Sunday, August 28, 2005

THE UNMENTIONABLE EAST OF GERMANY

Germany needs a serious public discussion about the east's many unsolved problems. Fifteen years after unification, the old east is as sunk as ever in economic and social depression. Crime statistics bear Schonbohm out. Around the same time that Hilschenz allegedly killed the last of her babies in Brieskow-Finkenheerd, another mother in the town left her two infants to die of thirst-unnoticed by the neighbors. In nearby Cottbus, police last year arrested a mother who'd chopped up her 6-year-old and stored him in the freezer-and for three years no one asked why he was missing. Christian Pfeiffer, a professor of criminology who's spent years studying the east-west crime divide, says infants are up to six times more likely to be killed by their parents in the ex-communist east. Other categories of violent crime that are sharply more prevalent in the east include random killings of foreigners, he says, which are three times more common per capita, even though there are far fewer foreigners in the east. According to Federal Criminal Bureau figures, 60 percent of east German cities are considered high-crime areas, versus only 15 percent in the west.

The question, of course, is why. But as happens so often in German public and political discourse, the problem itself is no longer the problem, but rather how one talks about it. Not talking about it, or debating it only indirectly for reasons of political correctness, leaves the problem to fester and grow. In east Germany, this atmosphere of political correctness mingles with the country's age-old instinct of labeling anyone who criticizes the group as a Nestbeschmutzer-one who sullies one's own nest, says Anetta Kahane, founder of the Antonio Amadeo Foundation in Berlin, which battles xenophobic violence. "East Germans will punish any political party they feel is criticizing easterners."]

The result is an "eastern taboo zone," says Stefanie Wahl of the Bonn Institute for the Economy and Society. In the new P.C., east Germans are victims, suffering the dislocations of transitioning from communism to capitalism. They thus cannot be directly criticized, especially by westerners. Beyond that, Kahane says, many easterners have eased into the rosy myth that communism was full of warmth and solidarity compared with the cold, competitive west. "That's not how I experienced communism at all," says Kahane, also an easterner. "But east Germans are going to defend that myth tooth and nail against anyone who tells them it was different."

And so debate is frozen. Just as it took west Germans decades to break the taboos inherent in their (much shorter) totalitarian past, perhaps it will be up to future generations of easterners to deal with the social and psychological legacy of a half century's dictatorship.

More here



SILENCING OF FREE SPEECH IN NEW ZEALAND TOO

Since Labour has come to power we have seen the fostering of a climate where any questioning of the secular left orthodoxy on sexuality, family issues and issues surrounding freedom of expression has not been tolerated. Any person who raises genuine theological objections to these things has been marginalised, ostracised, character assassinated, threatened with the deprivation of their property through legal mechanisms such as the Human Rights Act, ridiculed through state television, diagnosed with a psychological illness, etc. Some have been threatened with violence, been assaulted and had their property vandalised.

No one dares use derogatory terminology of the gay rights movement today, being accused of homophobia has become worse that being accused of racism, but our politicians and media call Christian criticism of the gay rights movement, "fundamentalist extremism," "intolerant," "bigoted" without any thought for the hypocrisy or any consideration that disagreement and criticism are a valid and important part of a free society.

The fostering of New Zealand's culture of religious intolerance has not come about by accident. It has been deliberately created as you can see by Labour's record on passing social engineering legislation, proposed hate speech laws and Helen Clark's comments on Christian opposition to the Civil Unions Bill in Express last year: "It is a very small minority point of view and I think, through continuing to set the tone of tolerance, acceptance and diversity, you just have to further marginalise such people. Hopefully one day nobody will think that way."

Make no mistake our government wants the freedoms and civil liberties of religious minorities silenced. The irony and hypocrisy are plain. For most Christians, the basic rights and liberties that human beings have are theologically grounded. In fact, the Western political tradition itself draws on religious traditions to provide a foundation for claims of equality and liberty. What ACT has done is to recognise that for many if not most Christians, an attack on those things is an attack on their very worldview.

Let us not be naive. ACT is a political party and wants to gain political support wherever it can, be it in the churches or elsewhere. However, for a secular political party to have noticed what is happening to Christians, for them to risk the fallout of breaking politically correct taboos and speaking up for us this close to the election demonstrates principles. It demonstrates the ability to recognise the rights of all people to think for themselves, to adhere to whatever non-violent religion they choose and to hold and express their views freely - not just the politically correct ones.

ACT are not a Christian party, yet they have the ability to see what has happened to the religious community and, more concerning, what will happen to us if Labour are re-elected. They are willing to speak against it and stand with us. At the very least they deserve our consideration this election as a party that will not coalesce with Labour and whose principles allow Christians to have religious freedom whether their MP's agree with their religious convictions or not. Other parties could learn something here.

Source. Note: I have a few comments about the above story on Tongue-Tied

No comments: