I don't like politics....

Today I watched a classic movie, called 'Judgement at Nuremberg', a story loosely based on the Nuremberg trials of the high-ranking Nazi officials. The historical events during the several phases of the rise and fall of the Nazi era, as well as what was happening during the time the movie was made, make it difficult to approach such sensitive events in an unbiased way... However, I found the movie dealing with the matter from a very wide and pragmatic perspective and I recommend everyone to watch it. There were several fascinating angles, and one of them was the cliché question regarding the responsibility of that German people for the Nazi crimes. In the movie you find the common excuses of individuals when their society or nation commits collective crimes: 'we are not monsters', 'we didn't know', 'we are simple people, living simple lives', etc. And then comes the excellent "I Am Going to Tell Them the Truth" Confessional Speech of Burt Lancaster as the German judge, who instead of trying to escape, he took the responsibility...

The full monologue is here (and as audio here), and like in many other movies of the time it is a pure masterpiece. Maybe the most interesting part is the following: 

'My counsel would have you believe we were not aware of the concentration camps. Not aware? Where were we? Where were we when Hitler began shrieking his hate in Reichstag? Where were we when our neighbors were being dragged out in the middle of the night to Dachau?! Where were we when every village in Germany has a railroad terminal where cattle cars were filled with children being carried out to their extermination! Where were we when they cried out in the night to us. Were we deaf, dumb, blind?…. My counsel says we were not aware of the extermination of the millions. He would give you the excuse we were only aware of the extermination of the hundreds. Does that make us any the less guilty? Maybe we didn’t know the details. But if we didn’t know, it was because we didn’t want to know…'.

I have to admit that this post relates a lot to my recent experience of living in Germany, even though I will try to have a broader perspective. The last years we more and more listen to people saying that they ‘hate' or they are 'not interested' in politics. After the apparent failure of the communist/socialist movements to …solve all the problems of the world, people lost interest in politics. Especially nowadays when politicians from all parties are to the eyes of the people nothing than corrupt puppets serving the interests of an obscure, powerful minority, which makes people feel that their vote gives them no power to improve their lives and for that reason political thought appears a waste of time. But this is a great misconception, which only can result in an even worse situation…

It is widely accepted that apolitical people are easier to control, because they cannot interpret events. Somebody tells them that Stalin was a dictator worse than Hitler and they believe it. They tell them that US is the land of the free that everyone should imitate, they buy it also. Steve Jobs became the big thinker of the 20^th century, even though he just made a lot of money (and even less than Bill Gates)… Nowadays he is receives more credit than Camis, Neruda, Tsomski and so many other real thinkers. You can rewrite history easier when apolitical people read it…

A big misconception is that many people believe that their vote gives them practically no power, but this is completely wrong… The thing is that it gives them first of all responsibility… To acquire information, to process it and to form an opinion. Voting is not like choosing what to eat in the restaurant, it needs preparation and participation, otherwise this is when it get’s wasted… Examples of the voters’ power are many but we have very recent ones, from two ‘hot poles’ of Europe:

-         one year ago, Greek people were voting and they had the possibility to accept or deny the ‘help’, ‘austerity’, or whatever you want to call it program, which every day has been taking their lives more and more and defines their future. Among the possible results of their vote would be an exit of Greece from the Eurozone, which had possibilities to lead to contagion of the whole EU (as the economists were saying). It would have stopped also the ‘financial support approach’ which has been implemented to Ireland, Portugal, then Spain and who knows next. I am not saying that Greeks should vote against the austerity and the loans, but I just saying that this was definitely an exciting circumstance to vote…  But for the Greek people, elections were a ridiculous theater which they found …boring and useless, and almost half decided to go to the beach rather than vote! And it is clear that the ones who did were not really prepared and informed…

-         The same will happen to Germany in few months… The whole European political system has frozen, waiting for the outcome of the German elections which will define in a great extent the future of half a billion people. We are talking about a continent in which any big event can affect the whole world, where people are starting to die because of the economic crisis, that even the most conservative media are talking about a lost generation. Only one country can do something about that and this is Germany and many things are in stake in September’s elections... But German people find it pointless to spend time and think deeper about what they will vote!! They spend all their energy in their work, on which car to buy or on recycling, not eating meat and choosing the electricity company which doesn’t use nuclear power. And maybe after few decades when we will assess the breakup of EU, the possible decay of Europe, the social problems and the deaths, they will say again ‘we didn’t know’, or ‘we are just normal people’…

Conclusion… I agree that nowadays talking about politics is boring and miserable, since only 5% of the population does it and the rest are ‘normal people’. It leaves you with nothing but to complain about problems you don’t see any way to solve… But if the majority was interested in politics then discussing it would become the most exciting thing to do, like it always is in periods of unrest and change. People would meet to envision the future, to imagine their life as they want it to be, share their ideas with others and try to find common angles. That would definitely make thinking politics fascinating! And this is what the few rich and powerful and our inadequate leaders are trying to make us avoid and surprisingly they are succeeding for the moment.