Oh Europe, Where Art Thou?

A roof terrace in Lisbon. Half past five in the morning. I should be asleep. But a month ago, I must have sat under a nest of processionary caterpillars in France. Now my whole body is itching like hell again. So I scratch. Right down to the blood. Suddenly the political comment from one of those Facebook friends you don’t actually know seems to me as if we Germans had collectively sat down in a nest around 1928. We’re still scratching. So I write.

I am an autist. I am a traveller. For me, what you call home is mostly just a place where hardly anyone understands me in my own language – should there even be something we wanted to talk about together. I polarise, frighten, and sometimes I even manage to whisk women over 3,500 km away with a magical phrase I can’t even comprehend. Everyone speaks a different language when travelling. Not being understood is part of everyday life for everyone here. Travelling is my only home.

They say we autistic people have extreme views. But when I wander so sleeplessly from afar through German opinions on social media, I almost think it’s possible that the good friend who said: “You’re the most normal person in the world.” was right. But I am probably an extremist after all, because I represent a very unpopular opinion in the fight for the right path in Germany and Europe.

The person I didn’t actually know railed against my political opponent on Facebook. I just threw in a subtle “we should talk to each other more instead of condemning our opponents”. As a result, several people put a “mega” in front of the opponent’s “arsehole” – and emphasised the whole thing in the name of humanism. I actually find it very funny when I provoke such extreme reactions with subtle interjections. If I hadn’t learnt that, I would have died a long time ago, because my “subtle” is often unintentionally your “extreme”.

Tonight is different. I fear for Germany, for Europe, for the world. How far have we come when the condemnation of political opponents is louder than the discourse? Have you ever sung the German anthem? I haven’t. But if I remember correctly, the word “Einigkeit” (unity) is completely forgotten before “Recht und Freiheit” (law and freedom). We all shit on it – while we bask in the likes of our increasingly radical comments. Whether left or right. Nobody talks to their opponent anymore. We cover both ears and run with our feet, typing hate comments, towards the deep, wide ditch that we all dug ourselves with zeal.

Sometimes talking really doesn’t help. No matter how much gin you drink with Israelis in Zanzibar or how many hours you spend fuelling a fire in a cold mountain hut in New Zealand, you can’t really get them to stop talking. As soon as you point out to them, however discreetly, that they behave like Nazis at home, it’s game over. Is that a reason not to give it another try? Not for me.

You grow with the tasks. If they’re too big, look for smaller ones! I’ve just been talking to another Russian about gay rights. It’s always as exciting as setting fire to a barn. Okay, after the short diversions about the influence of Russian hackers on democratic elections at the latest, he blew out my match. But hey, the barn is still standing! I’ll just go outside to smoke now.

Unfortunately, social media works differently to face-to-face conversations. The free expression of opinion is replaced by the WWW truth filtered by the medium. Why doesn’t anyone call THAT the lying press? Facebook only earns money if we stay on it for a long time. So it only shows us what we like. Who likes to read what they don’t like? That alone contributes to the division of societies, because people only like to believe what they see. Everyone only sees a small sliver of the WWW truth. The stupid ones believe it’s the only one.

In his book “Homo Deus”, the brilliant thinker Yual Noah Harari predicts the destruction of democracies through the Internet. In the past, censorship worked by preventing access to information. Today it is much more perfidious: we are only bombarded with what we like or what is meaningless from the outset. Preferably both in one. Worse still. We are not only being bombarded. We are also willingly dumping this rubbish ourselves. Here’s another person sharing how to see posts from “friends” that we haven’t been interested in for a long time anyway. Please! If you want the truth, real and unfiltered, then talk to people directly. Especially with those you don’t like.

They say “but” is the little sister of “arsehole”. But when was the last time you put a “but” directly under a “hostile” post? And when did you simply share the last report on a “hostile” post and put an “arsehole!” underneath it?

I like: but.

Instead of rushing, we should sit down. It can’t be that there’s no longer a straight line between right and left. The problem is not left or right, but that we no longer talk to each other. The WWW is partly to blame for this. I don’t blame politics. We are all to blame ourselves, our disenchantment with politics, our disinterest, our comfort and our self-importance fuelled by likes.

Who stood up when the SPD under Schröder sold “social” in their own name and then credibly emphasised it with a managerial job in the Russian gas industry? Who has ever pointed out to the “Christian” parties that original sin is a rather uncontemporary concept? You may nail one hand to the cross for my sake – but do you still have to cover your eyes with the other? Once again: I do not support violence of any kind, regardless of the source. But when even an autistic person wonders why no one understands anyone else (and we really are very bad at this!) – where do we stand then? Oh Europe, where art thou?

Travelling is colourful. Once again, I travelled across numerous borders without showing my ID once. I paid with the same currency in every country. Galaxies exploded on my tongue. I only realised weeks later that Portugal actually has a different time. Nevertheless, the sunset was equally beautiful everywhere. Nevertheless, every country is different. Every people is different. Our differences could be the ground for so much good. I wish we didn’t have to be afraid of you – or lose ourselves.