Black and blue blooms the gentian
Anyone who seriously fears that the "firewall" has fallen can rest assured. It has not fallen. It has just been moved, expanded and strengthened. First, one was not allowed to talk to "right-wing radicals" about deportation. Now one is also not allowed to talk to "left-wing radicals" about an immutable right to asylum. It is the same exercise - only now, instead of red-green, also black-blue.
By Johannes Mosmann
By Johannes Mosmann
The attacker in Aschaffenburg is mentally ill. But saying so is pointless and perhaps even dangerous. Because what is generally understood is not the factual content of the statement, namely that the attacker is mentally ill, but rather: "I am protecting the perpetrator and endangering other human lives by distracting from the main issue, namely migration."
The perpetrator is Afghan. In the face of this obvious fact, any kind of thinking seems pointless and ridiculous - and above all heartless. Now is not the time for cognitive exercises; this hour belongs to the man of action! The factual question, namely what actually caused the crime and how such things can be prevented in the future, is thus excluded from public discourse from the outset. Everyone is a priori a knowledgeable person, simply because they are a "citizen."
In this way, interest in reality and research into causes are replaced by a pre-formed, universally valid "explanation" of reality. The fact, the horrific act, merely provides the "example" of what everyone sees anyway. The preconceived opinion does not require any precise knowledge of facts or evidence, because it is "grounded" by a much stronger force: it resonates with the world view and mood of an ever broader mass. And conveniently, down there, in the swamps of the group soul, the solution is already there - someone just has to finally do it!
Meanwhile, the protagonists of our "democratic parties" are busily tracking down new "enemies of democracy" in the illegal, sometimes underground branches of the opinion corridor. In truth, democracy has only one enemy, namely our tendency to skip the discourse on a factual issue or to replace it with polarization between perceived affiliations to camps, groups, parties, nations, etc. And that is exactly what the "democratic parties" have perfected.
Anyone who is a priori right - about migration, climate, Russia or whatever - is a priori anti-democrat. This is the virus in the system, the genetic defect that inevitably destroys our "liberal-democratic basic order". And we are all affected by this deadly disease, without exception, whether we (want to) be read as democrats, fascists or doves of peace.
We are all good at polarization now, after all, we have all received the same qualification measure. It was still under the working title "Corona pandemic". What had to be done against the virus did not require any proof, because you could "see for yourself" the deaths and the numbers. Of course, critics of the government's opinion were not read as people who wanted to understand Corona (possibly differently) and fight it (possibly differently), but as "deniers" of the suffering of their fellow human beings. Racists, enemies of democracy, science deniers!
"Understanding" has become a dirty word. Anyone who wants to understand infects themselves with the wrong opinion, with absolute evil, and may even defect to the enemy camp, becoming, for example, a "Putin understander". A good citizen should be for or against something, and above all: he should be outraged! The incomprehensible indignation on display shows the good intentions and the correct affiliation of real "democrats".
But anyone who does not want to understand the Aschaffenburg attacker and his crime cannot do anything to make society safer. In order to be able to draw practical conclusions, all the causal factors must of course be understood. All those who, on the other hand, see the knife attack primarily as proof of what they themselves always believed they knew about migration are abusing the fate of the victims for their own abstract agenda and are doing nothing to improve the real situation.
This does not mean that the black-blue position is absolutely wrong. It is only absolutely wrong in the sense that it wants to be absolutely right and then lead to political action based solely on its monocausal explanation. However, the origin of the attacker is, if at all, only one factor among others. And many other factors must be taken into account, which together made the crime possible. This also includes the perpetrator's serious mental illness and the question of why the doctor treating him decided to release the 28-year-old into the asylum accommodation despite his diagnosis of schizophrenia and probable indications of danger to others and himself.
If you take all the factors that led to the act of violence together, it is quite possible that the political recommendation for action ultimately leads to the opposite of what is currently being demanded by all parties, more or less radically. It could be, for example, that the act could be stopped not by less but by more help for asylum seekers.e could have been prevented. In any case, the Tagesspiegel reported as early as December 6, 2023 that around a million of the asylum seekers living in Germany are mentally ill, have often suffered horrific violence, but receive hardly any medical care - which "also represents a serious security risk".1
The counterargument of the New Right is obvious: Why should we care about the health problems of foreigners? Precisely because we cannot care for them all, we should not have taken them in. The apparent causal chain therefore remains intact: If Germany had mercilessly rejected all refugees at the borders, the two-year-old boy would still be alive. Or to put it another way: An allegedly left-green agenda for open borders has the child and the courageously intervening passerby on its conscience.
This causal chain, however, has a flaw that also points to a much more difficult to discuss dispute that is raging in the background of the current migration debate as a culture war over the substance and identity of a free society. The argument that fewer people would die if people were deported more quickly or turned back at the border is not formulated correctly. Strictly speaking, if it were true, fewer people would die in Germany, but not fewer people in general. So the argument, to put it honestly, is that fewer "Germans" would die, but many more other people in other countries would die, either directly or at the hands of the deported violent offender.
Those who ride the right-wing wave but still want to be seen as philanthropists like to justify this by saying that they only have something against "illegals". Those who really have to fear for their lives and limbs and are entitled to asylum are welcome. But these are precisely the "illegals"! Because in fact there is no longer any possibility for people seeking protection to enter Germany legally. The "5-point plan" just passed by the black-blue coalition exacerbates this situation even further in that the temporary admission of those legitimate asylum seekers who somehow made it to the German border can now be prevented, and thus also the possibility of even applying for asylum. The Bundestag is now allowing "push-backs" that are illegal under international law - anyone who thinks that's right should think again about the humanitarian issue.
Now, of course, every state has a priority to guarantee the security of its own citizens. And it may seem as if the federal government is doing exactly that by showing itself to be insensitive to the plight of other citizens or stateless people. This will certainly keep out one or two violent criminals who would otherwise have immigrated unnoticed. But - a hermetically sealed "German" state, insensitive to the suffering of those seeking protection, but also impermeable to "foreign" ethnic groups and cultures, would itself be the greatest threat to its citizens.
If thought through to the end and developed over several years or decades, such a state would perish because of its own contradictions. It would have to continue to draw its economic needs from the global economy, extend its political activities to poor countries and war zones, and its culture, if it does not dry up completely should continue to educate itself in dialogue with all the peoples of the earth and base its democracy, at least formally, on "human rights" in general.
At the same time, however, it would confuse its economic, political and cultural "identity" with the physical content of its external borders - and human rights with a privilege for Germans. Such an anachronism cannot work; it degenerates economically, politically and morally. A "German" nation state in the sense of an equation of state, economic and cultural nation no longer has any justification in 21st century Europe and will not be tolerated by its neighbors in view of history. Hopefully we will not get a government in February that has yet to discover this fact.
01.02.25
Johannes Mosmann is the managing director and co-founder of the Free Intercultural Waldorf School Berlin, a socially integrative comprehensive school that consciously opposes the idea of a "dominant culture" and teaches Turkish and Arabic in addition to English. He is enthusiastic about the socio-political approach of a "social threefolding" (equal rights, solidarity economy, free culture) and is the author of various non-fiction books and essays on these and other topics. His current book publication, "The Expanded Democracy" can be purchased in stores everywhere or directly from the publisher:
More information
The perpetrator is Afghan. In the face of this obvious fact, any kind of thinking seems pointless and ridiculous - and above all heartless. Now is not the time for cognitive exercises; this hour belongs to the man of action! The factual question, namely what actually caused the crime and how such things can be prevented in the future, is thus excluded from public discourse from the outset. Everyone is a priori a knowledgeable person, simply because they are a "citizen."
In this way, interest in reality and research into causes are replaced by a pre-formed, universally valid "explanation" of reality. The fact, the horrific act, merely provides the "example" of what everyone sees anyway. The preconceived opinion does not require any precise knowledge of facts or evidence, because it is "grounded" by a much stronger force: it resonates with the world view and mood of an ever broader mass. And conveniently, down there, in the swamps of the group soul, the solution is already there - someone just has to finally do it!
Meanwhile, the protagonists of our "democratic parties" are busily tracking down new "enemies of democracy" in the illegal, sometimes underground branches of the opinion corridor. In truth, democracy has only one enemy, namely our tendency to skip the discourse on a factual issue or to replace it with polarization between perceived affiliations to camps, groups, parties, nations, etc. And that is exactly what the "democratic parties" have perfected.
Anyone who is a priori right - about migration, climate, Russia or whatever - is a priori anti-democrat. This is the virus in the system, the genetic defect that inevitably destroys our "liberal-democratic basic order". And we are all affected by this deadly disease, without exception, whether we (want to) be read as democrats, fascists or doves of peace.
We are all good at polarization now, after all, we have all received the same qualification measure. It was still under the working title "Corona pandemic". What had to be done against the virus did not require any proof, because you could "see for yourself" the deaths and the numbers. Of course, critics of the government's opinion were not read as people who wanted to understand Corona (possibly differently) and fight it (possibly differently), but as "deniers" of the suffering of their fellow human beings. Racists, enemies of democracy, science deniers!
"Understanding" has become a dirty word. Anyone who wants to understand infects themselves with the wrong opinion, with absolute evil, and may even defect to the enemy camp, becoming, for example, a "Putin understander". A good citizen should be for or against something, and above all: he should be outraged! The incomprehensible indignation on display shows the good intentions and the correct affiliation of real "democrats".
But anyone who does not want to understand the Aschaffenburg attacker and his crime cannot do anything to make society safer. In order to be able to draw practical conclusions, all the causal factors must of course be understood. All those who, on the other hand, see the knife attack primarily as proof of what they themselves always believed they knew about migration are abusing the fate of the victims for their own abstract agenda and are doing nothing to improve the real situation.
This does not mean that the black-blue position is absolutely wrong. It is only absolutely wrong in the sense that it wants to be absolutely right and then lead to political action based solely on its monocausal explanation. However, the origin of the attacker is, if at all, only one factor among others. And many other factors must be taken into account, which together made the crime possible. This also includes the perpetrator's serious mental illness and the question of why the doctor treating him decided to release the 28-year-old into the asylum accommodation despite his diagnosis of schizophrenia and probable indications of danger to others and himself.
If you take all the factors that led to the act of violence together, it is quite possible that the political recommendation for action ultimately leads to the opposite of what is currently being demanded by all parties, more or less radically. It could be, for example, that the act could be stopped not by less but by more help for asylum seekers.e could have been prevented. In any case, the Tagesspiegel reported as early as December 6, 2023 that around a million of the asylum seekers living in Germany are mentally ill, have often suffered horrific violence, but receive hardly any medical care - which "also represents a serious security risk".1
The counterargument of the New Right is obvious: Why should we care about the health problems of foreigners? Precisely because we cannot care for them all, we should not have taken them in. The apparent causal chain therefore remains intact: If Germany had mercilessly rejected all refugees at the borders, the two-year-old boy would still be alive. Or to put it another way: An allegedly left-green agenda for open borders has the child and the courageously intervening passerby on its conscience.
This causal chain, however, has a flaw that also points to a much more difficult to discuss dispute that is raging in the background of the current migration debate as a culture war over the substance and identity of a free society. The argument that fewer people would die if people were deported more quickly or turned back at the border is not formulated correctly. Strictly speaking, if it were true, fewer people would die in Germany, but not fewer people in general. So the argument, to put it honestly, is that fewer "Germans" would die, but many more other people in other countries would die, either directly or at the hands of the deported violent offender.
Those who ride the right-wing wave but still want to be seen as philanthropists like to justify this by saying that they only have something against "illegals". Those who really have to fear for their lives and limbs and are entitled to asylum are welcome. But these are precisely the "illegals"! Because in fact there is no longer any possibility for people seeking protection to enter Germany legally. The "5-point plan" just passed by the black-blue coalition exacerbates this situation even further in that the temporary admission of those legitimate asylum seekers who somehow made it to the German border can now be prevented, and thus also the possibility of even applying for asylum. The Bundestag is now allowing "push-backs" that are illegal under international law - anyone who thinks that's right should think again about the humanitarian issue.
Now, of course, every state has a priority to guarantee the security of its own citizens. And it may seem as if the federal government is doing exactly that by showing itself to be insensitive to the plight of other citizens or stateless people. This will certainly keep out one or two violent criminals who would otherwise have immigrated unnoticed. But - a hermetically sealed "German" state, insensitive to the suffering of those seeking protection, but also impermeable to "foreign" ethnic groups and cultures, would itself be the greatest threat to its citizens.
If thought through to the end and developed over several years or decades, such a state would perish because of its own contradictions. It would have to continue to draw its economic needs from the global economy, extend its political activities to poor countries and war zones, and its culture, if it does not dry up completely should continue to educate itself in dialogue with all the peoples of the earth and base its democracy, at least formally, on "human rights" in general.
At the same time, however, it would confuse its economic, political and cultural "identity" with the physical content of its external borders - and human rights with a privilege for Germans. Such an anachronism cannot work; it degenerates economically, politically and morally. A "German" nation state in the sense of an equation of state, economic and cultural nation no longer has any justification in 21st century Europe and will not be tolerated by its neighbors in view of history. Hopefully we will not get a government in February that has yet to discover this fact.
01.02.25
Johannes Mosmann is the managing director and co-founder of the Free Intercultural Waldorf School Berlin, a socially integrative comprehensive school that consciously opposes the idea of a "dominant culture" and teaches Turkish and Arabic in addition to English. He is enthusiastic about the socio-political approach of a "social threefolding" (equal rights, solidarity economy, free culture) and is the author of various non-fiction books and essays on these and other topics. His current book publication, "The Expanded Democracy" can be purchased in stores everywhere or directly from the publisher:
More information
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