Ostalgie

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, almost all symbols of the former German Democratic Republic (DDR in German) have been removed. Regardless of the fact that former inhabitants of the DDR now live in a predominantly free-market economy, many still prefer to purchase household items that remind them of life in the old republic.

This socio-economic and sociocultural phenomenon is known in Germany as Ostalgie; it is a portmanteau that describes nostalgia for East Germany combining the German words Nostalgie meaning ‘nostalgia’ and Ost meaning ‘east’.

‘Now some people are longing for the old hermit’s cell like a childhood treehouse. That’s harmless; West Germans find it horrifying, East Germans find it touching.’ – Christoph Dieckmann (10 December 1993) “Der Schnee von gestern”, Die Zeit

‘The archival practices of collection and display can have a similar, if unintended, implication. Imagine what it must be like for many eastern Germans to walk into a museum and be surrounded by the things in their own living rooms. The effect of such historicizations of the present is uncanny (in the sense of a ‘strangeness of that which is most familiar’ [Ivy 1995:23]); The past is connected to the present by distancing it in space and time. […]

‘Ostalgic’ practices reveal a highly complicated relationship between personal histories, disadvantage, dispossession, the betrayal of promises, and the social worlds of production and consumption. These practices thus not only reflect and constitute important identity transformations in a period of intense social discord, but also reveal the politics, ambiguities, and paradoxes of memory, nostalgia, and resistance, all of which are linked to the paths, diversions, and multiple meanings of East German things.’

– Berdahl, Daphne (1999) ‘(N)Ostalgie’ for the present: Memory, longing, and East German things, Ethnos, 64: 2, 192—211

Bureaucracy and Suicide in the DDR

‘The statistics office on Hans Beimler Street counts everything, knows everything. How many shoes I buy a year: 2,3. How many books I read a year: 3,2. And how many pupils graduate with straight A’s every year: 6347. But there is one thing they don’t count, maybe because even bureaucrats find it painful, and that’s suicides[1]. If you call Beimler Street to ask how many people between the Elbe and the Oder, between the Baltic Sea and the Ore Mountains have been driven to their death by despair, our numbers oracle is silent. But it may just note your name for State Security… Those grey men who ensure safety in our land… and happiness.

In 1977, our country stopped counting suicides[2]. They called them ‘self-murderers’. But it has nothing to do with murder. It knows no bloodlust, no heated passion, it knows only death, the death of all hope. When we stopped counting, only one country in Europe drove more people to their death: Hungary. We came next, the land of Real Existing Socialism.’

– Translated from Wiedemann. M. et al. (Producer), Henckel von Donnersmarck. F. (Director). (2006). Das Leben Der Anderen [Motion Picture]. Germany: Buena Vista International

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[1] Freitoden, from the singular Freitod, a euphemistic term meaning ‘suicide’, literally: “free death”.

[2] Selbstmorden, from the singular Selbstmord, a dysphemistic term meaning ‘suicide’, literally: “self murder”.

The Global Village

Small numbers are easier to comprehend for our feeble brains than enormous ones. Consider, it is easier to comprehend how a society of a few dozen people would look like, than to review a society of billions.

With that in mind, if we pretend humanity consists of 100 individuals living in a single village, how would that village look like? In other words, what kind of world are we living in? Using global data from 2009 and onwards, the following results emerge:

If the world were a village of 100 people,

• (Age) There are 70 adults and 30 children.
• (Air) There are 68 people who breathe clean air, the other 32 breathe polluted air.
• (Computer) There are 7 people who own a computer and 93 who do not.
• (Education) There is one person with a higher education, the other 99 never studied.
• (Electricity) There are 76 people with access to electricity, the other 24 do without it.
• (Energy) There are 20 people who consume 80% of all the energy, the other 80 consume the remaining 20%.
• (Food) There is one person dying of starvation; 20 are undernourished; 50 do not have a reliable source of food and are hungry most of the time; 30 always have enough to eat; 15 are overweight.
• (Gender) There are 52 women and 48 men.
• (HIV) There are 99 people without HIV, one with.
• (Language) There are 17 people who speak Chinese, 9 who speak English, 8 Hindi, 6 Russian, 6 Spanish and 4 who speak Arabic; the other 50 speak different languages.

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

• (Literacy) There are 86 people who are literate and 14 who are illiterate.
• (Money) There are 6 people who own 59% of all the money; 74 people own 39%; and the remaining 20 people own a mere 2%.
• (Nationality) There are 61 Asians, 13 Africans, 13 North/South Americans, 12 Europeans and 1 person from Oceania.
• (Population) There are 2 births a year; one death.
• (Race) There are 70 people who are not ‘white’, and 30 who are.[1]
• (Religion) There are 33 Christians, 24 non-believers, 19 Muslims, 13 Hindus, 6 Buddhists and 5 people who believe there are spirits in all natures.
• (Safety) There are 52 people who can speak and act according to their conscience; the other 48 – due to harassment, imprisonment, torture or death – cannot.
• (Sexuality) There are 90 heterosexuals and 10 homosexuals.
• (War) There are 80 people who do not live in fear of death by bombardment, armed attack, landmines, or of rape or kidnappings by armed groups; the other 20 do.
• (Water) There are 83 people with access to clean water, the other 17 people have no clean water.

“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” – Jane Addams

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[1] The authors would like to distance themselves from any racial bias. In doing so, we like to stress that we do not recognise the term ‘race’ as a concept in any way. That is to say, we hold that all people are people: equally beautiful, complex, flawed, fragile and amazing.

We have deliberately published this statistic in a ‘Caucasian-centric’ manner (i.e. There are 70 people who are not ‘white’…) not to emphasise or lend support to some prejudiced preference or point of view, but rather to show that humanity is incredibly diverse – in fact, we suspect that humanity is more diverse than many ‘Caucasian westerners’ realise. And it is our conviction that it is important to be aware of the wonderful intricacies and diversities of our species.

On Philanthropy

“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.”

– Albert Pike

The Essence of …

Do you think all people are essentially equal?
Do you think people should have a lot of individual freedoms?
Do you think happiness is more important than material wealth?

Do you think everyone deserves equal educational opportunities?
Do you think everyone deserves equal access to the same healthcare?
Do you think everyone deserves to have equal chances to be happy?

Would you be worried about excessive poverty in society?
Would you be worried about an increasing wealth gap?
Would you be worried about rising unemployment?

Do you adhere to the fact that politics is should be ‘by and for the people’?
Do you adhere to the fact only proven facts should have a place in politics?
Do you adhere to the fact that arguments from tradition are a fallacy?

Do you think society should be about people and not institutions?
Do you think society should be about people and not power?
Do you think society should be about people and not money?

The Merchant Banker

City Gent: Miss Godfrey, could you send in Mr Ford please. (to himself) Now where’s that dictionary. ah yes – here we are, inner life… inner life … (a knock on the door) Come in. (Mr Ford: enters, he is collecting for charity with a tin) Ah, Mr Ford: isn’t it?
Mr Ford: That’s right.
City Gent: How do you do. I’m a merchant banker.
Mr Ford: How do you do Mr…
City Gent: Er… I forget my name for the moment but I am a merchant banker.

Mr Ford: Oh. I wondered whether you’d like to contribute to the orphan’s home. (he rattles the tin)
City Gent: Well I don’t want to show my hand too early, but actually here at Slater Nazi we are quite keen to get into orphans, you know, developing market and all that… what sort of sum did you have in mind?
Mr Ford: Well… er… you’re a rich man.
City Gent: Yes, I am. Yes. Yes, very very rich. Quite phenomenally wealthy. Yes, I do own the most startling quantifies of cash. Yes, quite right… you’re rather a smart young lad aren’t you. We could do with somebody like you to feed the pantomime horse. Very smart.
Mr Ford: Thank you, sir.
City Gent: Now, you were saying. I’m very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very rich.

Mr Ford: So er, how about a pound?
City Gent: A pound. Yes, I see. Now this loan would be secured by the…
Mr Ford: It’s not a loan, sir.
City Gent: What?
Mr Ford: It’s not a loan.
City Gent: Ah.
Mr Ford: You get one of these, sir. (he gives him a flag)
City Gent: It’s a bit small for a share certificate isn’t it? Look, I think I’d better run this over to our legal department. If you could possibly pop back on Friday…

Mr Ford: Well do you have to do that, couldn’t you just give me the pound?
City Gent: Yes, but you see I don’t know what it’s for.
Mr Ford: It’s for the orphans.
City Gent: Yes?
Mr Ford: It’s a gift.
City Gent: A what?
Mr Ford: A gift.
City Gent: Oh a gift!
Mr Ford: Yes.
City Gent: A tax dodge.
Mr Ford: No, no, no, no.
City Gent: No? Well, I’m awfully sorry I don’t understand. Can you just explain exactly what you want.
Mr Ford: Well, I want you to give me a pound, and then I go away and give it to the orphans.
City Gent: Yes?
Mr Ford: Well, that’s it.

City Gent: No, no, no, I don’t follow this at all, I mean, I don’t want to seem stupid but it looks to me as though I’m a pound down on the whole deal.
Mr Ford: Well, yes you are.
City Gent: I am! Well, what is my incentive to give you the pound?
Mr Ford: Well the incentive is – to make the orphans happy.
City Gent: (genuinely puzzled) Happy?… You quite sure you’ve got this right?
Mr Ford: Yes, lots of people give me money.
City Gent: What, just like that?
Mr Ford: Yes.
City Gent: Must be sick. I don’t suppose you could give me a list of their names and addresses could you?
Mr Ford: No, I just go up to them in the street and ask.
City Gent: Good lord! That’s the most exciting new idea I’ve heard in years! It’s so simple it’s brilliant! Well, if that idea of yours isn’t worth a pound I’d like to know what is. (he takes the tin from Ford)
Mr Ford: Oh, thank you, sir.

City Gent: The only trouble is, you gave me the idea before I’d given you the pound. And that’s not good business.
Mr Ford: Isn’t it?
City Gent: No, I’m afraid it isn’t. So, um, off you go. (he pulls a lever opening a trap door under Ford’s feet and Ford falls through with a yelp) Nice to do business with you.

– Chapman. G., Cleese. J., Idle. E., Jones. T., Palin. M. Monty Python’s Flying Circus (Episode 30, Series 3) 1972.

On Socialism

“I am for Socialism because I am for humanity.”

– Eugene V. Debs