by Peter Löcke //
Can Germany stage a popular uprising? Is the traffic lights like a Turkish bazaar?
Many people are asking themselves these admittedly bold questions at BILD level after the large farmers' demonstration in Berlin. If Joachim Rukwied, President of the German Farmers' Association, is to be believed, there will be nationwide protests from January 8 if politicians do not move towards the farmers. Protests such as "the country has never seen before". But back to the lurid initial questions. To answer them, I'll consult three people. Ayse, Cem and Annalena. You will be familiar with the two politicians Özdemir and Baerbock, but I would like to introduce you to the third person.
Ayse is the good soul responsible for everything in the Turkish supermarket where I shop regularly. There are many reasons for this. There is a large selection of fresh fruit and vegetables, much of it directly from local farmers. I also find spices in buckets instead of homeopathic tins. The most important reason is Ayse's southern temperament. She is in a better mood on bad days than I am on good ones. Sometimes we haggle over the price of the cabbage at the till, sometimes I'm allowed to write it down and only pay the next day. It's loud, it's chaotic, it's like a Turkish bazaar and I confess - I love it.
What I love, Cem Özdemir was accused of on stage. His public statements made people feel like they were at a Turkish bazaar. Said Claus Hochrein, an official from the association "Landwirtschaft verbindet Deutschland" (Agriculture unites Germany). The visibly upset Agriculture Minister replied: "You can talk about a Turkish bazaar, I got the message very well." Özdemir and parts of the media suspected that the statement smelled of racism and alluded to the minister's origin. I would like to contradict that. The chaos within the traffic lights was criticized. That's what the metaphor stands for. No one could be more German than Cem Özdemir, who speaks fluent Swabian. That is precisely the problem. I remember one of Özdemir's reactions to a critical citizen. When a passer-by disturbed an interview in the summer of 2020 and spoke of a police dictatorship, Özdemir rebuked the citizen with the following words: (1)
"Please shut the fuck up. Thank you. I'm talking right now. This is Germany. Please shut up. Thank you."
It couldn't be more German. That's how my janitor talks to me when I forget to do the hallway week. That's how the angry citizen in a German supermarket talks to me when I forget to put a divider between his shopping and mine. That's when the typical German rehearses an uprising, not when his basic rights are taken away. When else? When it hits them hard in the wallet and that's exactly what will happen in 2024. It will happen across the board - not just among farmers. Will there be popular uprisings the likes of which Germany has never seen before?
The question is difficult to answer. Germany's leading culture is above all a culture of suffering. The typical German is capable of suffering until it hurts his wallet. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock knows this too. The German Foreign Minister can be accused of many things. She doesn't care what her own voters think. She accidentally declares war on Russia. Such statements may be stupid, naive and dangerous. Such statements stress out PR departments and fact-checkers in order to minimize the damage caused. But there is one thing she cannot be accused of. That she is dishonest.
Drunk people and small children tell the truth.
The mother of all sayings is true. Here, a small child on the trampoline of geopolitics speaks its childishly naive truth. The traffic light doesn't really care what its own voters think. And of course Germany has been waging war against Russia for a long time. It's just that other politicians are intelligent enough not to say so publicly. Baerbock said another honest sentence in July 2022 when things were going badly for Germany's energy supply.
"(...) then we won't get any more gas, and then we won't be able to provide any support at all for Ukraine, because we'll be busy with popular uprisings."
If the traffic lights continue to operate like a Turkish bazaar, there will be popular uprisings. I share this fear with the German Foreign Minister. I wonder what Ayse would say? By the way, Ayse is not really Ayse. I only call her that because the name translates as "full of life". What would Ayse say if the range of fruit and vegetables became smaller and smaller, prices continued to rise and Cem Özdemir entered the Turkish supermarket? She would say the following to the Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture in fluent Turkish:
"Please shut the fuck up. Thank you. I'm talking right now. We're still in my Turkish bazaar here. Please shut up. Thank you."
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5 Responses
Merry Christmas ... spring is approaching with giant strides ... the popular uprising has so far failed to materialize.
I wonder whether the members, the party bases of the established parties, realize that their party officials are driving voters to the AfD with great fervour and efficiency. The little people feel cornered and do what they don't actually want to do - they vote for the AfD and turn it into the people's party. Are these ideologues in the party leadership at all authentic or are they being manipulated by a small circle within their bubble and led through the political arena by the nose ring, so to speak? Most of them would be susceptible - just imagine the concentrated competence in government and parliament.
Perhaps that is the reason why these people hold these offices. They have largely lost their reputation; who still says that things are above board in parliament and government? Haven't large sections of the population resigned themselves to the omnipresent incompetence and venality? I see this as a process of decomposition of our social order, which makes the long-term cultural decline of Germany seem likely to me.
I would never even address a complete stranger like Mr. Özdemir. But that's probably not just a lack of "good manners".
Wonderful. Always enjoy reading your articles. Thank you
We are a community, a community of citizens, and in the end everyone has to bear the mistakes of others... What use is a civil uprising?
From my experience in life, people who pursue a certain inner idea do not want to be made aware of any shortcomings / errors in their convictions. They then cover their ears and don't want to know anything else. So I can save myself the trouble.
More importantly for me, how can corrections be made (even if later)?
What are my goals for a positive future?
Just being "against" is not enough initiative for me.