I wonder if there is another country in the world that is so systematically racist, like Germany. So much so that our Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer (CSU, Christian Conservative) would rather distract from the police and the authorities, rather than commission a study of racism in society. The problem is that, unlike the police, society cannot exercise executive power or, unlike the authorities, cannot exercise legislative power.
But there is also latent inner-German racism. Thirty years after the reunification of Germany, there is still strong resentment between West and East Germans. Also Northern Germans are uptight, Swabians are isoteric Corona deniers, Bavarians are Christian jerks, citizens of Berlin are anarchists and Saxons hate everything that does not come from Saxony.
And in North Rhine-Westphalia (my homeland) we are anyway overrun by foreigners and since the end of the German economic miracle the unrealistic green beggars of the nation. I could expand the list at will, but I think the core of my statement is clear and unambiguous.
And if we do not all secretly hate each other, then we are Europe’s know-it-all, completely ignoring how firmly German politics is held in the hands of the domestic automative industry thanks to lobbyism. If this continues, Germany will not be able to survive as an industrial nation, which is mainly dependent on its exports.
But thanks to Covid-19, we can cover up everything for now and instead argue about the sense and nonsense of Corona measures. So much so that one week after the ban on the accommodation of people from Corona hotspots, we can overturn this again in court, and after a meeting of all state ministers, we still cannot show up a general concept for all. Because sparsely populated areas such as Mecklenburg-West Pomerania do not want to follow the same rules as densely populated areas such as North Rhine-Westphalia. Ha, federalism, how it lives and how it doesn’t work.
But I don’t want to complain about federalism. No, after all, at the beginning of the crisis, this, together with the excellent evil social health care, was responsible for the comparatively fewest corona deaths. And also in view of the second wave, we are in a good position compared to our European neighbours.
But Covid-19 is going to kick our ass this year (as at least a simulation from Saarland University predicts), the economy dominated by the automotive industry still doesn’t have a plan for the future, and politicians prefer to continue to inflate our parliament with members despite previous reform (so much so that we can afford the largest parliament in the world with taxpayers’ money, right behind China) and our conservatives refuse to settle with countries such as Poland, Austria and Hungary, simply because their nationalistic governments adopt a conservative style. But Neville Chamberlain and David Lloyd George also believed that one could negotiate with a political extremist and hasardeur like Adolf Hitler. But presumably people like Jarosław Kaczyński, Sebastian Kurz and Viktor Orbán are completely harmless and are at best completely misunderstood.
Conclusion: while 2020 may have brought many things to the attention of a broad political public, we are still light years away from solving these problems. And I don’t want to start with our ailing military. Sometimes you can be so proud to be a German citizen. Uch…
Can I now apply for an European citizenship?
