Je repars à zéro

Not too sure I would want to go back to 1954 but it has a certain appeal. The one condition would be that I would know then what I know now.

The only downside would be that I probably wouldn't have had the joy, pride & honour of having such wonderful children, son-in-law & grandchildren.

So maybe just going back 35 years: son would have been just 3 weeks old and being cuddled by his 3-year-old sister. That certainly looks much better but would I then have landed up in Bavaria? Almost certainly not.


And why is being in Bavaria important? Well it has it's charms but there again we all know there are virtually no spots on our globe that don't have their attractions - The grass is greener on the other side of the fence.


It comes down to something that was yet again discussed on Germany's equivalent to BBC1 last night, that had as its theme "Heimat". A word that can simply be translated as "Homeland" but has 1001 different meanings.


What is Homeland?


1) where I was born?

2) where my parents came from?

3) where I grew up?

4) where I lived for most of my life?

5) where I now live?

5) where I feel comfortable, can open my belt & let my belly hang out?


It's actually a very nice word that can bring back smells of Mum's cooking, the smell of a garden rose, the sight of rolling green hills or bluebell woods, the sounds of cowbells or church bells.


The word encompasses everything that is good and safe and puts us back in the motherly womb.


The evening's programme had started with a 45 minute documentary about some towns in Germany, one a suburb of Cologne, the biggest new private housing estate in Germany with 7,000 people, a third of whom have "a migration background",  living in very nice upper middle class, everything hi-tech, sparkling clean and orderly, even with a neighbourhood Bobby on foot beat making it a very safe place with virtually no crime. They feel comfortable there as they are all new, there are no old groups & social structures that they have to try and get into.

And yet 200m from the outer edge, middle in agricultural fields, a small parcel of land with an oldish small house, lovely old garden with beehives, lawns, trees and flowers, live a young pensionable age couple who talk about the loss of identity of the onetime village as they sit down with a group of like-aged friends for a BBQ. The days of always knowing the names of almost everyone at school, on the playground, at the sports club, at the pub, at church, at the carnival ball ... all gone.


One can understand how they feel their "Heimat" has been lost:
50% of Germans remain in the county they were born in and only:
20% of West Germans move outside the region they were born in.
40% of East Germans move away but:
62% of East German women (50% men) with a University degree move away.

And then it concentrated on a rural 12,000 person town in former East Germany, that almost died when the people deserted it after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1990 to seek wealth in the West. And as can be seen in the statistics above, particularly the educated ones. So the resulting high unemployment led to the rise in the fascist neo-Nazi movement despite there being no "immigrants" or "dark-skinned foreigners" but able to also blame Globalisation and any form of Government or Establishment for the demise.

Despite this, in the last 5 years, the former villagers are beginning to return after their excursions, no doubt yearning for that "Heimat" feeling and slowly the town is getting its heart back. Even the senior school class when asked were very split about whether they would stay or leave - 10 years ago, I guess all would have said leave.

Things heated up in the following panel discussion programme. It had been proceeded by a "Shitstorm" (the moderator's word) of online abuse from the right-wing fraction and although the discussion was quite orderly it showed up all the problems associated with the word which has moved from a "feeling" word to a "political word". The Bavarian Government were forerunners in this and the former president had set up a "Heimat Ministry" which he now as Germany's Home Office Minister has replicated in Berlin. It's like trying to set up a "Ministry of Love", how do you govern it. And indeed, the Ministry has neither passed nor started any laws on "Heimat".
  
But it is the word that brings out the worst in many of us. It's a word that has been hijacked for centuries by the populist extremists to stir up hate, a trick that Hitler, the Brown Shirts in pre-WWII, Enoch Powell in the 1960s UK, Trump & the Republicans in the USA and all of Europe. It was I think without question, the most significant factor in the Brexit referendum.

The feeling that Heimat is being lost gets to our basic fears and no avalanche of facts can move us once the bonfire of our fears has been lit.

And so it is in the UK. We have the Heimat "Anywheres" politically active, liberal and outward looking, the Heimat "Somewheres"  who feel the Anywheres, Establishment, Globalisation, Government, Authority, Police, Judges are to blame. Even the moderate law-abiding Somewheres won't kick a policeman's head in and anyway he is (usually) British as is the NHS, the Queen, the Army even if need be the Government BUT THE EU IS FOREIGN, not understood and is fair game to be kicked wherever it hurts them most and with no holds barred for how hard. You just need to hear about the attacks on people in the underground who simply are talking to one another in a foreign language - Don't understand it, must be evil.

So that is where we are with Brexit - entrenched and at a standstill.

But then suddenly the small, actually meaningless in numbers, the bunch of 11 The Independent Group MP "traitors" hit a nerve that has awakened the "In-Betweeners", the majority. The Labour Party now apparently trying to show they are actually not 100% Somewheres,  even at leader level going against a long lifetime of Somewhere doctrine, only to save their backsides.

Goodness do I hope & pray this shift continues. Even in Bavaria after they recovered from the shock of nearly losing their 70-year majority, the right-wing conservative party moved a big sidestep to the left, to their former more central (relative) position, so as to counter the left-wing Greens. The small populist right-wing AfD (Ukip in English) are being actively laughed. This months Biodiversity petition/referendum has furthered the notion that Bavaria (and Germany) has probably stopped the rot here.   

Ah, and there was my Blip. A true Heimat Photo. A place I have known for 30 years but which is perhaps only in the last 10 years, perhaps less, become the place I can kick off my shoes, take off my trousers, sit around in my underpants and let it all hang out and say in good Bavarian "Leck mi doch am Arsch, i will a Schnitzel, Bratkartoffeln, Gurkensalat und a Maß gepflegtes Bier".

And this is no lie - last night before watching TV, I cooked myself a Schnitzel, fried potatoes (always use 1 day old boiled ones) and a salad - not a cucumber salad but made exactly the same way, a raw white cabbage salad and all washed down with two pints of beer. I am too weak in old age to lift a litre of beer in a heavy glass at that time of night.

And to top off the evening, daughter Kate phoned from Eire to report on the weekends events and her husband , my great son-in-law and father of my two smashing grandchildren, quick trip over to England and meeting up with his brother-in-law, my son J for a curry, a few pints and a drive around the lovely southern counties of the old homeland. 

Non, je ne regrette rien