#Germany writer Marko Martin speaking at the 35th anniversary ceremony of the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, presents a scathing criticism of German elites patronising attitude to Eastern Europe and completely false understanding of the concept of “sustainable peace”.
His speech is long and worth reading in whole, I just chose a few juicy quotes:
Gerhard Schröder, still an unrepentant, boastful, close friend of the mass murderer in the Kremlin, is guaranteed by the new general secretary of the chancellor’s party that there is still room for him in German social democracy. Incidentally, this is met with the same horror by Eastern Europeans and established social democrats as they heard from the mouth of the then Foreign Minister in 2016, when he said that NATO manoeuvres on the eastern flank to protect the democracies there were ‘sabre-rattling and war cries’. Sabre-rattling and war cries?!
Then he directly addresses President Steinmeier who sits in one of the first rows:
Dear Mr President, with all due respect: the Nord Stream project, which the SPD and CDU clung to for so long despite all the well-founded criticism, was only a ‘bridge’ – in your words from spring 20 022 – was only a bridge insofar as it further encouraged Putin in his aggression, namely in his calculation that the Germans, otherwise world champions in moralising, would not let go of the lucrative business, Ukraine or not. And again, it was ignored with considerable arrogance how clearly Eastern Europe was warned. And it is also the threatened Eastern Europe that will have to bear the consequences – in the near future, moreover, possibly even without American support.
Martin speaks in a quite eloquent way, using many references which probably only German audience will catch, so assume much is lost in the above translation by DeepL. I suspect only fluent German speakers will be able to fully appreciate his speech!
Source: https://www.welt.de/kultur/article254426424/Marko-Martins-Mauerfall-Rede-Sehr-geehrter-Herr-Bundespraesident-und-bei-allem-Respekt.html (in German)
@kravietz
> Mr President, with all due respect: the NS project
Not only Nord Stream, but the infamous "Steinmeier's peace formula", and they seem to be willing to do that again!
"On 18 December 2007, Steinmeier and Dmitry Medvedev signed an agreement on behalf of BASF to exploit another gas field. At the time, 40 per cent of German demand was satisfied by Russian supply"
OMG, this too! He's practically one of the main architects of this whole clusterfuck — why is he even still in politics? 🤦
@alex_mastodon
That is interesting — and I'm certain that there are lots of things about German politics that I just don't understand not being German. To the outsider growing economic ties with a country with vast resources, but taking a clear undemocratic turn domestically and doing questionable (to put it mild) things internationally, doesn't look reasonable.
@kravietz
@alex_mastodon
Of course, being Russian pinning it on him alone would be just dishonest — we have failed spectacularly with Pooteen. But it's a fact: at the time neither US, nor European politicians minded Pooteen much. However neither self-reproachment, nor pointing fingers helps understand the problem and fix things — that is what we should really be doing 😩
@kravietz
@m0xee @kravietz
Of course back in the 1990s and 2000s most didn't see it coming either. But if you are a leader, you are expect to do better than most.
Plus it is never good to rely on one source of energy so much. We could easily be at 85% renewable electricity if politicians had driven forward instead of actively putting the brakes on.
@alex_mastodon
Yeah, precisely — it's not like politicians deserve being cut some slack, especially considering that they or their successors seem to keep doing the same things.
Both with Russia and with renewable energy, acting indecisively and going for more obvious short term solutions does not help avoid the big problem in the future, but seems to make consequences more catastrophic and harder to deal with at a later stage. Sadly, political will is something I still do not see 😩
@m0xee @kravietz
There were no hidden messages, the statements were quite direct.
The speech was remarkable because historically the Federal President is rarely criticised in public, because until about 10 years ago it was standard practice not to recruit from the pool of high-ranking ex-politicians. Without a political past, there were no points of attack.
But Steinmeier (CDU) is different, so criticism was overdue, but the corporate media failed to call him out.
It is time for a successor.