Dear Mother, is it possible for a man to become chancellor – a girl in Germany asked, allegedly.
The longest-serving female president in any European democracy is retiring, and history will tell the final judgement. If there is one, of course. Because it turns out that we, outside of Germany, do not live in a historical time. Instead we live in some of its waste. At the time of that historic landfill, the doctor of physics and chemistry imposed herself as the greatest European authority. During her service, she worked with four American and four French presidents, five British presidents, and even seven Italian prime ministers. German sources, for the most part, have no dilemma when it comes to her legacy: main achievements are considered to be stability, Germany’s economic prosperity, and the opening of negotiations that often seemed unsolvable and endless.
Different Voices
True, there are other voices: that of former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who claims: “Angela Merkel did not save Europe. It’s German fiction. They would like her to be responsible for all the solutions in difficult crises. I do not underestimate the role she played, but I am far from exaggerating her – because she used to hesitate in that period which was among the most difficult in building a European project.”
So, if it is true, and for the most part it is, that she “often turned the other cheek to those who broke the rules”. As former Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio claims, then the legacy of “hybrid” societies in the Balkans and the surrounding area is a combination of dictatorship and “democratic” oppression – (also) her merit.
It can therefore be said that last week’s Demographic Summit in Budapest, the festival of former communists who switched to right-wingers and homophobes, is a product of the circumstances surrounding the fact that Germany, as it is currently, is “the main one”. So what “Mutti” (Mommy) did, as Angela is called in Germany, has at least two faces.
Admittedly, we here are always waiting for someone else to come solve our problems.
But, when a man sees Janša, Vučić, Dodik and Orban lined up, with the co-owner and Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Andrzej Babiš, he immediately becomes weak. And he immediately wished that in no variant would he be a member of the community in which they rule? Orban has a shop window called the Demographic Forum. There, they hit the story of how the family is the foundation of society’s stability. Besides, no women were in a single photo, anywhere. Admittedly, Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki, who signed a summit statement identifying Hungary as a bastion of right-wing, conservatism and Nazism in Europe, cancelled the trip at the last minute: he was replaced by Labour, Family and Social Policy Minister Marlena Malag, but in most agency photos, they simply “cut” her out.
And why should she spoil the “idyll” of these halfwits?
With whom the guest from America, would fit right in. Mike Pence, a former Trump vice president, who in his wishes would nominate Orban for president of the United States, ended up, saying: “The abortion rate in Hungary is much lower under the administration of Viktor Orban, I deeply hope that things will change in that regard in the United States as well.”
While right-wingers are saving the family as the nucleus of society – people are leaving. From Serbia, from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, even from Slovenia. Those who were against it, more or less, left. Seems that there is no need to whine when these things are in question. Ever since the world began, there have been migrations and resettling, someone has inhabited this area of ours so many years ago, and this process is more or less being renewed. It is sad when it happens, as in our case – by force, genocide and “humane relocation” – but as long as there is a relatively free choice that a person can live where he wants – it is fair.
A taxi driver in Sarajevo told me the other day:
“Sorry, I’m not used to this job yet, where is that street? I have been in Germany for the last three months, working for a company. The police look at you a little, but when they catch you, they look through their fingers, they don’t deport you, but punish the employer, if they see that he has gone too far. People are needed, they don’t have manpower.’
Just like that. The more they think about the “family”, the more (cheap) labour Germany will get. And all are satisfied. A new wave of refugees has driven Croats to Ireland, Serbs to the Czech Republic and Austria, and somehow one has the feeling that there is some justice that people – when they do not want to change the government – run away from all that theft and village wisdom. Dodik, during whose rule so many people have emigrated, says he is worried because he does not know in what kind of community, his children and grandchildren will live in. “Selfish European policy empties the Balkans, which will be filled with migrants coming from countries with different cultures. I ask you, will Europeans live in Europe in a few decades?”
Well, if the trend continues for politicians to register more and more property in private ownership, the longer their career lasts, and practically become monarchs, owners of the countries they rule, then neither Mile nor his colleagues should worry. Their descendants will live happily and merrily in communities, albeit on the outskirts of Europe, but happy and content.
A small problem could be that they will live alone.
Those who will have something to sell, such as lithium in Serbia, will be welcome for a while. That is why Mutti made her last official visit to Vučić. And she said that Germany has another interest in Serbia – lithium.
Stories About the Importance of the Family
Just so there is no delusion. Regardless of who will be the next chancellor, Germany will “care” about the Western Balkans as much as it can contribute to economic “stability” and the dominance of the currently most important country in the EU.
Everything else is stories. About the importance of the family.
We who remember times long gone, also know that Zoran Đinđić, the assassinated Prime Minister of Serbia, suffered because of cooperation with the West. His enemies, because of his doctorate in Germany and his open attitude towards that country, accused him of being a “German man.”
And it would probably have been fairer and nicer if he, with a fellow doctor of science, had accompanied Mutti to her era, and perhaps taken his country to the European Union.
But there was no such opportunity. As for all of us in the Western Balkans, such opportunities will become increasingly rare.
Especially if there is no lithium.
