Victims and cynics
.jpg?w=728)
By Michael Bergmann
Some need encouragement not to identify themselves as victims anymore. Before that, victims need recognition and help. What no one needs is the cynicism claiming that nearly all of us are victims and that we can no longer afford to help anyone.
Angela Merkel, known as Germany’s top-manager of saturation, surprised many with the unconditional statement: Refugees will not be deserted. Germany is strong and friendly, wealthy and generous. No ifs, no buts, no numbers.
A mistake? Irrational? The first major lapse of political professionalism after 10 years in office? Predictably, the number of refugees heading for Germany swelled further after this announcement. An eruption of sentimentalism leading to a gigantic social experiment? A national psychotherapy for Germany’s guilty past? A heroic exit from office? Or most cynically: Germany’s surrender in a new type of war, confronting invaders coming with armies of children and tears as weapons?
I want to argue that from whatever moral, emotional or biographical impulse ― a political decision was born. There is no naivety: Education and labor market integration will need more than a generation. Social conflicts will have to be managed without arrogance. Balance has to be found between humanitarian principles, controlled migration and long-term stabilization of the countries of origin.
Those who suspect Merkel of having lost her political mind seem to have a narrow understanding of both rationalism and politics. Political leadership is the will to reconcile rationality with morality and the ability to offer convincing direction. And rationalism is certainly not confined to nationalism. We hear the voices grow louder in many countries, not only in Britain, that whoever offers a hand, a gesture of concern without immediate return is betraying the national interest. But those self-satisfied in saturation lament the demographic and economic stagnation.
Nationalism has often failed to prevent stagnation from sliding into depression. A rationalism that takes the future into account pursues the opposite strategy of reinvigoration. That it includes some compassion for the homeless does not compromise the political vision.
The vision is that of a dynamic post-national country in the heart of a more cooperative Europe, united under a constitutional patriotism with the unshakable pillars of freedom, democracy and mutual social responsibility ― culturally developing the German heritage with contributions by individuals from various backgrounds. No doubt, the more socially open a country is today, the more globally competitive it will be tomorrow.
When Willy Brandt, one of Merkel’s predecessors in office (1969-1974), recognized the Oder-Neisse line, he was accused of giving away everything for nothing in return. Now even the cynics might agree that in fact he got everything ― Germany’s international rehabilitation ― and gave nothing that had not been lost forever anyway. Just, the cynics would have lacked the positive impulse, considering pessimism a sign of intelligence.
Angela Merkel opened another door to the future 45 years later. Though controversial, her decision was neither irrational nor against Germany’s national interest. Defining a promising challenge for generations, it may be remembered as a political decision of a century.
The writer is a German citizen who has lived in Korea for 10 years as a teacher. Reach him at bergmann2473@yahoo.de.