Articles from October 2010
2010-10-27: We’re not all like that!
I am aware that, just by following the press coverage of leading German “politicians” and their “thoughts” over the last few weeks, you may think that Germany has turned into a racist Nazi state again.
Let me assure you that many ordinary Germans, like myself, don’t think along those lines at all, but see the facts on the ground.
“Multikulti”, the German model of a multicultural society, has not failed as our chancelor has said, quite to the contrary. It is alive and kicking all over the country. German society would not be anywhere near the same were it not for the influences we have enjoyed from outside our narrow cultural sphere. And, by and large, we like it that way.
Germany has a society that relies on immigration for survival. More people pack up and leave than come to stay, every year; we need to change that trend, and urgently. It’s clear that is in our own best self-interest to control immigration, like any immigration-dependent nation does. But first we need to make Germany an attractive country to come to and settle in. Racist comments are not the way to achieve this. Not having English as an official language puts us at an disadvantage already – no, I don’t want to change that, but you need to take this into account to keep things in perspective.
I’m not saying that there are no problems with migrants refusing integration. There are. But hey, there are Germans with no migration background who refuse to integrate into mainstream society. There are specific problems as well, like honour killings or forced marriages. Those are intolerable, no two ways about it. But they need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis rather than by lashing out at immigrant communities in general. That is counter-productive.
We need to be welcoming towards everyone who wants to come and live and work together with us, and accept minimal standards of civility. Wherever they may come from. Please feel welcome to Germany.
2010-10-22: Flying out of London
Flying from Gatwick this time, but the same applies to Heathrow as well.
They won’t tell you your gate at check-in, like at a decent airport. (Hey, in Berlin-Tegel I can look up my gate on the web before I leave home, so I can tell the taxi driver to let me off directly in front of it!) They probably don’t know yet, either. So you are shooed into a “lounge” area with lots of very expensive shops, restaurants and bars, but not always enough seats, much less seats with a view to one of the screens on which the gate info is displayed at some point, without an announcement.
My boarding pass tells me that the gate closes at 19:25 – if I’m not at the gate at that time, I can be denied transportation. The info screen tells me the gate for my flight opens at 19:15, but it doesn’t tell me which one. It also helpfully informs me that it takes approximately twenty minutes to reach the gates farthest away from the lounge. Hmm. This isn’t going to turn out well.
Well, I have been through this procedure at Heathrow often enough to know that there is no real reason to worry. In Heathrow, sometimes the announced “Gate opens” time passes without any further information. Yesterday, in Gatwick, the screen switched to “Go to Gate 22” at about 19:10. Guess what – Gate 22 is one of the gates farthest from the lounge. But any reasonably able-bodied person like myself can reach Gate 22 in less than ten minutes. And the gate doesn’t close at 19:25, it’s probably more like 19:45. But you are still reduced to stare at the info screen around the announced time waiting for it to change silently. Standing.
Somehow I, as a passenger, don’t feel taken seriously. I am just a “pax”, countable like sheep in a herd, a piece of cargo that is even expected to move itself on board and off. No attempt is made to make me feel comfortable and cared for, I am expected to do my very best to make things go smoothly.
It’s not that I don’t like London. But I don’t like its airports very much, I’m afraid.
2010-10-02: Staying out of harm’s way
Stuttgart, the capital of the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg, is currently one of the hot spots of German politics. The planned demolition (partly underway) of the historic central railway station to make room for a new, underground station, with the associated destruction in the city centre (which is where central railway stations tend to be located in Germany) and the few green areas located there, brought hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters to the streets. Police responded in the only way the know: physical violence, water cannons, tear gas.
I will be attending a conference and exhibition that is billed as being “in Stuttgart” next week. Boy, am I relieved it is not really in Stuttgart, but in a hotel near Stuttgart Airport, quite distant from the city centre.
My heart goes out to all the victims of senseless police violence, be it protesters, be it people from the area caught between the lines of a fight that should never have happened.
