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WDR round "The last instance" with moderator Steffen Hallaschka and the guests Jürgen Milski, Micky Beisenherz, Janine Kunze, Thomas Gottschalk: "Something about delivering"
Language is a treasure chest.
There are gems worth fingering, such as "prosperous" or "sluggish".
But also terms that some understanding people do not want to come into contact with.
What these words are is the subject of permanent social negotiation.
The new is born in labor, and at WDR it was particularly painful the other day.
A program that begins with the sentence "Wow, what a nice Bundesliga weekend here in the West" does not promise to illuminate linguistic or moral questions.
Especially not if only people who have no idea about antiziganism are invited to answer them ("The end of the gypsy sauce: Is that a necessary step?").
It was like having guests discuss the psychological stress caused by motorcycle noise, who might not ride a motorcycle themselves, but live away from the usual racetracks - and who don't mind the machines when they park somewhere.
The columnist Micky Beisenherz, one of the invited guests, then put it on Facebook: "A program in which four potatoes sit and vote on racism using cards has a problem."
Like Janine Kunze, who was also involved, he also problematized his own role in this farce.
Moderator Steffen Hallaschka was not available for a conversation with SPIEGEL.
He had a reference to a statement on Facebook ("Hello Internet!"), Which, even with good will, should not be taken as an excuse.
In it, he defends the concept of the show as a »group of friends who meet in a pub« - one could also call it a regulars' table - and for his part is disturbed by the vehemence of criticism that was sparked by the affable pub character of the debate: » We cannot talk about discrimination in this tone ”.
A symptom, not a misstep
Hallaschka wrote that his own "intervention" was "not always resolute enough", "I would also have preferred the course of our discussion to be different."
Nonetheless, he claims to have “intervened in many places” and learned the “bitter lesson” that “we” are obviously “not yet” in society where “this kind of careless everyday racism” no longer has a place in public law.
Now it is one thing (with which one does not have to be in common) to demand kowtowing from individual participants.
But that doesn’t change the fact that there will certainly be another case of “careless everyday racism” next week, as there was last week.
Another thing would be to judge the affair about "The Last Instance"
not
as an annoying misstep - but as a symptom of faults that actually point to structural problems.
When the journalist Hasnain Kazim - a former SPIEGEL colleague - once denounced the author of one of (of countless) barbaric threats against him at his employer, Hallaschka seriously put this approach up for discussion in another issue of the program with the sentence: »It smells also a bit like vigilante justice, I think «.
Brave populism
And when the last six episodes of "The Last Instance" were shot last November, including the one currently being discussed, one of the producers on Twitter was still happy about the successful "Stammtisch among friends", where the guests "deliver something." .
It is the same production company that has already been quoted on "Hart aber fair" about the "Homeland Germany - only for Germans or open to everyone?" Or the "Controversy over language - what else can you say and what is better not?" let discuss.
Apparently because it's worth it.
So the program with the »Gypsy Sauce« did not go »seriously wrong« (Hallaschka).
There would also be little gain with a »more sensitive guest selection«.
It is also of no use that the WDR campaigns “more strongly than almost any other broadcaster” for “the issues of integration and diversity”, as the entertainment manager claims - if production is outsourced to external service providers, “diversity” for fashionable dönnekes hold.
It would help if
someone was sitting
right there, not on Twitter or in the studio, but in the conceptual
run-up
, whether white or black, the chutzpah, experience and self-confidence enough for a sentence like “Stop, wait!
What kind of crap are we doing here? "
Now "the last instance" is not the "culture time".
This is precisely why it is so annoying when every educational claim is thrown overboard in favor of a brazen populism.
Not because this little chat would be a regulars' table.
But because
the
regulars' table would be a place where a flower pot could still be won.
Because when negotiating what »one can still say«, there is now an atmosphere of mutual annoyance.
One party rolls its eyes because it does not want to explain for the umpteenth time - especially not in a stupid panel discussion - why some terms simply no longer belong in the active vocabulary of civilized people.
The other side puffs up its cheeks because it sees itself exposed to the accusation of being racist through the "thoughtless" and habitual use of these terms - and all too happy to deliver this outrage in stupid discussion groups.
So, strategically, we would have to deal with a sensitized vanguard that is gradually going insane over the slowness of the dumb entourage.
Didn't they hear the shot?
Is it really that hard to understand?
Or
do they
just not want to?
Things are changing too slowly!
Will it be soon?
Conversely, the mainstream is very little interested in what the chattering snowflakes up there have to complain about this time again.
Hasn't he stopped using the N word?
Doesn't he also despise the rearguard who stubbornly clings to the bimbo?
And now the gypsy schnitzel should be abolished and the Mohrenstrasse renamed?
Things change too suddenly!
Are you crazy?
The entourage is aging, wants to be quiet and does not twitter.
He wants to go to the couch, in front of the television.
Right there he would be open to speech.
He could be reached right there.
Provided that there are real friends at the "regulars' table among friends" who mean well with him.
No language attorneys who have long since pronounced their verdict.
And no simple-minded clowns that only reflect his resentment.
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