Political communication in the pandemic: The opportune red dyeing works by Laschet and Co.

Icon: enlarge

Children in Crisis: "The Losers of Lockdown"

Photo: 

KARRASTOCK / Getty Images

From a purely technical point of view, our rulers are developing into real master painters.

Shortly before the upcoming spring election, they paint their statements a brick-red paint with large rhetorical brushwork, which screams for opportune care.

Samira El Ouassil Right Arrow

Photo: Stefan Klüter

Born in Munich in 1984, is an actress and author.

In 2016 her book “The 100 Most Important Things” (with Timon Kaleyta and Martin Schlesinger) was published by Hatje Cantz Verlag.

In 2009 she was the candidate for chancellor of the »party«, which at the time was not allowed to vote in the federal election.

She was recently awarded the Bert Donnepp ​​Prize for media journalism for her media-critical column »Wochenschau« (uebermedien.de).

I still remember that one Anne Will program from April last year, in which NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet accused "the virologists" of "changing their minds every few days".

He argued with great passion for the best interests of the child and, with great concern for the growing psyches, urged schools to be opened quickly.

At the same time, he was surprised that the schools in North Rhine-Westphalia should open even though they are not properly equipped.

There is a lack of soap and disinfectants.

But he, the Prime Minister, is not responsible for the schools, but the municipalities and cities.

And the school minister Yvonne Gebauer had obtained disinfectants and soap and offered them to the schools, although that was not their job, he said.

Laschet, the concerned

Two weeks earlier, Laschet had tweeted the following appeal: »Advancement through education was the promise for more social justice.

What does it mean to refuse schoolchildren for weeks?

The difficult consideration also includes talking about the social consequences and losers of the #lockdown. "

In addition to the children, he moved other groups of people into the focus of his care: "Even now, the lockdown is causing damage to health through postponed operations and rehabilitation measures, through depression, loneliness, domestic violence and endangering child welfare."

In the “heute-journal” on Tuesday, Laschet said: “I thought of the entire climate.

I see some polls where a lot of people still say that's all right.

Some say it has to get harder.

And I still advocate weighing it up.

Also to consider the best interests of the child. "

And elsewhere, a week ago, when the state parliament was briefed in the wake of the federal-state talks, he announced: “Schools and daycare centers are more than places of learning.

They are social spaces that are elementary for the personal development of children and young people. "

41 air filter systems - unfortunately not in schools

Apparently, Laschet has been publicly worried about the children during the pandemic for almost a year.

In between there were summer vacation, Christmas vacation and certainly the opportunity - as with the soaps and disinfectants too - to support the schools despite local authority responsibilities.

And yet these "elementary social spaces for learning" are now opening up without first testing all students and teachers, without vaccinating the teachers, without using air filters nationwide - while 41 air filter systems are being installed in the state parliament in Düsseldorf.

Concern communicated on one side, and unprepared openings on the other.

With this discrepancy - apart from NRW and Laschet - the question arises: Why is participation in the well-being of children suddenly so popular in political communication, but is not reflected in the actions?

more on the subject

• Corona and finances: Some scrape together their money, others pile onA column by Hermann-Josef Tenhagen

• Icon: Spiegel Plus Thousands of German companies in need: Can the corona bankruptcy wave still be prevented?

• Vacation and corona vaccination for 3,000 euros: »Shot trips« - what about vaccination prices? By Maria Stöhr

• Icon: Spiegel Plus Education historian on Corona measures: "Withholding school is a crime against children" An interview by Katja Iken

Suddenly politicians fear for the child's well-being and educational disadvantages.

Rightly so, of course, but this current attention contrasts with the previous lack of interest - because there is no other way of interpreting the mistakes in education policy, in matters of digitization, in the creation of equal opportunities and in general child protection, which were previously made without a pandemic.

Regardless of the partisan couleur, these rhetorical diversions to issues of social action are called "redwashing".

With a large bucket of social democratic phrases one generously paints a thick layer of orientation towards the common good on socio-political recommendations, which, however, are often something else: market-promoting.

Sustainable like Nespresso

In their public relations work, companies occasionally do so-called »greenwashing« and »pinkwashing«, that is, you give your own PR, the company, the brand an ecological or lgbtqi-inclusive tint in order to morally enhance your products and sell them better.

Coffee capsule manufacturer Nespresso, for example, is trying to get rid of the image of the aluminum offender by covering its advertising campaigns with Costa Rican rainforests and an emphatically shouting "Sustainability!" George Clooney.

In politics, too, this whitewashing works extremely well when conservatives and liberals suddenly discover their worried pounding heart for children.

And even if one does not want to deny the truthfulness of the intentions, it is noticeable that when economic interests and exposed action on behalf of the weak coincidentally overlap, the pathos of justice suddenly seems to shine more shimmering.

Armin Laschet is a vivid, but of course not the only example of this balancing act between an alleged concern and one's own politics.

On January 1, 2021 Friedrich Merz tweeted: “What complains to me the most is not the economic damage caused by the lockdown, but the massive damage to our children's education from the closed schools.

Children from socially disadvantaged families in particular suffer from this. "

How much he actually cares about economically weak families can be seen from the fact that he devalues ​​them in his tweet with the phrase "socially weak" and is obviously not even aware of it.

Here, too, the words are painted red on the outside and press (e) span on the inside, the selling paint is peeling off loudly and brings out the opportunism, because at the same time the former candidate for the CDU chairmanship recommended that you carefully consider what government spending during the Crisis are really necessary: ​​"After the acute crisis, we should put all state services from the federal, state and local governments to the test," he told the "Passauer Neue Presse" in May 2020.

In political communication, people with depression have to act as involuntary key witnesses for the necessary relaxation, as if they did not already have enough problems.

If it were actually about those affected, political drafts would not stop at the demand for opening up social life, but would have ensured better therapeutic care for a year.

Politicians as therapists of the nation

Before the pandemic, people with depression were not necessarily a population group that received political attention.

Suddenly every third politician in the nation is a therapist.

My criticism does not apply to the fact that expressed concerns exist and are also articulated; on the contrary, they are justified.

My criticism is that they only now seem to be where it fits well into their own political agenda.

In response to an “Tagesthemen” article that dealt with the aggravation of social injustices caused by Corona, Olaf Scholz tweeted on January 26: “The pandemic in particular showed how important a robust welfare state is.

After the crisis, the question of fairness in the tax system arises all the more.

Those who earn a lot can make a bigger contribution to the financing of the community. "

Oh, if only for over a decade we had people from a party in the government that somehow knows about the welfare state.

It would be especially great if "social" were included in the party name.

All of these issues were known before the pandemic.

Even before the pandemic, all of these problems were manageable in the hands of those who now cite them as a plaintive reason for relaxation.

Please do not lean too much on these political fence posts - they have apparently just been freshly painted, because the opinion makers make everything red.

Icon: The mirror