My Europe

Searching for oneself is above all about dealing with memories. With the memory cards on which the borders of Europe are recorded, starting with the city of my birth in south-western Kosovo, the political unrest I lived with throughout all the years of my youth, the destructive war that raged across the whole of the former Yugoslavia, from which seven new states emerged.

And then comes the chapter full of memories and travel on the continent: of chaotic and bureaucratic Brussels and The Hague, which lies on the edge of the cold sea; Paris and the insane terrorists; Spain, which is as German on the island of Majorca as it is Catalan elsewhere; electrifying Vienna and Kafka's Prague; Slovakia without the Roma, who have now become scattered all over the continent; Catholic Warsaw and melancholy Portugal, not to mention magnificent London. Maps and borders, which you somehow no longer want to see, but just remember. In pictures or in the form of letters, letters, letters.

The main street in the district of Degerloch is called Epple Strasse. Along a 400-metre section of this road, which is over two kilometres long, there are five chemist’s, eight baker’s, nine other shops (mainly organic produce!), three kiosks, four inexpensive snack bars and four very expensive restaurants, two orthopaedic shoe shops, two shops for hearing aids, ten doctor's surgeries, four dentists, a book shop and a town library, a very attractive community centre, an evangelical church, a Christian Orthodox church, an apostolic church, two primary schools, a secondary school, a grammar school, two weekly markets with fresh produce, two petrol stations and, and, and... people from all over the continent! On the upper side of Degerloch, along the edge of the forest, there are sports clubs with dozens of football pitches, tennis courts, athletics tracks and fitness and gymnastics facilities. The number of senior care homes bordering these facilities has increased so much over the last ten years that it’s hard to calculate exactly how many there are now.

Chaotic and bureaucratic Brussels and The Hague, which lies on the edge of the cold sea; Paris and the insane terrorists; Spain, which is as German on the island of Majorca as it is Catalan elsewhere; electrifying Vienna and Kafka's Prague; Slovakia without the Roma, who have now become scattered all over the continent; Catholic Warsaw and melancholy Portugal; not to mention magnificent London. Maps and borders, which you somehow no longer want to see, but just remember.

This is the perfect world that is Degerloch, a place I have lived in for more than ten years now, and around which I tend to roam on a daily basis, especially in the last three years, without ever leaving it, except for the occasional holidays in Italy, Austria or the Netherlands, or one or two trips within Germany. Almost every region in the south of Germany, but also in the north, west and east. is also a perfect world. After all, this country is well-known throughout the world for having similar living standards in all of its different regions.

The 16,351 inhabitants of the perfect world that is Degerloch have been joined by an additional 306 people in the last few months. These new inhabitants are virtually invisible, however, because they have been accommodated in the surrounding forests: the refugees. Some are welcome – others not so much.

Should the exact distribution of votes by the good people of Degerloch during the last federal elections be mentioned at this point? Or is it really necessary for the sympathy or lack thereof towards those who need help to be translated into fear at the baker’s, the chemist’s, or in the supermarkets, streets, schools and ballot boxes? Or is it rather politics with its manipulation, its war on terror and the crazy Islamists who force people and society back into the arms of the populists who only want a ‘pure’ race? Terrifying the partitioning on maps of districts into towns and villages, of states and continents, by races. Unbearable the fear. And inexcusable the confusion.

These cities are normally associated with sightseeing, beach holidays, shopping trips or hiking tours. Or at least they would be during ordinary, peaceful times. But sadly not over recent months and years.

Unfortunately, therefore, letters alone are powerless against all the pain and insufficient in themselves to describe the tragedy that has befallen the unknown and unsuspecting victims in all of these cities. The despicable murders, the suffering brought about by this awful confrontation between religions and civilisations, cultures and languages, states and peoples. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to come up with a diagnosis for the disease that is currently infecting humanity.

Just as the internet knows no borders or languages, so the security and intelligence services will find it impossible to avert the dangers and cowardly attacks of the frustrated and the conned, who blow themselves and the people around them up in the name of a God that does not exist.

And it is the politicians who, more than ever before, have the task of providing their citizens with security when they go to work or on holiday. And it is the citizens who must use their votes to elect those politicians who will work hard and with all the necessary care, attention and vision to achieve peace in these fragile and uncertain times.

That’s what needs to happen. Though nothing will happen, if nobody wants it to. This is why I think we are sliding inexorably into a time that will be even more frightening than the one we live in now.

After the Brexit vote and Trump’s victory in 2016, and the elections in the Netherlands, France, Germany and Austria, we are all still standing around as if nothing has actually happened. The elections in those countries were referendums in their own right: for nation-states and discrimination against foreigners or for improvements to the legal framework surrounding migration policy and for European cooperation in the war on terror.

So fear has become an inseparable part of our everyday lives. Former German President Joachim Gauck said in a speech that we should not be afraid: ‘We feel fear – but we are not consumed by it. We feel powerlessness, but we are not consumed by it. We feel rage, but we are not consumed by it’. What a relief! And yet the fear remains. Because it's that fear that prevails in every speech, including those given by the highest representative of both country and continent.

And I don’t mean just Europe. Two examples – one European and the other Asian. Dubravka Ugrešić and Arundhati Roy. The first is the author of the novel The Ministry of Pain, the second the author of the novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. These two authors, whom I always read, refer to nonexistent, fictitious ministries in the titles of their fictional works. And they recount the tragedies of their home countries. Ugrešić comes from the former Yugoslavia, a state that no longer exists, while Roy is from India, a country that is surviving. Striking stories, marked by centuries of individual and collective history.

Writers create and destroy. Homelands and empires. Real and fictional. So they are like prophets who know no government, no constitution, no laws or times. And they reserve the right to create their own ministries. Like the women in these novels.

Writers create and destroy. Homelands and empires. Real and fictional. So they are like prophets who know no government, no constitution, no laws or times.

Do you think there's a novel called Homeland Ministry too? Or Ministry of the Fatherland? The two designations for someone’s region of origin don’t just differ in terms of gender – ‘die Heimat’ and ‘das Vaterland’ in German. The term ‘homeland’ also sounds much more homely and was also clearly less abused in the past than the word ‘fatherland’.

German politicians from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party insist that a homeland ministry should be set up in Germany along the lines of the Bavarian model, partly in response to the results of the recent elections, in which the right-wing AFD achieved double-digit results in some areas. I imagine that the AFD leadership under Mr Gauland et al would also be sympathetic to this idea. Except that they would probably want to go even further and call it the Ministry of the Fatherland!

Ten years ago, I wrote a poem on this subject entitled Das Vaterland, which Michael Krüger published in the literary journal ‘Akzente’:

Von dir Vaterland sagen viele du seist für sie/ Vater und Land. für dich werden viele tränen vergossen/ von wissenden und unwissenden du hast die macht/alles dir eigen zu machen. deine erde ist alt, dein himmel/ unendlich, die menschen gehören niemand als Gott und dir/ so auch vögel, die flüsse, die ebenen, die meere,/ die schmerzen, die kinder, die träume… die eroberer/ die poeten, die verliebten, die verratenen, die vergreisten…/ alle gehören dir… so auch das leben, der tod./ nur eins ist mir nicht klar/ Vaterland/ wem gehörst du?‘

[‘Of you Fatherland many say you are for them/ father and country. for you many tears are shed/ by knowing and unknowing you have the power/ to make it all your own. your earth is old, your heaven/ infinite, the people belong to no one but God and you/ so too birds, rivers, plains, oceans,/ the pains, the children, the dreams... the conquerors, the poets, the lovers, the betrayed, the aged.... / all belong to you... so also life, death./ only one thing is unclear to me/ fatherland/ who do you belong to?’]

I believe that it is actually quite difficult to clarify the kind of political situations that nations both large and small sometimes go through – whether with novels in which ministries are created or with poems that demand something of the fatherland. Especially in the times we are now living in.

Because the AfD is now a reality in Germany. Some might call it a normality that simply fits in with the rest of Europe, in which the extreme right has long since found its voters, and who they keep on trying to catch with the appropriate bait for all their resentments and fears, which clearly have a significant role to play.

We need to start talking to our fellow countrymen about their fears. We need to break the taboo and ask them: ‘Why are you afraid? What exactly are you afraid of?’

We live without a home – but we now need to make the first move, for the sake of this new state, Germany, and for the sake of this continent, Europe, where our children were born. I, for my part, have already started talking to my friends and acquaintances about their fears. And about my own!