27.5.02022

Feature photo: Information sign in a hardware store

Table of Contents

Time flies

Even from afar and at this point, congratulations to the newlyweds! I refrain from posting the wonderful picture of the bridal couple with the lovely flower child that was sent to me. But I put the following picture on it and wish you a nice honeymoon in Hawaii.

California

I was very happy that a weblog reader not only recognized that I am not in Europe at the moment, but also wanted to know more about where I actually am?

I am writing these lines from Santa Ana, a city not far from Los Angeles and, for me, more importantly, right near my favorite beach. I took my stay in sunny California as an opportunity to open a section worth seeing cities in the forum. There you can comment on my experiences or bring in your own experiences and other cities worth seeing. Hans Müller could certainly write about Minneapolis.

Ukraine

Admittedly, the German-Ukrainian relationship was indifferent at best, but mostly it is reduced solely to the events of the two world wars - and we Germans don't get off well with that.

And so it was probably not very surprising that a majority of the Union parties and the SPD of Ukraine not only denied the protection of NATO at the first opportunity, but also ensured that Europe's support for democratic developments in Ukraine remained very limited , similar to the democratic developments in the Magreb before.

In both cases, I speculated at the time that this was for purely monetary reasons, because neither a democratic Magreb nor a democratic Ukraine wanted to have to be supported economically. Because for us Germans, even in the EU, there was far too much democracy and solidarity.

From today's point of view, however, I have to correct myself, because it is becoming increasingly apparent that the German commitment, or rather the German turning a blind eye, has much deeper reasons. The majority of us Germans probably sympathize more with the anti-democratic opponents in our neighborhood than with up-and-coming democracies, from which we do not know how much change they will confront us with - after all, we already have more democracy ourselves than we would actually like! A great many of us could get along quite well with a “guided” democracy and the call for a “strong hand” can also be heard more and more often. Supposed "emperor's grandchildren" or sympathetic "scoundrels" have long been able to win elections again.

And so it is not surprising that especially among our new fellow citizens politicians like Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or a Victor Orban are so highly regarded, because these new citizens recognize quite well what we Germans really long for, and they mistakenly believe that the "grace of late birth" does not apply to them. In doing so, they completely forget that they not only take on the advantages of the German social system, but also our negative experiences and responsibilities.

That's why I can only advise our new citizens, just like their long-established fellow citizens, to at least fervently feign democracy.

And a great advantage of democracy is that we as human beings can ultimately recognize ourselves in it by witnessing how our own representatives act and act - because they act exactly as we actually want them to!

A democratic Turkey didn't stand a chance with us for decades, only with Erdoğan is it slowly becoming acceptable. And that also applies to Hungary and other countries - it's not for nothing that China is so popular with us, and the Russian Federation still holds the raw materials monopoly here today.

According to Matthew, you should not recognize them by their words, but by their deeds! And so — 'just for the sake of peace' — we will soon agree to a partition of Ukraine, and one ourselves Vladimir Putin give another chance.

Remember how we treat others shows who we really are.