Feature photo: Discussion Group 2017
I recently watched the public broadcasting news again. It's probably because of my age that I appreciate the quality less and less. But for one thing, the news was actually quite good, because it showed once again how little real volunteer work is valued.
All of the civic engagement mentioned there only existed because it was made possible with tax money. All of the public broadcasting reports on civic engagement were full of state funding - if one were halfway honest, one would have to subsume it under the "fourth labor market."
And so I am a little proud that we at the EUROPA-UNION in Heilbronn have been organizing events for several decades that are neither subsidized by the state nor receive any other funding — pure civic engagement, without any payment, remuneration, expense allowances or other benefits.
They still exist, those citizens who simply do things without expecting a single cent or any other favor in return.
Over the last few months we have been working on the upcoming 8. Hertenstein Talks endeavoured to bring together citizens interested in Europe who wanted to talk and discuss European issues as intensively and comprehensively as possible on one day. Countless telephone calls, emails and circulars were made and written in advance.
It is sobering to see how large the catchment area actually has to be in order to make such discussions possible at all - we are now advertising them across Europe, although we have the disadvantage that they are still mostly held in German; Germany alone is now obviously too small a catchment area for this. We are currently expecting participants from Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland and Spain.
It is a little disappointing how local politicians, media and administration react to an event like this, which has now attracted attention across Europe. The people involved are probably just afraid of everything that is not corruptible and has no skeletons in the closet - which suggests pure nepotism. But it could also just be that their ideology rejects everything that has to do with free will and maturity.
We are all the more looking forward to all participants, especially those who are not from Heilbronn or the lowlands, who spare no expense or effort to be able to take part in these discussions. To put this a little more clearly, there are more than 50 people who are not only sacrificing a whole weekend for these discussions, but are also paying for the travel to and from the event, two overnight stays and the conference fees out of their own pockets.
People from the city and district of Heilbronn have it much easier; they just have to free up a few hours on a Saturday and pay the conference fee. I would have been very happy if more people from Heilbronn had used this opportunity to exchange ideas!
Sometimes the good is so close that you don't want to admit it. Charles Schiller, a former SPD member, warned as early as 1967 that “the horses have to drink again“; today often referred to as “You can lead the horses to water, but they have to drink themselves.”
This had already been recognized John Maynard Keynes: "We cannot, by international action, make the horses drink. That is their domestic affair. But we can provide them with water.” (The Means to Prosperity, 1933: 27).
In this sense, the Hertenstein talks are an offer from the EUROPA-UNION, an offer from citizens who work on a voluntary basis. Our fellow citizens of Heilbronn have to go and take part themselves.
It's just a shame that afterwards you can hear from many fellow citizens that there are no good political events nearby; just like if you live in Heilbronn you have to go to Milan to buy clothes, or at least to Munich or Stuttgart.
“Few are held captive by slavery, the majority cling to slavery.”
Seneca, Book 3, Letter 22 (2018: 153)
