First of all, yes, I've taken a break here - summer vacation. I was also traveling a bit, but the bad weather put a spoke in my wheel. Super frustrating. But once again typical: summer according to the calendar, but fall or the wet, windy monotony of the rest of the year in reality.
Unfortunately, the storm has still not abated. The omnipresent sound of the wind through the field outside my room window, the hissing and whistling of the room doors and the dirt that blows in, making me dust and vacuum every day... the backdrop for the coming months. Until it's finally summer again. But next year for real, hopefully.
At least I've learned something important in the few days I've been on the road:
World politics doesn't mean world politics because the whole world would be interested in it.
The people who asked about my work in a chatty tone because they didn't yet know what I actually do quickly had enough of it. The sentence I heard most often when I told them about my colleagues being de facto banned from working, about safety measures that make lectures so expensive that they have to be canceled, about trying to hold it together in order to be able to work, was: Oh, I didn't even know that!
How could you? There is no initiative when it comes to information. And the German media only report selectively anyway. However, not in a positive sense, but in the sense of a “pre-selection”.
I always ask myself how people can live like this? Without informing themselves, without knowing the facts. Don't they have a right to information? Strange. For me, a day is only ever really good when I hear or learn something that I didn't know before. When a realization creeps in. Ok, AHA moments are no longer as frequent as they used to be, but they still happen. Like the other day when I was in a furniture store and realized that the beautiful German word “werkeln” is obviously related to the term “Gewerk”. Tada!
Pre-emptive air strikes, drone strikes, missile strikes, army, air force and navy in action... so the wait is over? https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-hits-hezbollah-launch-sites-in-lebanon-to-thwart-major-attack-on-central-north-israel/
I had hoped it would simply vanish into thin air because the aggressors realize that nobody wants a war. I guess I was wrong. And so Israel has to do what it has to do to protect itself and its citizens.
While here in Germany, after the knife attack at a folk festival, we are discussing a ban on carrying knives and some stalls at other festivals are no longer allowed to sell knives! As if it were the knives... and no assassin runs to a stall beforehand and asks for advice! None of this makes any sense.
In my eyes, the discussion should be a completely different one. How can we ensure that people (and not knives) can no longer carry out such attacks? We obviously can't convince anyone of the benefits of our open and democratic society. We cannot persuade anyone to like us and to support (to stand?) our values, to live them. So how can we protect ourselves and our values?
For me, the only way to do this is the way it has long been common in other countries: checks at the entrance to train stations, shopping centers, large squares, at events, at the entrance to schools and universities. Of course, that doesn't provide 100% security either. But I always felt much safer when I knew that everyone had to go through security.
Of course, some people will see this as discrimination and harassment - ok. Then that's the price that has to be paid for a free society. We have tried to do things differently for long enough. It didn't work. Let's try something new. And those who don't want to do that don't have to travel by train, enter a school campus or go to a major event. That's a personal decision. The consequences are also personal.
In my case, for example, I don't fly to a certain country, a certain airport or use a certain airline. I don't want to do this out of conviction - it's my personal decision. It's nobody's business either. The consequences are: I have to change planes, I have to travel longer and it costs me three times as much. My decision. I don't complain, I just do it. I do not try to convince others to do the same.
I think that is also a right - in a free and democratic society. Self-determined, making self-determined decisions. All alone. On your own responsibility. Awesome, isn't it?