Germany: The Great Disillusionment
The train has a dead end.
Photo from Aue, taken by Joshua Tartakovsky (C) 2022 and all rights are reserved.
19.8.2022
I used to have high expectations of Germany.
Yesterday， I took the train from Munster to Dusseldorf. The train was packed with sweating people. Indeed, a friend told me that people have mockingly called the 9 Euro ticket that entitles free passage throughout the country as the Bangladesh ticket. I was leaning with my back against the rest room’s door, waiting for the time to pass, with people squeezed infront of me, besides me and almost in between me. Then a a young man with blond hair who appeared to be drunk and not a German based on his accent- started shoving people around, until he reached the rest room. He then yelled at people in front of him and slammed the door. No one took him for account for his rude behavior. Only 20 minutes later, after he slammed the door again, pushed more people around, and managed to irritate a young person who called him a fu*ker and tried to punch him, did the quiet audience suddenly burst into hissing and began to make noises. “Do not fight, there are children here,” they said in German. So there we have it. In a normal country, someone who behaves this way would be punched in his face and made to understand that his behavior is not normal. But in Germany, outsiders are free to abuse the system, to beat passengers, to spit in the face of the system, and no one dares to say anything. The passengers were just staring at the floor, hoping for the time to pass, and not daring to confront a rowdy passenger who felt entitled. Something is deeply rotten in a culture when an aggressor is not punished.
The German society abhors violence to such a degree that it fears to even use violence for self-defense. We have a feminized society, where men are afraid to be masculine and women think being flirtatious when a man flirts with them is a crime and a source of shame. I guess you can call it neoliberal logic internalized, how to make an effective employee, or why do societies commit suicide.
Then we have the curious case of Adolf Hitler.
Hitler blew out his brains in a bunker, or escaped to Argentina. We do not know for sure what happened. But the Ukrainian Hitler, a man named Stephan Bander who was a fascist, a Nazi- collaborator, put in Auschwitz only because the Germans found him to be too rebellious, who called for an ethnically-pure Ukraine and whose followers killed Poles and Jews – to such a degree that even though Poland harbors deep hatred towards Russia it still views Bandera as a mass murderer although western media supports the view that such a perspective is itself part and parcel of Russian propaganda, has a lavish tomb and memorial (denkmal) built in his honor in a cemetery (friedhoff) in Munich, of all places. The German academia, the German government, Die Grunen, SPD, Der Spiegel and the anti-fascists all take no issue with a fact that a shrine has been built for a mass-murderer in one of the most beautiful and historical German cities, a city, incidentally, where Hitler started off his early career as an antagonizer, where he met up with his buddies in a beer hall and did some serious grassroots organizing, the kinds of which liberal and leftist academics are utterly incapable of and would not even know how to start.
I thought Germany, post-war, believed in freedom of speech. But the Russian network RT (Russia Today) is banned in Germany. Anyone who posts a “Z” and is seen as supporting the Russian side in the Ukrainian-Russian conflict can go to prison as I learned from a first hand account of a youngster sent to indefinite period in jail for posting the “Z” image on Facebook and for his alleged and unproven desire to go to Donbass in East Ukraine and fight on the Russian side. As a friend said, if supporting the “Z” is supporting an unwarranted war of aggression, what punishment suits those who supported the German war against Yugoslavia and dismembered it in the 1990s. In this unprovoked war of aggression, no one has paid the price.
I used to admire Germany. I spent two summers in Berlin, one in a think-tank, the other in an intensive German course in Humboldt Universitat. I respected Germans for being honest, straight forward, polite and humble, for coming to account with the past and for turning Berlin into such an interesting underground place of culture. But all that was a facade. Germany (that is west Germany, the victor of the Cold War) has never really – since World War II- developed a culture of its own, it has simply become a yes-sayer to the United States. The US, whose army bases go on loitering the country 70 or 80 years later, has the final say on what German foreign policy will look like. US President Barack Obama did not like the harsh economic conditions imposed on Greece for its massive debt, but he could not or did not force Germany’s hand to do otherwise. One could even argue that Germany could be forgiven for making Greece pay for its debt, although its own debt was forgiven by the allies, because Germans tend to be strict on financial matters and that is simply how they do finance. But as the fourth largest economy in the world, German industry relies heavily on Russian gas to keep running, and now Germany has chosen to impose sanctions on Russia, thereby harming – directly- its own industries, even bringing about their downfall, to look the other way when Ukrainian politicians laud Bandera as if they do not know who he is, to support NATO expansion in Ukraine and to fight China if it seeks to establish its authority over Taiwan, an integral part of the People’s Republic of China, to freeze its citizens throughout the coming winter by burying the Nord Stream II, to ban protests against Covid-19 restrictions and to make it illegal to post the Z sign while giving arms and money to Ukraine’s army including to its neo-Nazi units.
Roland Barthes said that using guilt is a mechanism of control to manipulate the person. I do not wish to manipulate Germany into shame for the past as Israeli politicians like to do, thereby securing blind support of the Federal Republic of Germany towards apartheid policies. I like, or rather used to like Germany, and am a fan of many German films including Fassbinder, Goodbye Lenin, Run Lola Run, the Lives of Others, and the Baader Meihoff Complex. I am simply disillusioned. Germany is pursuing Washington’s policies, its people have lost their ability to dissent, and its culture has turned from a healthy one to a passive-aggressive one. There should be no doubt in one’s mind, that Washington will have no qualms about sacrificing its allies for its geopolitical and strategic interests. Germany may well be on a train to nowhere – to Auschwitz if you will – as it commits suicide. If you find this comparison abhorrent, I wonder if you have anything to say about Israeli member of Parliament Itamar Ben Gvir- embraced by Netanyahu-, a rising ultra-right star, who said that an Israeli leftist by the name of Ofer Kasif, a Communist of Hadash, also a member of parliament, should be deported to Europe on a train (although doing so would be impossible in the practical sense since the borders with Lebanon and Syria are closed) since Europe needs working hands ( alluding perhaps to Arbeit macht Frei?).
In these dark times, Germany needs such great writers as Gunter Grass who died several years ago. “The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open,” said Grass.
I used to think Germany was no longer divided following the unification in the post-Berlin wall era. But having taken the 9 Euro train ticket from the east to west, it was clear that Germany is still divided. In the east, people do not bother in many places to wear face masks and largely do not do so on the trains (Chemnitz, Aue visit), while in the west, everyone dons one. Moreover, as I was day dreaming on the train, I was approached by a guard who asked me why I was not wearing a mask. I did not realize we were on the west side already. That was not the answer, however, that I gave him. I told him, “I was unaware wearing a mask was an obligation by the law.” I guess I met my guardian angel that day, was lucky, or my answer was a correct one because after giving me a stern look and approaching me as a convict on the train, the took a small mask from the bag that was tied to his waist and handed it over to me, with no fine given. I kept riding, a free man.
One last story:
I arrived in Dusseldorf airport, on my way to Mexico yesterday after a packed train ride in which an older German woman who noticed I was sweating profusely kindly gave me first a napkin, then handed me a whole package of handkerchiefs. I was expecting a long line to the Iberia counter going to Madrid with a follow-up to CDMX, but there was no line. The female clerk was taking her time talking on the phone while I waited for her to finish patiently. Finally, she looked up to me. I gave her my passport. She then asked me, after several moments, for my birth date. I responded politely that she can see it on my passport. She suddenly became very hostile. She said, “if you keep giving me an attitude, I will make sure you will not board the plane.” The young employee, a different one, who stood at a distance watching me said nothing. I did not respond, but just waited for the seated employee to finish her job. Then, on the way to the plane, I passed by her again and showed her my boarding pass. I passed through.
When I arrived in Madrid, my boarding pass did not work. Two Iberia employees told me that they need my ticket number. This was the first time ever that I was asked for my ticket number on a connection flight. I told them I did not know it. I rushed to get on my phone and search for it, but could not find it. I tried to log in to the Iberia website – after being barred from checking in to my flight earlier- but could not access the reservation either. Finally, after the Iberia employees made a few phone calls, I was told the ugly truth: my entire plane ticket has been cancelled, in error I was told, and I had to pay for an entire new ticket to board the plane, including, of course, the ticket from Dusseldorf to Madrid. I would receive no refund, and I had to pay for a new ticket. After I paid, I boarded the plane. We live in times when to tell the truth is a rebellious act. And, as always, there will be a price to pay.
*This article was corrected for a spelling error (cleric) instead of clerk on 8.22.2022.
