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Armin Laschet in Swisttal (on August 2nd): Our earthly garbage
Photo:
Political moments / imago images
Yesterday I read a quote that radically changed my view of the world and of current political events.
It comes from Armin Laschet, who is quoted by the evangelical news agency IDEA as follows:
»Belief in God is formative for my understanding of the world, [...] if you believe that things will somehow continue after death, you also do politics differently than, for example, a communist who urgently needs paradise until the end of his life wants to create on earth. "
Sometimes there are just a few words that make you realize that you have up until now completely misjudged a person;
which make it clear that you have to perceive them differently if you really want to understand their unfathomable doings and creations.
So now in this case too.
My eyes, those of an unbeliever, were opened wide.
How much wisdom, humility and foresight there is in these words. Only the Christian certainty of a life after death can give us humans the hope that we don't have to work so hard in this life - because it doesn't work anyway; because it will be much nicer if we do not desperately oppose God's great plan. Laschet and God are of course right: because if we were to live in a paradise now, who would want to die at all? One can only hope that all communists will go to hell so that they finally understand: world improvement does not bring anything. Paradise is safe for those who believe in it - which is why we should better focus on the important things in life. You can find out what these are in the Bible and in the Union's election manifesto.
The earth, a heap of rubbish
With this quote, I have now also seen the pictures and recent appearances of Laschet differently in the areas affected by the flood, or I have probably really understood them for the first time.
Because especially in the face of such a catastrophe, this cool focus on a better afterlife is necessary for survival;
it is the only vanishing point of true political greatness that will save us all.
Like many others, I thought up to now that Laschet's pictures bear witness to a certain awkwardness, expose the chancellor candidate in his clumsiness - no way!
It is only on closer inspection that it becomes apparent that this photographic self-staging follows a strict iconography, an art-historically intelligent pictorial logic and emotional pathos formulas that, as a Christian, one can certainly decipher immediately.
Every single one of his pictures must be viewed as a painting by a learned early Christian master, as
tableaux vivants
of truth.
With this knowledge, the pictures of Laschet's press address in front of a mountain of rubbish in the Swisttal flood area in particular show what role he himself could play on our way to paradise.
Behind him the accumulated chaos of our reality - but he himself looks ahead, has turned his face away from the past.
Is this the unintentionally Boris Johnson-like performance of a press-naive politician for post-apocalyptics who is overwhelmed with visual communication? Is he presenting himself here as a melodramatic ruler of the mountains of rubbish? No, a virtuoso of the opulent imagery is at work here. Merkel had the static diamond to demonstrate power, but Laschet is fundamentally changing the way we look at the world beyond geometry.
Because an important aspect of its iconographic aesthetics: the skyward gaze. His eyes are always aiming resolutely into the future, towards paradise. And wherever people stand in his way, this far-sighted view goes right through them. Because he knows: All this worldly chaos behind him and around him will never be the paradise of which the communists dream; everything that was washed up from the swamp of reality by the floods is more than just rubbish: it is our world.
And with the ease of soaked office shoes, in the sacredness of its radiance, which I have now finally understood, he stages one of the most important insignia of power of every forward-looking statesman like no other: the umbrella stretched over him. In the cultural history and presentation of the sovereigns, the latter occupies an almost transcendental, metaphysical position.
In his essay “Nietzsche's umbrella”, the Swiss author Thomas Hürlimann describes Nietzsche's work in Sils Maria around 1881 and the history of the umbrella and explains: “The umbrella comes from the depths of thousands of years and from the vastness of China, India and Egypt.
You can tell from its shape what it is imitating: the palm tree or the roof of a pagoda.
Originally a fan roof made of palm branches or ostrich feathers was carried after the mighty, the king, the priest or medicine man, which distinguished him as a higher being and raised him above other people. "
The umbrella was primarily a badge of rank, and like a crown with sparkling gemstones imitated the wreath of stars, according to Hürlimann, the earlier umbrellas connected the head of the shielded person with the tree and bird kingdom.
Of course!
With a, as the Swiss author writes, "mobile heavenly vaults
en miniature
, which on the one hand provided those who walked under it with a halo and on the other hand protected them from the rays and effusions of the sky", the umbrella is not just that perfect prop for a candidate for chancellor in the flood area, but rather the symbol of power that sums up the political persona Laschet.
What would suit him better than a mobile halo that saves him from the ugly reality, that makes the people around him stand in the rain and lets him dream of paradise in peace?
