Birger was only 10 when the Berlin Wall fell, and studied economics and business in Hamburg. He is among the 57% of former East Germans who defends the extinct East German government and believes "most East Germans had a fine life". "i never think that it is better here [the reunified Germany]", as he fails to see a distinction between dictatorship and freedom. Birger makes distinctions, such as, people living on the bare minimum don't have any freedom to travel either, and there used to be the Stazi, but now we have Schauble (the finance minister) collecting our data.
49% of former East Germans agree with the statement "The GDR had more good than bad sides, there were a few problems, but one could live well there". Another 8% believe "The GDR had overwhelmingly good ideas. They lived happily and better than today in the reunited Germany".
Germany today is being referred to as a "slave state" or a "dictatorship of capital".
The article is very long, therefore i have translated only the key arguments, but this article raises the question of the majority of a population during a revolution. The majority of the former East Germans view the former communist block of Germany as positive rather than negative. And isn't the idea of pleasing the majority, what makes democracy the most favoured political system in the Western World? Well shouldn't East Germany still exist under this theory?
I do not agree with repression and tactics used by the Stazi, but are people not entitled to live the way they choose? I believe that activists, though if i were in their shoes would probably act the same way, forget about the will of the majority of citizens. A good example of this is the anti mining demonstration held in Auckland a few weeks ago. 50,000 thousand people took to the streets to protest, it was the biggest protest march in NZ history. That leaves about 4 million people that didn't take to the streets to protest. Is this not a clear indication that the majority of New Zealanders want the national parks mined? If yes, why should the government listen or even react to the protest in Auckland? If no, why weren't they protesting?
(apologies for the rough translation)
The numbers strike me less as a reflection of genuine liking for the GDR than of dissatisfaction with the current system. East Germans tended to vote with their feet in large numbers when the GDR was actually in place, and up to 500,000 people demonstrated at any one time against the regime.
ReplyDeleteIt is not uncommon for people to express nostalgia for the previous regime after a revolution - one even hears nostalgia for Stalin (even though by almost any measure Stalin's regime was one of the worst of the 20th century). The sentiment is not always really about the previous regime, but about hurt dignity and the disillusion of actually existing democracy (no regime is a paradise, but some are better than others; yet even in better regimes some people lose out).
There's a good movie about GDR nostalgia - Goodbye Lenin - it's pretty good about these things.
At any rate, protest always takes some courage and resources.... Just because people don't protest does not mean they are satisfied with things.