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Realm: Politics Subrealm: Wahl-o-mat
Sep. 4th, 2005 01:35 pmSorry this took so long. I got interrupted by preparing for my oral presentation today, cooking dinner, and playing poker with my roommates, since with the coming of september we have a flood of new arrivals, including Eva, who's from Poland and (go figure) roll plays. Anyway.
Germany has national elections coming up in two weeks, and so last Wednesday Angela Merkel, the leader of the Christian Democrats, came to Regensburg for a pep rally in the Domplatz. ( Who? ) The square was completely packed, with the press on the steps aound the cathedral and the only clear space behind the beer tent. (Of course there was a beer tent). James, Joanna and I were precariously perched on a cornice of the Deutsche Post building (possibly the most memorable part fo the whole business), so had quite a good view... She spent much of her speach criticising ( Schröder's ) handling of the country and especially the economy, without being particularly specific on what SHE was going to do about Germany's record levels of unemployment. She also through a few bones to the xenophobic fraction of her supporters without giving offense to the rest, and stressed her plan to reform family welfare (Germany's other big problem is a massively aging population). I still don't like her policy much, though. While I tend to be skeptical of large free-trade zones like the EU just as they are, her most concrete proposal is to raise the sales tax while lowering the income tax (which is NOT going to befit the economy, or indeed anyone except the wealthy, as far as I can make out), and reduce social services. Err, no.
However, even before I read an article on the subject, it was pretty clear what the result of the election is going to be. With huge unemployment in the East, and the only really prosperous Bundesländer (in the south) solidly Conservative, enough people are going to give their votes to the Left (just formed from two Communist parties) to throw the election to Merkel. So Germany will have its first female Bundeskanzler--also the first from the former east Germany. And we'll have an end to the massive dominance of unexpectedly blue-eyed socialists in Europe. (Has anyone else noticed this, btw?) Alas.
However, even in alliance with the FDP, the Christian Democrats are going to have a very slender majority...
We're going to be so sick of German politics by the end of this. Friday we had a class-worth of doing the "Wahl-o-mat": a computer program designed to figure out which German political party you most identified with. Which would have been kinda fun if I hadn't had to ask to have every third word explained... Anyway, since we're a bunch of young Americans, and were voting as a group, our results were rather scizophrenic, since the majority supported the legalization of marijauna but thought that Germany had too many regulations...
We also found some of the questions a bit simplistic in their presentation of the issues. For example, "Should all children have to take a proficiency test in German before starting primary school?" The real issue behind this is, yes, immigrant Turkish kids, and whether or not they should be taught German a) in separate classes, or b) at all, and thus c) whether there should be separate schools for them (as there are at present, and d) more broadly, how far should one try to assimilate them into German culture? OUR general consensus was that they should have classes witht he other German kids AND additional language classes, as the best way too teach them German...but that's not on any party's platform.
On issue d), I'm generally with Margaret: one should by all means let people into the country, but they should have to demonstrate some familiarity with, and willingness to become part of, the country's culture. (What exactly this would CONSIST of is a little unclear. Perhaps a general familiarity with Goethe? Or just put a large platter of Wurst and Schweineshachse and Kartoffelnsalat and sauerkraut and beer in front of them with the instructions: "Eat this, and comment intelligently on it." Yeah, that would be popular with all the numerous German vegetarians!)
But I'm straying a bit from my subject here. I tend to think that it would be ok to expect people to, in some way, become German. (Germans, esp. the left, tend to be rather embarrassed by the fact that they even have such a thing as German culture. Probably a side effect of the Hitlerzeit...) But I'm really not in favor of trying too get immigrants to the US to become American. Is that because we're so much a nation of immigrants? Or because modern American culture a) is already overwhelmingly dominant in the world and b) seems mostly to consist of not very good music, a demonic mix of secularism spiced with fundamentalism, and fast food? Or is it just my usual Europaphilia? I'd welcome peoples' thoughts.
Meanwhile, I went to the 10:00 service at the cathedral the other day. 16th century music. Hadn't noticed that they'd put the organ behind the baroque altarpiece. And props to the German bishops for instructing every priest to tell people to go out and vote on the 18th. Although the message was rather too strongly slanted toward the CDP's program (I think--I'd have to read it, since I'm not great at processing lots of technical German at speed). I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Germany has national elections coming up in two weeks, and so last Wednesday Angela Merkel, the leader of the Christian Democrats, came to Regensburg for a pep rally in the Domplatz. ( Who? ) The square was completely packed, with the press on the steps aound the cathedral and the only clear space behind the beer tent. (Of course there was a beer tent). James, Joanna and I were precariously perched on a cornice of the Deutsche Post building (possibly the most memorable part fo the whole business), so had quite a good view... She spent much of her speach criticising ( Schröder's ) handling of the country and especially the economy, without being particularly specific on what SHE was going to do about Germany's record levels of unemployment. She also through a few bones to the xenophobic fraction of her supporters without giving offense to the rest, and stressed her plan to reform family welfare (Germany's other big problem is a massively aging population). I still don't like her policy much, though. While I tend to be skeptical of large free-trade zones like the EU just as they are, her most concrete proposal is to raise the sales tax while lowering the income tax (which is NOT going to befit the economy, or indeed anyone except the wealthy, as far as I can make out), and reduce social services. Err, no.
However, even before I read an article on the subject, it was pretty clear what the result of the election is going to be. With huge unemployment in the East, and the only really prosperous Bundesländer (in the south) solidly Conservative, enough people are going to give their votes to the Left (just formed from two Communist parties) to throw the election to Merkel. So Germany will have its first female Bundeskanzler--also the first from the former east Germany. And we'll have an end to the massive dominance of unexpectedly blue-eyed socialists in Europe. (Has anyone else noticed this, btw?) Alas.
However, even in alliance with the FDP, the Christian Democrats are going to have a very slender majority...
We're going to be so sick of German politics by the end of this. Friday we had a class-worth of doing the "Wahl-o-mat": a computer program designed to figure out which German political party you most identified with. Which would have been kinda fun if I hadn't had to ask to have every third word explained... Anyway, since we're a bunch of young Americans, and were voting as a group, our results were rather scizophrenic, since the majority supported the legalization of marijauna but thought that Germany had too many regulations...
We also found some of the questions a bit simplistic in their presentation of the issues. For example, "Should all children have to take a proficiency test in German before starting primary school?" The real issue behind this is, yes, immigrant Turkish kids, and whether or not they should be taught German a) in separate classes, or b) at all, and thus c) whether there should be separate schools for them (as there are at present, and d) more broadly, how far should one try to assimilate them into German culture? OUR general consensus was that they should have classes witht he other German kids AND additional language classes, as the best way too teach them German...but that's not on any party's platform.
On issue d), I'm generally with Margaret: one should by all means let people into the country, but they should have to demonstrate some familiarity with, and willingness to become part of, the country's culture. (What exactly this would CONSIST of is a little unclear. Perhaps a general familiarity with Goethe? Or just put a large platter of Wurst and Schweineshachse and Kartoffelnsalat and sauerkraut and beer in front of them with the instructions: "Eat this, and comment intelligently on it." Yeah, that would be popular with all the numerous German vegetarians!)
But I'm straying a bit from my subject here. I tend to think that it would be ok to expect people to, in some way, become German. (Germans, esp. the left, tend to be rather embarrassed by the fact that they even have such a thing as German culture. Probably a side effect of the Hitlerzeit...) But I'm really not in favor of trying too get immigrants to the US to become American. Is that because we're so much a nation of immigrants? Or because modern American culture a) is already overwhelmingly dominant in the world and b) seems mostly to consist of not very good music, a demonic mix of secularism spiced with fundamentalism, and fast food? Or is it just my usual Europaphilia? I'd welcome peoples' thoughts.
Meanwhile, I went to the 10:00 service at the cathedral the other day. 16th century music. Hadn't noticed that they'd put the organ behind the baroque altarpiece. And props to the German bishops for instructing every priest to tell people to go out and vote on the 18th. Although the message was rather too strongly slanted toward the CDP's program (I think--I'd have to read it, since I'm not great at processing lots of technical German at speed). I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
