The report presented by Carsten Schneider on September 28 aims to take a “new look” at East Germany and its inhabitants. Was that successful?
Photo: dpa/Kay Nietfeld
This is how you can do it: Instead of looking at the economic development and the representation of the inhabitants of a region in administration and political representation, you analyze the mood of the people there. And it’s bad, only 39 percent of East Germans are “satisfied with democracy,” according to the report by the federal government’s East European Commissioner.
One could also say: You are dissatisfied with the actions of the government(s) and the parliaments. But no, it’s supposed to be “democracy” itself. This subliminally suggests once again that East Germans inherently have a problem with democratic customs. There are reasons for dissatisfaction with the policies of the federal and state governments, which play a large part in the fact that the multiple current crises are plunging hundreds of thousands into existential misery. And not just in the East, as the report shows. Unfortunately, neither in East Germany nor in West Germany is it to be expected that dissatisfaction will go hand in hand with progressive, even anti-capitalist movements.
