I see; so I misread him. Thanks. It was very helpful to have the Heimat concept readily at hand when the reunification broke out. It made talking with, and understanding the new(ly accessible) neighbours much, much easier. You could stop misunderstandings on nearly any level recurring to discussions of 'scars and wounds' or 'idylls' on the exemplary level. That helped. You could go and see. People could come and see. And touch and taste. Very comforting.
('broke out' is with an ironic grin, to denote our surprise - it is not to deride or denounce, as I am one of the strongest pro-reunificators you can think of in the Western part of my generation).
Reunification also was a walking and talking experience on the eleventh of November 89 for me. I think I am now in the position to confess that reunification was a special personal upheaval for me, as I have grown up at eyesight of the iron curtain.
Now I must be careful to be understood, as outside this borderly fringe region many people in Germany found it discomforting to know any details of that border, and so were quite unaware of its' features outside Berlin. Berlin was a special case because of the inner-city border, and because of it's dramatic looks. However, the 'death strip' military border in the country region was no less inhumane than Berlin's.
My personal Heimat therefore is very much a tainted picture of a seeming idyll (as there was a demilitarized zone, in which I was living, and also industrial development in this cul-de-sac regions was more than slow), a seeming idyll with deadly explosive underground.
In my case, the 'scars and wounds' are actually places of real human horrors. It hurts. It makes me angry. But I can't get out of it. It is my own life.
At this place I will break the recount unasked for. C Kahn once provoked me to think back and she might take a little more specifics on GDR-related scars and wounds in an e-mail. If ever you like more (not nice material, and not really for an open international forum), do ask.
What can make scars and wounds worse? If they are forgotten, or denied. So instinctively I would propose meticulate clearing up of EACH AND ANY case of border violence. This is not to say that there necessarily should be extensive punishing. But the victim's dignity calls for a clear airing of the truth.
In the same way, political oppression in the GDR, including torture, should be openly addressed.
However, Germany will not take the burden of public discussion of cruelties of the GDR. That this may contribute to an anti-democratic danger especially in the former GDR does not seem to ring a bell in peoples' minds.
We want to have comfort and harmony, so we make it possible for us, at the cheapest possible price. The role model involved here is clearly the unaccounted crimes of Nazi Germany. You forget and make people work, and eventually you may get a better state, and when this has sunk in for a generation or two, it may become possible to name the criminals and their crimes.
Once again the victims' dignity is traded against the comfort of the surviving - criminals.
There you see, I love my Heimat, regards MNI. |
