Libertine intellectuals' duplicity and paedophilia

Film-maker Roman Polanski, who directed “Rosemary’s Baby”, “Chinatown”, and other critical successes, was arrested in Switzerland during a film festival in response to a warrant issued by the United States. Polanski apparently did not know that Switzerland and the U.S. have a reciprocal agreement for the extradition of persons wanted for felonies and other crimes. He is accused of the rape and sodomy of a 13 year-old girl some 32 years ago in free-living Hollywood: a crime that he admitted before fleeing the U.S. in 1977 during his trial.

Now, while Swiss authorities consider the U.S. extradition request, numerous artists and intellectuals, lovers of liberty, and denizens of the world of film in Europe and America have formed a chorus of supporters – not for the victim of the crime, Samantha Geimer – but for Polanski who duped, drugged, sodomized and raped a girl in the home of actor Jack Nicholson under the pretext of taking photographs. It would appear that Polanski’s Hallelujah chorus is ready to forget the crime because of his fame and ostensible cinema talent.

One of the most vociferous defenders of the dual national of France and Poland is Frédédric Mitterand, son of the now deceased Socialist president of France, Francois. Mitterand fils is now France’s Minister of Culture in the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy. Little did Minister Mitterand suspect the hornet nest that would ensue from his defense of fellow paedophile Polanski. Marine Le Pen, the daughter of rightwinger Jean Marie Le Pen, has called Mitterand to task for his book “La Vie Mauvais” (Life of Evil) in which he recounts his escapades among boy prostitutes in Thailand. In his book, Mitterand recounts, “That whole carnival ritual of pubescent boys, of the slave market, aroused me enormously.” This disquieting confession caused even Socialists to question whether he should continue to represent French cultural values of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" even while the government has declared that it opposes sexual tourism on the part of Europeans in Third World countries.

Responding to members of his own party, and the Right, Mitterand claimed that he is the victim of fascists and a handful of Socialists. He says that he had “committed a mistake, not a crime” and would not resign since “it is an honor to be besmirched by the far right.” He gave assurances the prostitutes he frequented in Thailand were not boys. When asked by the media how he knew the difference, he spouted an explanation that drew a semantic difference between homosexuality and paedophilia.

In France, the defensive posture taken by Polanski’s posse resembles the bulwarks that intellectuals and politicians have erected around Mitterand. For example, President Sarkozy lauded Mitterand’s book as “brave” and frank. It would seem that in France, that being frank with one’s rapes and sodomy trumps both moral and legal considerations. One wonders what the Gallic reaction would be to sexual tourism on the part of government ministers from Africa or Asia in boy brothels of Paris.

Of course, Italy is not far behind in the race to Sodom and Gomorrah: Premier Silvio Berlusconi has made his vacation home and the national palace itself into his own sexual playground but of a more orthodox sort. Berlusconi and a former president of the Czech Republic were photographed in the summer of 2009 in the act of frolicking with two succubi at the Italian’s vacation home in Sardinia. Of course, this brought disapproval from Berlusconi’s political rivals and churchmen.

But is there indeed a scandal? For a scandal to ensue there would have to be a moral fabric in Europe to be rent or stretched. It would appear that public intellectuals in Europe are but scandalized by the vulgarity of the sexual transgressions of three wealthy and powerful men. That Berlusconi can bring disrepute on his republic by behaving like a debauched pagan Caesar, or that Mitterand can evade condemnation for exploiting sex slaves in a Third World country, puts Europe’s supposed devotion to liberty on the judgement seat. Support for Polanski shows that intellectuals who crowed loudest in their condemnation of paedophile priests appear to favor sexual libertinism for their own: for them, the liberty of children and the poor of the Third World matters nothing.