Preamble: I wrote this article in a very emotional state of mind and wanted to publish it quickly. Consequently, I would like to ask your forgiveness for typos and less-than-perfect formulations. I will try to improve them during the next few days.
Yesterday, I watched “Jauch” and I was truly appalled. With the show. With the moderation. With the selection of candidates. With the high degree of inhuman comments you could hear all the time.
I was shocked to see how much room was given to small-minded philistines’ fear. The un-thought-through comments of many candidates truly gave me pause. Christian Haase, probably a self-elected speaker of the Bautzen “Citizens’ Initiative Greenpark” (!) was permitted to publicly talk what was objectively nonsense. The ignorance of German politics was formulated in textbook manner by the far-from-realistic rubbish voiced by the politician and functionary Hans-Peter Friedrich. The riskiness and arrogance of the right-wing Swiss policy and perhaps also society represented by Roger Köppel, member of the “right-wing conservative” Swiss SVP, was given a public platform. And neither was I very happy to see how Maya Alkhechen, who was allegedly a victim and towards whom I certainly felt sympathetic, seemed a little indoctrinated.
To me, it seemed unbelievable that, in the face of such tragedies, people are actually permitted to talk so much rubbish in such a frivolous and superficial way in a central German public TV program. The respect for all the many dead alone would have compelled me to forbid such a thing.
I was happy to see that Heribert Prantl – a lone fighter – held up the values of a humane and enlightened society. And that Harald Höppner, who in today’s FAZ was called “a well-meaning amateur”, at least provided us with a strong symbol.
The rest is gruesome and unfathomable for me.
Here are a few additional ideas about the background of the situation.
As I see it, history is made up of highly complex and causal mechanisms. Even in retrospect, those mechanisms are not easy to understand and explain. Just read a book like “Verwandlung der Welt” by Osterhammel and you will understand what I mean.
This means that everything, also the Africa problem and all others in our current world-wide situation, has its causes. And it would be the duty of politics to steer us wisely through this difficult situation.
About Africa: the ruin of Africa caused by the idiotic politics of the “West” is not something that started just a few decades ago. Our prosperity, which we live in and which seems so important to us that we wish to preserve it by all means, originated somewhere. Among other things, it also originated with our industriousness. As well as with our climate, which basically makes it possible to really work hard. But when all is said and done, our prosperity was achieved at the cost of the poor countries all over the world. What I am saying is: if you think it through logically, it is actually based on exploitation.
Africa burns because it has been exploited for more than three hundred years. Why don’t you just read the history textbooks? Formerly, Africa was basically exploited by the “Western World” – today, it is exploited by all the rest of the world. And then there comes a day when the “rich” need to pay for such behaviour. It is not something you can quickly repair with some “Marshall Plan” or through an administrative process including the notice of rejection. Even saying such a thing is stupid and naïve and borders on impudence.
That is why we cannot just lean back and let people drown, no matter how many reasonable or unreasonable arguments can be voiced in the context.
Let me contribute with a few more ideas in order to open your mind:
- Do any of you remember the refugee catastrophe on the Baltic Ocean in 1945? People in misery fled into “Rest-Germany”. Nobody could distinguish between solders, war refugees, political refugees (because they were national socialists), economic refugees (because they had nothing to eat) or those just fleeing from the Russians. Would it have been a reason to reject them if they had fled because they were afraid of the Russians? And if you can believe history, then even the inhuman and already instable “Third Reich” saved a higher percentage of refugees from drowning than the European Union now does in the Mediterranean.
- What would have happened in Germany, if the MS Europa, the German five-star ship with around 350 persons on board had capsized in the Mediterranean with almost nothing left? I chose this ship as an example because I know it well and I also know what sorts of people usually travel on it. The memorial service for the crashed GermanWings airplane is not long behind us. The dead, too, have their class society.
Let me close this article by telling you that I am currently in a difficult phase of life. In my private life, I am very satisfied and happy. As a social being, however, I suffer more and more under what happens in our society. The behaviour of “my Europe” hurts.
At the same time, I am horror-stricken to see how the same politicians who document their inhumanness on a daily basis without even being ashamed of it want to quickly pass laws and regulations that violate our constitution (VDS, TTIP), neglecting democratic rules and the desire of the people they govern in the process.
Also, I hear more and more lies. I see people acting without responsibility and conscience. There is much more I could write about this. Yet what is worst is my feeling of helplessness. I have no idea what I could do against it and get the impression that all I can do is stand aside as a helpless spectator. And that is something that really annoys me!
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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