Prime Minister of Thuringia, Bodo Ramelow speaks in the Interview of the week over the lengthy together to grow between East and West Germany. The rise of the AfD is ready to take care of it, but stop.
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Bodo Ramelow: “AfD stoking the Fears of the people,”
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Bodo Ramelow: “AfD stoking the Fears of the people,”
Many regions in the old länder has met with Bodo Ramelow, Prime Minister of Thuringia, before he came into that province, which he ruled today. In Thuringia, he says in an Interview the week of the Deutsche Welle, he had the feeling, “arrived to be in my own life.” There, he got the impression, “to be able to properly take root.”
Politically Ramelow (Left) has his new home, of course, a very simple ratio. The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) has also in Thuringia success. 2014, at the last provincial elections, it reached only eight percent of the vote. In a survey conducted by the opinion research Institute Infratest-Dimap at the end of August 2018 she came in Thuringia to 23 percent. So you would be there, as in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt according to the CDU, the second strongest force, followed by the Left.
Certainly, the survey results are not election results. Yet they suggest trends. And, Ramelow, reference is made to an East-West Problem: “The people in East Germany feel treated badly outclassed.” Amazing this was: “If West Germany constantly advice in the direction of the East, be given, according to the Motto: We’ll throw you adapted you were once in the GDR a lot, now not keep the mouth and fits you, then it works.”
Western Arrogance
Some time ago, Ramelow had criticized at least part of the Thuringian citizens for their political views: “I told you that there are racist elements were implemented and xenophobia can always grow if there are no other people, if there is no other culture, no other Religion.”
The unknown scares: Ramelow in the case of an Anti-racism Demonstration in Erfurt
However, such an attitude was not a purely East German or Thuringian phenomenon, clarified he. “I know that from my birth city of Osterholz-Scharmbeck in lower Saxony, in the 1960s. Since the Italians were at once with the ice-cream parlor, a dining-technical enrichment. But with the children of the Italians, no one wanted to play. The ‘wop’ or ‘dago son of a bitch’, which I still remember well.” The habit of some Western German, to the East and its inhabitants to blame xenophobia, is about one thing: arrogant.
Afraid of what you don’t know
In Thuringia, less than five percent of the people do not life-German origin. For comparison: In the most Western Federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the life of almost twelve percent. The more astonished you could be in the East part of widespread xenophobia. Ramelow sees it differently: That people would not dislike people, you know, is a very natural process: “What does not exist, and fill them with fear. And if one has already the feeling, that doesn’t work, you will nd may be after a life-long work in old-age poverty Stra, then people are sometimes susceptible to hatred and xenophobia.”
Still not completely Association addressed: the again. Scene from the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989
The reasons for the success of the polls, the AfD in Thuringia attest, looks Ramelow in developments that reach far beyond the state. “The fact that three million children in family conditions, be big, come out of poverty, I think that’s a scandal. This also means that many people go all their lives working and still in poverty in old age land.” This was not the case, especially if the Federal policy to address the issue, but to be content, to increase the level of social welfare, popularly known as “Hartz IV” to five Euro.
Fate decision-making in the European elections
This is likely to be responsible for the AfD in sight in all the German land parliaments, for Ramelow “European normality”. Accept the fact you should not, of course. “Before the European elections it will be a fateful decision, whether we leave Europe to those who destroy it. If we are not able to develop in Europe a common force, and instead of Geert Wilders and co. to dictate how Europe is developing, then it will be dangerous for all of us.”
Thuringia, about live of a pan-European economic zone. “We are now exporting mainly in this room, and we have sixty companies, which are among the world market leaders. If we allow in such a Situation, that xenophobia and racism are phenomena of Everyday life, then it is dangerous for us.” Thuringia is facing a huge retirement wave. “If we don’t encourage people to come here, cooperate to define here, if we don’t make it, the location in Thuringia as an attractive, European Central location, then it will be for us in the long term the economy politically difficult.”
Full of life: the Thuringian state capital Erfurt. Scene from the Oktoberfest 2018
Furthermore, barriers between the East and the West
Barriers to overcome Ramelow in the relationship between East and West Germans. In Parts there is still different mentalities. “An example: I myself am a professed Christian, and the question of youth consecration in Thuringia is supposed to be a discontinued model.”
The youth consecration was served in the Communist countries of Europe common initiation ritual as an atheist counterpart to communion and conformation. It was a Ritual, to educate young people in the sense of the Marxist-Leninist ideology of the Communist Regime. After the “Wende” of 1989, the youth lost consecration enormous popularity. The have now changed again, so Ramelow: “That is to say, the integration of this Ritual, which was always attributed to the GDR, which is in reality much older, but in fact, a nonreligious Ritual, it is taken at once by young people is very strong, with almost ninety percent of the boomers. The surprise of the West German family members, when they come to visit.”
Beyond all borders between the länder Ramelow for non-partisan cooperation beyond excessive ideological distance calls. “I think this is a culture of democracy and I would hope that if some of the others – also in Bavaria, for example, would not understand that the Left is the end of the world and that the world breaks out communism, but that we also come with a couple of other ideas, which are quite good for a social dialogue.”
The Interview was conducted by Thomas Spahn.