[10] News from Absurdistan - The North Korean and the German Notion of Solidarity...

...are identical.

My insistent contention that totalitarian elements prevail in Germany may appear objectionable to some readers - especially German readers.

I only wonder at the extent to which our sensitivities have been blunted vis-à-vis the destruction of freedom in our country.

Germans are required to pay a special tax, the so-called Solidaritätszuschlag ("solidarity surcharge"). It is irrelevant what type of purpose this tax is dedicated to. First, the government does not typically stick strictly to promises of apportionment. Second, and for the present purpose more importantly, it is decidedly not the government's prerogative to dictate to the population that and to what end it should practice solidarity. But this is precisely what the German government does.

Admittedly, the coercive assignment of ostensible collective duties of solidarity is being resorted to almost routinely in many other instances. Germans with no connection to the Nazi past whatsoever are inculcated the notion of partaking in an original sin, an eternal culpability (Kollektivschuld, "collective guilt"), the atonement of which being oddly biased in favour of the regime's Jewish victims - an observation that will bring forth knee-jerk accusations of anti-Semitism, while I am merely suggesting that all victims (and thus also the non-Jewish majority of victims) of The Third Reich's atrocities and the Nazi genocide deserve the same standing. One wonders whether Ben Gurion would have had occasion to suggest that "there is no business like Shoa business", if all victims had been subject to the same standards of compensation.

And while at it, let me add that the state-run, bureaucratized rituals of contrition, the erection of sterile monuments to commemorate the Holocaust etc., bear the mark of evasion so typical of that aspect of German Vergangenheitsbewältigung ("coping with the [Nazi] past"), too. Germany has never recovered from the annihilation of its Jewish citizenry that represented less than 1% of the German population in 1933 (the perfect target for a majority), yet making hugely disproportionate contributions to German life and culture. The intellectual mediocrity into which the country has sunk attests to it.

With a fraction of the money that goes into dead symbols one could have avoided the ignorance that most Germans display regarding the history and the contemporary panorama of Jewish life. Recently, a German student majoring in History complained to me that she spent the last three years (before qualifying for University) six hours a week studying all aspects of the Holocaust. Had she ever met a Jew? No. Did she have an inkling of Jewish culture, present or past? No. What had she learned? The Holocaust was evil. Well, a decent person does not need an education to understand that. Or are we that uncertain about the decency of our young folks that we make them study the obvious for years? The girl's time would have been spent more usefully, if she had been told about the connection between disrespect of personal liberty and the Third Reich. But the logic of freedom is not part of the syllabus in Germany.

In the manner of a Mantra, Germans are incessantly told to be part of a Solidargemeinschaft (forming a union of solidarity) or party to a Generationenvertrag (a contract supposedly entered into by the population's different generations. I certainly have never signed any such contract).

While this is supposed to be taken for granted, what it means is that people are forced to pay the government money that is partly passed on to recipients of retirement benefits and partly squandered on whatever other projects the government cares to finance. While this type of state coercion is thought right and indispensable because people cannot be trusted to use their money responsibly, there can be no doubt that most of us would commit an appropriate portion of the funds to judicious savings, something the government is incapable of. Not to mention that it is none of the state's business to tell people what to do with their money, let alone forcing them to apply it in a specific way.

Back to the Solidaritätszuschlag.

The money thus raised has been used to subsidize consumption in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin wall (redistributing wealth from one part of the country to another to buy contentment), rather than the government creating conditions conducive to productive investment that would allow sources of genuine prosperity to thrive.

The merger of the formerly severed parts of Germany turned out to be the final proof that Germany is politically and intellectually incapable of returning to economic realism. The country is inextricably wedded to what the present political system can only achieve: redistribution, but not productiveness.

One of the unintended consequences of this tax is "intra-Teutonic" racism. There are many West Germans who make no bones about their disdain for their East German brethren, and the effect that the latter's welfare receipts had or are having on the wallets of the former bears a distinct relation to the emergence of hard feelings between the not so happily reunited compatriots.

Let me tell you what a German will never think: Solidarity is a matter of voluntary resolve. It is up to the individual to decide whether he wants to form a bond with others, enter a relationship of solidarity, join a community whose interests, objectives and standards he shares and intends to support.

No, one prefers the North Korean reading: The government knows what is best for us, including the time and circumstances that necessitate our being ordered to practice solidarity. If the citizen does not comply, he is subject to severe punishment, draconian fees or incarceration.

To be clear: if a person does not heed the call to solidarity in Germany, his existence will be destroyed, just as he goes to prison if he refuses to send his child to a government-licensed school (there are no other schools allowed in the country). North Korean ways.

When I make these points to Germans, they have a hard time following me.

The situation is taken for granted by most of them; there are some sighs and complaints, rather of the inward looking type - boy, where is all my money going -, but some care to reason, and here is their logic: If we do not feed the East Germans, we are going to end up with more crime, unrest and such like, plus some will argue that they do not mind sharing some of their wealth with the poor relatives (which is perfectly fine as long as no one is coerced to pay in accordance with feelings that not they but others have).

So, we have a government that tells us why, when and how to practice solidarity, and a citizenry that complies out of unthinking habit or because they reckon making forced payments is the way to deal with extortion (their assumption, not mine).

If freedom is not an option available to the minds of people...Pyongyang is not far away.