.

F: What can politics do about that?

I don't support a ban because that would only make martyrs. I believe that one has to cut the ground from under their feet with information. And do it in such a way that their ship will not pull into port in Germany, as they have planned.

F: Distributing information takes people.

This is not the old scheme of the poor people being defenseless. Here even the rich people are at risk. The Scientologists do not target the recipients of the welfare system as much as they do management levels.

They are looking for people who want to be successful and who therefore will accept Scientology's psycho-offerings without any criticism. Moreover I think students are also at risk.

F: Why?

Because, as a rule, academics want to improve.

F: You have described the Scientologists as new Imperialists. What then would conventional imperialism be for you?

Imperialism strives for domination. Imperialism as we know it from history, colonization, deals with the conquest of countries and populations. This time we are dealing with the inner life of people. They are not being bound in chains, but are being made dependent upon psycho-technology.

F: But advertising also appeals to people's inner lives. Business binds people as consumers. Isn't that also a form of dependency?

If Scientology were as harmless as advertising, I would have nothing at all against it. In Scientology, people are made to heel with so-called auditing, that is interrogation technology. Comparing that with advertising is rationalizing it.

F: Isn't it also rationalization, in reverse, to compare Scientology founder Hubbard with Hitler, as happened on Sunday at the award ceremony?

I do not compare Hubbard to Hitler. I only compare their totalitarian systems. Scientology's ideology is totalitarian. We, the opponents of Scientology, are being compared to Hitler in America because we warn against Scientology. The word has to be gotten out - parents, company management, and also students.

Interview: Anna Lehmann --- Unofficial translation/critical interpretation of German media, For
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