Usually this site is about nothing other than my music, but it feels wrong not to use my reach, however small, to at least comment on current world events in some way. And I don’t think another socially critical song is enough. Maybe I can reach at least someone.
To be honest, I am in fear. Exactly 80 years after World War II, we live in a society that legitimizes fascism and imperialism. There are so many parallels to history, they literally scream in your face, but they are deliberately overlooked. We are so damn brainwashed. How could this happen? A few years ago, Putin brought war to Europe. The continent and the entire Western world is under pressure on how to maintain the integrity of borders without triggering a full-scale war with nuclear powers. And in the midst of this uncertainty, a US president will soon be sworn in who announces his intention to assert unjustified claims on sovereign states, by force if necessary. A president who, instead of standing up for peace, is fanning the flames of fear of a third world war. In addition, significant parts of the Western world besides the US are experiencing an unprecedented shift to the right, based on … well, on what actually?
Trump in particular has a cult of personality that is difficult to comprehend rationally. It shows how a single person can claim things and their followers simply believe everything … even if they are blatantly fictitious and don’t even have any basis in fact. We have peace. 80 years after one of the most disturbing events in world history, we have unprecedented prosperity and peace. And we are giving it away because of … because of what at all?!
The fact is, there are no unsolvable problems. Inflation, cost of living, economic turnaround, all problems that could have been solved through constructive cooperation. But these “normal” problems of our time have been inflated with misinformation in order to plant fear in people’s minds, fear of a scale of problems that doesn’t actually exist to this extent. The basis of the panic, unrecognized, is social media. Society has produced an incredibly poor culture of debate. Diversity of opinion is not valued; it is met with defamation, exaggeration and insults rather than reason-based arguments. On all sides, left and right. However, I would never have dreamed that this social grievance would become the basis for a social emotional collapse and subsequently the legitimization of right-wing extremism. Do I really vote for right-wing extremists because I’m annoyed that a newsroom genders people on social media? Does that make any sense? Do I vote for right-wing extremists because some Dulli insulted me on Twitter because he has a different opinion to me? Do I have such a bad self-confidence to turn this into a political issue instead of at least keeping the discussion objective on my part? Does it really make sense to help right-wing extremists gain power because it annoys me that queer people … exist? Where is the connection? And isn’t it strange that it annoys me at all? After all, it’s about strangers who have absolutely nothing to do with me and my life. Does it make sense to label the pursuit of an inclusive society with the fighting term “woke” because I allow myself to be pigeonholed instead of reacting to content? We don’t all have to agree, but we are individuals. How much sense does sorting individual views into pigeonholes make at all? Does it make sense to sort the value of people hierarchically and try to justify this misanthropy in the name of a prophet who himself preached peace, humility, kindness and charity 2000 years ago?
Can’t we switch off our agitated gut feeling for a moment? Can’t we press ‘reset’ and start thinking for ourselves? And realize that all differences of opinion do not justify a global political catastrophe?
When the mischief has run its course and the world has descended into chaos, when we have exchanged our peace for death and ruin, war, suffering and the irreversible destruction of the world we live in, our children will ask us about our motivation for allowing this to happen. And we will have no plausible answer at all. It’s so fucking random.
