In the past month, Germany's Chancellor Merkel gave a speech, and the theme was....'you can have free speech, but you can't have absolute free speech'. The hint here? Well, she's trying to tell people that you can't have open and harsh criticism that dissolves open dialog in the political spectrum. Chief aim? Mostly at right-wing criticism of the current coalition government and migration/immigration.
I've sat over the past week and watched the speech given in German, and later translated into English. Generally, it's a speech that you would describe as a professor giving a lecture to students. She's making the point that the comments by people are reaching a stage where the 'adults' in the room need to control or limit criticism.
In general, I would suggest three observations here:
1. The bulk of Germans didn't hear the speech, and frankly don't care. If you asked a German about their level of frustration or hostility over some topic (any political topic)....they generally have a strong bit of criticism to offer, and it's blunt (I emphasize the term here).
The same group will offer the suggestion that political chatter via the news media and social media have reached a point where people laugh over politicians and journalists....suggesting that they aren't in some sphere of reality. Its similar to the American problem existing now.....where no one takes politicians or journalists serious.
2. Some Germans are offering their insight that this current political spectrum is starting to resemble East Germany (GDR) and the period before the Wall came down.
It's a comical comparison, but for GDR to survive for those decades....they needed limitations on free speech, which is what the Chancellor is advocating.
3. Generally (from my years of living in the American south), if you shine a light on something....it doesn't really dissolve the fear-factor or threat (meaning a flashlight shined upon five snakes within six feet of you in the midst of darkness....simply triples up the real threat).
In 1919, as the Weimar Republic emerged and carried Germany through the 1920s, it became obvious that it was weak, marginalized, and unable to handle harsh criticism of the general public. I'm not suggesting that the current government is in the Weimar 'shoes', but if politicians start to think among themselves that they are weak (even a fake weakness), then it really hinders the path ahead.
In this case, you could have some political figure come and give a public speech, and because you can't state your criticism.....everyone in the public arena would then resort to 'clickers' and drown out the rest of the speech....simply clicking. The 'click' would then take up the discussion of free-but-limited speech, and we'd enter the click-speech generation, and a whole new problem in control would emerge.
No comments:
Post a Comment