What Must Be Said  

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"What Must Be Said" ("Was gesagt werden muss") is a 2012 prose poem by the German writer Günter Grass, recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. The poem discusses an alleged threat of annihilation of the Iranian people and the writer's fears that Germany's delivery to Israel of a sixth Dolphin class submarine capable of carrying nuclear warheads might facilitate an eventual Israeli nuclear attack on Iran, and thus involve his country in a foreseeable crime.

The poem was first published on 4 April 2012 by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, La Repubblica and El País, triggering four days later the declaration by Eli Yishai, the Israeli Minister for the Interior, that Grass, who had visited Israel in 1967 and 1971, was now persona non grata.

Content

The poem is written in prose and consists of 69 lines in 9 unrhymed stanzas. The basic theme is that it is hypocritical to blame Iran unilaterally for perhaps also having a desire to acquire nuclear weapons when Israel itself has a "growing nuclear potential". Grass adopts the assumption that Israel is planning a “first strike” preventive war against Iran that could wipe out the Iranian people. He deplores the fact that Germany is furnishing Israel with a submarine capable of delivering nuclear bombs, and says no one in the West dares to mention Israel in connection with nuclear weaponry. The author assesses that an attack on Iran would be a crime, to which Germany would become an accomplice.

A noticeable stylistic theme is that in six of the nine sentences, the theme of silence is repeated as "silence", "general silence", or "forbidding myself to name [the country]". The author first asks himself "Why [was] I silent for so long?" and answers it with "because my heritage, which is forever burdened by an unclearing stain, prohibits, to deliver this fact as a spoken truth to the state of Israel, to which I feel [...] and want to stay connected". Continuing, he is demanding that no further German "submarine shall be delivered to Israel, with the specialty of delivering annihilating warheads to where the existence of one single nuclear bomb is unproven". These are delivered by "my country, which is time after time caught-up [...] for its very own and unprecedented crimes, [...] on a pure commercial basis, even though declared with fast tongue as reparation". He continues that he feels it as an "incriminating lie and constraint". to keep the "general silence about these facts"., even though it "promises punishment as soon as it is broached". -- the common verdict: "anti-Semitism".

He further criticises the "Western hypocrisy" and hopes "that many will want to get rid of their silence, to demand from the initiator of this recognizable danger [Israel], to abstinence from violence". Finally he demands that an "unhindered and permanent control of the Israeli nuclear arsenal and the Iranean nuclear complexes by an international authority will be allowed by the governments of both countries"; only this way "Israelis, Palestinians, and even more everybody who is living face to face as enemies in this region occupied by delusion and craziness, and last not least ourselves, can be helped.".

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