M. Beisenherz: Sorry, I’m here privately
Unity and justice and frustration: A view of Germany from a distance
At the end of January, the GDL train drivers went on strike – again
© Sina Schuldt / DPA
Our columnist looks at home from far away and discovers that in the land of protesters and frustrations, some have their hearts in the right place.
By Micky Beisenherz
Three weeks in Australia. And so far not an unfriendly face. Everyone is in a good mood. Everyone smiles at you. They’re still learning that too! As a good German, I would like to briefly classify people’s emotional imbalance here. It seems so different here than back home, where the faces are significantly longer than the days. Stupid face as factory setting. Unity and right and frustration. Meanwhile, I spend a good part of the day applying a lot of my intellect to something particularly well done as part of a television production (our columnist works as a writer for the RTL show “I’m a star – get me out of here!”, editor’s note). To use mindless things. And, of course, in the fifteenth year you ask yourself now and then whether it isn’t enough at some point. Sure, the job is great fun, the team is great, the show is successful, and spending your free time feeding friendly bearded dragons with fruit from the açaí bowl on the beach is certainly not a burden. And yet there is the thought: Isn’t it enough? At 46? How long are you going to keep doing this nonsense?
Protest as a popular sport
On the other hand, if I left spontaneously, I probably wouldn’t come home at all. Landing by plane will be difficult if the airports are on strike. Should I still arrive in Frankfurt, I wouldn’t come to Hamburg because Weselsky is playing Braveheart for the railway workers again or because the farmers are blocking the highways. Nothing works anymore, it seems. It’s almost astonishing that you can still shop in a supermarket without the woman at checkout three spontaneously pulling the divider over your head. Is there any person in this country who is not in denial right now? Protest as a popular sport. Resentment as a collective feeling. That It feels like Germany is still behind Afghanistan in the global happiness index, that’s nothing new, but was it ever that bad? When the theme floats drive through Cologne next Monday and thousands are on the streets, you won’t know at first: carnival – or uprising?
Even Helene Fischer takes a stand
What is remarkable is the much larger number of people who are leaving the house in their hundreds of thousands against right-wing extremism and the AfD (do we have to separate them?). It forms a kind of marching counter-public to the Weidel party’s poll numbers, which is now having to cope with a setback for the first time. At 22 percent in the polls it seemed a little less dirty to choose this party, but now even the Schlüters next door are demonstrating against the pearl necklace fascists. And didn’t even Helene Fischer, who was previously known as the Sagrotan siren without any attitude, oppose the AfD? A particularly honorable commitment, as this is presumably behavior that is damaging to business.
I look at all this from a distance of 16,000 kilometers. They seem much closer to me when they report on the German demonstrations for human rights on the radio here in Australia.
What remains is the realization that it might be advisable not to stop when things are at their best, but to carry on with the nonsense as long as it makes you happy, because: the bad times will come anyway.
And back in Germany, the individual faces on the street may not be smiling at you right now. But the many who are on the road right now at least have their hearts in the right place. I feel in very good hands there.