An Unhelpful Comparison
In so many areas of my life, I try very hard not to compare my former home of Britain with my actual home of Germany. Measuring everything through a British lens, as I did in my early years, ensured that Germany would always seem a weird and impossible place to live. The layers of British indirectness are useless here, where language is designed to leave as little to the imagination as possible. Relationship building takes time, unlike in Britain, where we rush so quickly to informality, we tend to trip over ourselves to offer courtesies that we inevitably regret later. Food, television, weather, holidays, work - everything is different here, and after a while, probably longer than I’d like to admit, I realised that was the point of moving to Germany. If I wanted everything to be the same, I wouldn’t have left for a different country, but sometimes homesickness takes a strange form, one we don’t recognise until long after we’ve allowed it to hollow us out with sadness and anxiety. Once I accepted Germany for what it was, I finally felt settled, or at least as much as I will ever feel. Yet, there is one area of life here I just can’t help comparing to the UK, no matter how hard I try: politics.
There’s a study that suggests that when people speak more than one language, they tend to react differently to the same issues when they’re presented in their native and non-native tongues. Whereas decision making in a native language might result in an emotional response, the same issue in a non-native language will lead to a more dispassionate reaction. I feel like this when it comes to politics. The effect of British politics is visceral in a way German politics isn’t. I have to work very hard to separate my emotions from my politics when I read or discuss events in Westminster, especially since Brexit. However, I tend to look at the comings and goings of German politics with a somewhat cold detachment. My values aren’t any different, but I rarely react with as much anger about debates in the Bundestag as I do about PMQs.
One reason for this might be that it takes a moderate amount of time to understand all the elements. Germany, thankfully, has a very different political ecosystem to the UK. I’ve had to learn the processes anew, not only as part of my citizenship test, but also just to understand what’s going on. The alignment of parties are different, mostly because there are more of them, whereas the day to day mechanisms of Berlin, or in the state capitals isn’t always clear. Another factor is the sheer amount of politics that occurs in Germany: from local, regional, state, to national, the German political junkie has a lot to digest, which is probably why German political podcasts can stretch to over two hours, whereas a British one can be done in about 45 minutes.
German politics can be confusing for other reasons. For one thing, the idiomatic language can be hard to parse, meaning that some debates require me to have an open tab on standby to look up the odd terminology. Sometimes it’s simply a German word I’ve never heard. After Chancellor Olaf Scholz intervened this week to settle the coalition argument over keeping three nuclear power stations online over the winter, I was presented with “Machtwort” which is unhelpfully directly translated as “word of power”. For a couple of minutes I was left to wonder if Germany had elected a wizard, rather than a slightly grey looking career politician. Eventually I realised it was more akin to the English “putting your foot down”, which made far more sense.
Other times I lack the decades long knowledge of German politics that is referenced nonchalantly in print, on radio, or on podcasts. These references to past events or precedents can lead to giant Wikipedia rabbit holes that will suck hours of your life away if you let them. As useful as it is to know about such things, brief overviews are rare. Instead, I wade through the political environment of decades ago to simply follow the arguments of politicians and journalists today. In turn, this can create more questions, which spur even more rabbit holes, until eventually I find I’ve been hunched over my laptop so long my elbows have fallen asleep.
It also doesn’t help that many of the discussions around German politics are inherently German, which is to say frequently very earnest. Political discussions in Britain are laced with humour, even in the most serious of moments, in fact especially in the most serious of moments. This can make my British brain ache for a joke, or flippant aside, which never comes. In many ways, this is an example of German politics at its best. Instead of requiring a heavy dose of sarcasm to mollify the creeping dread of awful decision making, Germans can seemingly face the worst aspects of the political ecosystem without resorting to cheap gags. When politics has been as febrile as it has been in Britain, with weekly, or even daily convention breaking events, the seriousness of the situation can be ignored or covered up by joking and then moving on.
Mind you, German politics also has its scandals, but they seem almost quaint by comparison, which is rather an initial reaction, than a genuine opinion. From murky connections to all manner of lobbyists, financial irregularities, connections to companies such as Wirecard or CumEx, Germany has the same issues in different forms, yet it’s all so slow moving, methodical, serious. Where Britain has seen fit to elect clown cars full of juggling cretins, Germany elects what I can only term as adults, people of substance, that take their roles seriously. Barring the dumpster fire of the AfD, the Bundestag is filled with generally sensible people, who might disagree about things, but more often than not, genuinely want the best for the country.
If there’s one complaint I have about German politics, it’s the never ending complaints about how rubbish it is from other Germans. Yes it can be slow, interminably so, and frequently the decisions are watered down or don’t quite result in the progress voters might hope for. Yet it functions. This last complaint is what can upset people, as if I’ve insulted some important core value of German-ness. In those moments I’m told I don’t understand, or that I shouldn’t compare what I see here to what I see happening in Westminster. All I can ever say to that is, "I’m trying", but when you come from a failing state like the UK, surely it’s only natural to embrace a home that gets it right far more often than it gets it wrong.
Proofreader: @ScandiTina
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