It’s been five days since the results of the German election had confirmed what was expected: the extreme right has won some serious ground in Germany and is now supported by a fifth of German voters. In the state I come from, over a third of people support their ideas. Or I should rather say, who support their string of no’s.
I won’t repeat what the party claims in detail because I notice a similar trend in other extreme right-wing parties: the emphasis is on elimination and bans. The messages are all centered around dismantling “the establishment”. But, and that is where I see the danger, we’re never told what the alternative could really look like.
Currently, we’re getting a glimpse from the US. Again, I won’t repeat the obvious news but not only do we get an idea of how “the establishment” supports us but also what the alternative is.
The recent political events leave me wondering how far we, as a society, have come to losing a common vision of the future. We know the current system is flawed, but the alternatives to it are built in everyone’s mind, not in the public consciousness. We don’t know (and don’t appreciate) what we have built so far.
The missing link
We are missing a common vision for our future, while we all know that we cannot continue as before. We all hold something dear, but we each think that not only is “my dear” more important than “your dear” but that we cannot share them. I want to protect my forest from deforestation while my neighbour uses his to create an income. We don’t talk about it, but we let out our frustration at the ballot box, where simple solutions are presented by banning our chance to have a chat about it – to create something together.
I’m fully aware that the world has become a scary place. Uncertainty is tangible – at least since the last pandemic. I also hear lots of arguments around how our psyches are overwhelmed by complex problems: climate change is threatening our survival, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens our security, rising inflation and food prices lead to economic insecurity. All those things are scary as f***. But the solutions to those issues aren’t found in simple slogans, unfortunately. Just by closing borders, we won’t stop climate change because extreme weather doesn’t respect national borders. Just by increasing our military budgets, we won’t stop Russia. And the same goes for food prices – just by lowering interest rates or increasing tariffs, we won’t make food more affordable. Each of those changes is a combination of many different factors that cannot be solved by one single solution. And much less by one party with a strongman at the front.
There is a polycrisis and we need poly-solutions. Scapegoating, finger-pointing, or plain banning is not the way to those solutions. On the contrary, every ban creates resistance. If I tell my neighbour he can’t cut down his forest because I don’t like it, he’s not going to listen to me.
Two ears and one mouth
And here comes the point for all of us who resist current political developments: we won’t get anywhere if we just point out facts. My neighbour won’t stop clearcutting if I present him with research papers and graphs about the importance of biodiversity and old forests. I need to understand what he wants from his forest. What is his motive?
Understanding each other takes a lot of effort and time. For those who want to understand, it also takes patience and dropping our prejudices. I was just recently reminded again that we each have two ears and one mouth – we need to listen more than we speak. We need to understand the concerns before we can move to solve them.
Envisioning a collective future is not done in a single day and also not by eliminating the people who are affected by that vision. It takes us all to build the future we want and to protect what we each hold dear together.
So, my challenge to you, dear reader, is today to read/listen between the lines: what is at play here? We can’t continue to live together if we each just state our opinions and call it a tie. That creates a vacuum. And only the voices of those who scream loudest will fill that vacuum. Those of us who prefer a quieter environment, will miss out. And that’s where we stand at the moment. It’s time to take a step back and start a conversation, not a screaming match.