I suppose I should be grateful when events in Germany get at least some notice in the US press. Today the New York Times (registration required) has a photo-essay on despair in eastern Germany (“In Germany’s East, a Harvest of Silence”). The article and the accompanying photos do a good job of describing the failures of reconstruction following the reunification, but finally the author is content to “blame the victim” for the misery he sees:
“Eastern Germany’s problems, however, will not be solved by yet another BMW plant. The real challenge is human: how to transform a society reared on Communism and addicted to handouts from Berlin into a vital region ready to compete with hungrier lands to the east.
These days, some Ossis, as eastern Germans are not so affectionately called by western Germans, rouse themselves only to protest the government’s plan to scale back unemployment checks. Former state farms lie fallow because their new owners see no economic benefit to tilling the fields. Where wheat and oats once grew, weeds and wildflowers now run riot.”
That is the only recent reference I can find to the protests that have been taking place each Monday. Of course, no mention is made of the policy failures of the Western political parties.
Completely missing in the US news media is also any analysis of the political fallout from the announced wage reforms. Hermann Rudolph pointed out in yesterday’s Tagesspiegel, that the upcoming state elections in eastern Germany would create a ‘political earthquake‘:
“Stimmten die Wähler demnächst so ab, wie es die Demoskopen prognostizieren, droht der Bundesrepublik ein Erdbeben, ziemlich weit oben auf der politischen Richter-Skala. In Brandenburg, wo in vier Wochen gewählt wird, würde die PDS die stärkste Partei. Bei der gleichzeitigen Wahl in Sachsen wäre sie zweitstärkste Partei, und das möglicherweise bei einem Verlust der das Land bisher auf Kurs haltenden absoluten Mehrheit der CDU. Die SPD ist ohnedies auf dem Weg nach unten.”
So, the PDS will become a major political force in Germany, but how many US journalists have ever heard of the Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus? A check of Google News shows that no reference has been made to this group in the mainstream press. I have spent some time on the PDS Web site, and it is clear that they have been successful in tapping into the resentment in the east, and are gaining visibility (and votes) from the protest marches. Also, their Agenda Sozial is an effective PR counter to Gerhard Schröder’s reform Agenda 2010.
More on the PDS following the reports on tomorrow’s Montagsdemos.
