Germany celebrates the 15th anniversary of its unificationDifferent worlds, similar problems [Archives:2005/883/Reportage]
October 6 2005
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AND SUSANNE SPORRER
Being asked about reunification, the old man does not hide his anger: Of course it would be better if the country was divided again and if those from the other part just cared for their own business. And of course everything was better in those times of socialism.
His two missing front teeth in the upper jaw would have been replaced for free; his dwelling would be paid by the state, whereas these days the rent alone devours almost half of his pension. That's why the rawboned pensioner has to supplement his income as a taxi driver – in Aden, not in East Berlin, notabene.
With a South Yemeni complaining like an East German about the outcome of reunification, the experience in both unified countries seems quite the same. Fifteen years after Germany's unity, an anniversary to be celebrated this 3rd of October, the gap between the two parts of the country is still considerable.
Two thirds of East Germans don't feel represented by either of the two leading parties in unified Germany, the Social or the Christian Democrats. Last month, a study was published in which something close to 50 per cent of the population said it was dissatisfied with the political system.
Anyway, in the beginning, everything seemed so easy. With a comfortable majority, then Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democrats together with the Liberals won the first joint elections in December 1990, two months after the unification. Kohl had seized the opportunity and opted for a quick merger of both parts, with the East integrating into the West.
Neither the constitution nor the economical system was changed at that time. Not until nine years later did the federal government move from Bonn to Berlin. Little time, if any at all, was left for the well-protected citizens of the East to adapt to the components of capitalism: a free labor market, private insurance and competition in most fields of society.
Should the Germans have accepted President Saleh's offer when, shortly after May 22nd 1990, he offered his officials' help in unifying their country? In the end, Yemen doesn't seem much better off concerning mentalities and prejudices in the once divided parts of the nation.
“After the war, the North imposed its traditions even though our society was much more civilized,” complains a socialist in Aden. “The time of equal rights between the two parts was quickly over.” The criticism will sound similar in many less developed East German regions. Happily, difficulties between the parts of the unified Germany didn't result in a war as was the case in Yemen.
Not real war, but verbal battles do still go on. “Besserwessi” (know-it-alls from the West) and “Jammerossi” (whiners from the East) have been common caricatures with which half the country pokes fun at the other half. “The frustrated must not decide on Germany's fate,” grumbled the leader of the southern Federal German state Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber, this summer with regard to the inhabitants of the East. They are considered the main reason why he could not beat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder as a candidate for the Christian Democrats in the federal elections three years ago.
Angela Merkel made it this year, even though much less easily than generally expected. Provided that she finally finds a partner in Parliament, she will not only be the first woman leading Germany but also the first chancellor from the East. It remains to be seen to what extent her origin will help integrate the five new federal states. Serious doubts have risen: On September 18th, Merkel's CDU only got 25.3 per cent in the East, less than both Schroeder's SPD and the former Socialist Unity Party, now just called the Left.
It's not only politics which makes the difference; also on the surface the East and the West still differ. Take popular dress, for example. As much as the djambia dagger and the white men's robe are reserved for the Northerners, with a little practice you'll be able to tell the typical West Berliner from an East Berliner flocking out of the same theater just by looking at their kind of fashion and hairstyles. Or listen to them: As much as Southerners stick to their “G” and Northerners prefer to pronounce the “Q” the soft way, listening to the East German dialect from Saxony makes you right away think of former socialist party and state leader Erich Honecker.
Many people don't mix, anyway. Why take the underground to West Berlin if you have your cinemas and shopping malls in the East? After the wall came down in November 1989, many East Germans' preferred destinations were Spain or Italy, not Munich, Hamburg or Frankfurt in the West. You'll find the same sentiment in Aden. “Too conservative,” is one of the reasons why some Adeni students are not eager to visit the old town of Sana'a.
Religion is a criteria in Germany, too. One can witness it in the churches, which by and large are noticeably emptier in the East than in the Catholic South and Protestant North of former West Germany. While three quarters of West Germans believe that faith is important for life, in the East it's only every second, according to a study published this summer. Religiosity was all but welcome under the socialists, and it has – this time contrary to Yemen – not really gained pace after reunification.
The speed of the economic unification lagged behind expectations, too. The “flourishing scenes” once promised by Kohl to the impatient East Germans in many regions rather resemble meager brownfields. Until the end of last year, 25 billion Euros have been invested in streets and railways in the East, but many streets of houses in the eastern cities will still remind you of the prefabricated concrete buildings in Aden's Mansurah neighborhood.
The unemployment rate of almost 20 percent on an average in the East is still the double of the West. Thus, especially young people are still moving away and look for jobs in the West. During the next 15 years, East Germany is expected to lose eleven per cent of its inhabitants.
In contrast to South Yemen, little resources are to be found in the East, between the Baltic See and the Erzgebirge mountains. Five decades of socialist rule ruined the whole economy. And just as in Aden, people in East Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden were not used to muddle through as those in the booming West. The comrades of former socialism were naive and professionally incompetent, people backbite in northern Yemen as well as in western Germany.
Many Yemenis saw both unifications. Aden University's main building was built by the GDR, the Soviet Union and Bulgaria and once was the home for the Socialist party's central committee. Here, every fourth lecturer has studied in Germany, mainly in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). “Now we earn as much as a professor in Sana'a University,” admits one professor. “But apart from that, we feel we are as second class as the East Germans.” New ideologies, new behaviors, all imposed by the powerful north: “Not everything was bad under the socialists.”
Economic and social problems prepare a fertile ground for nostalgia and transfiguration of the past. In Germany, this paved the way for successful TV shows almost glorifying the former police state. After being temporarily replaced by West German products, coffee, detergent and sparkling wine, produced in East German factories, reappeared in the supermarkets. And a new word was born: “eastalgic.”
Despite all complaints, neither in Germany nor in Yemen do people seem to seriously question their country's unity. It is true that still in last month's poll, every eighth East German wanted back the wall “protecting” him from the capitalist West, as the construction was justified in the early 60s. But none of the political parties in Germany has that choice to offer in their programs, with one exception: a party, simply called “The Party,” founded recently by the editorial staff of the (Western) Frankfurt satire magazine “Titanic..” In the September 18th elections, they only got 10,300 out of 48 million votes.
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