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The enemy lurked behind the wall.
Today he is lurking in the other Corona camp
Photo: serienlicht / imago images / serienlicht
In the 1990s I thought that neo-Nazis were against the rule of law and against German democracy and its laws, in a word: against our state. Then I received a lesson. That is not really true: neo-Nazis consider correct, state order to be very important, which is why they adhere to speed limits on the streets. Later I was invited to a friend's house in the country. One of them warned me by phone before I got into the car: I should be careful, there are some flash systems on the way. My answer: He doesn't have to worry, I would drive like a neo-Nazi.
Aside from the fact that the man was amazed to hear, what did I mean by that?
Did I mess with neo-Nazis?
No.
Because: It is possible to adhere to the rules of the road traffic regulations without being a neo-Nazi.
It should also be possible to criticize the federal government's anti-corona measures without being right-wing extremists or an agitated idiot.
Unfortunately, very many in our country did not understand this.
The actors who took part in the satirical and artistically great initiative #allesdichtmachen are reproached for making common with right-wing extremists and "lateral thinkers".
Franziska Augstein
Photo:
Michael Gottschalk / imago images / photothek
Studied history, philosophy and political science in Berlin, Bielefeld and Sussex and received her doctorate from University College London with a thesis on early race theories. She worked as a journalist for the "Zeit" magazine, the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" and the "Süddeutsche Zeitung". In 2000 she was awarded the Theodor Wolff Prize for an essay on Martin Walser. You can find selected articles and speeches since 1999 to date on their website www.augstein.org.
Talking about Covid-19 is a reminder of the fruitless public debates during the Cold War. Even then, the two sides could hardly come together. On the one hand there were West Germans who - also in the name of world peace - pleaded for diplomatic dealings with the Soviet Union. On the other hand, those who considered the former to be naive, if not from the "East" were rewarded for undermining democracy.
The journalist Günter Gaus switched from the editor-in-chief of SPIEGEL to diplomacy. In 1974 he became head of the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic in East Berlin. Gaus was a conservative social democrat, certainly not a friend of communism. He, the diplomat, was bothered by the old West German attitude: Whenever someone talked about the GDR, the person had to initiate it with the confession that the GDR was an evil injustice state. Gaus said: Only after the Gessler hat has been greeted can one get to the point.
It is no different with Covid-19 today.
It is now known what dire consequences the anti-corona measures that have been in place in Germany for more than a year have had on society, in psychological, social and economic terms.
Of course, anyone who talks about it must first admit that the pandemic dominates us all.
Otherwise there is a shitstorm on Facebook and Twitter, which have now apparently become the highest authorities for the opinion-forming of a number of politicians and some bosses of public broadcasters.
"The virus is not forgiving," the Chancellor recently declared.
In doing so, she has made Covid-19 a quasi-responsive boss of all of us.
The federal government, prominent health politicians and the Robert Koch Institute, an independent federal agency, keep citizens alert. Language is also used; it is anthropomorphized so that it sticks to the ears: "The virus does not forgive anything," the Chancellor recently declared to the nation on television. In doing so, she has made Covid-19 a quasi-responsive boss of all of us. Is it a miracle when people think that they cannot negotiate with the virus - which does not think so much - and are therefore not out to be forgiven?
Good diplomats like Günter Gaus and, to perfection, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who has also long since passed away, know how to say little with many selected words.
The Chancellor sometimes says too much with a few, banal words.
As a rule, Merkel chooses meaningless formulations;
she does not want to offend the voters.
In 2015, this rhetorical self-regulation led to the phrase “We can do it”, which unfortunately was misunderstood in other countries, namely as an invitation to everyone to come to Germany.
Out of fear of a more precise explanation, perhaps out of general fear of speaking to a large audience, the Chancellor made do with a cheap sentence that cost the refugees who then set out for Germany dearly.
Merkel's sentence "The virus does not forgive anything" is similarly poor. At the same level, in a nutshell and without any differentiation, one can say: If Merkel thinks that the virus rules in the Federal Republic, then we citizens no longer need her. And actually since yesterday.