The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has, in one sentence, said something remarkable that a year ago nobody would have thought her capable of. On 28 May 2017, in a beer tavern in Munich, she said: “We Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands.” Up to that point, Merkel had declared the inviolable transatlantic alliance as the reason of state for Germany. Today, however, the German chancellor carries herself with strength and confidence – against the reigning government of the USA – and is thereby supported by many European leading media. The presentation of recent survey results for the election campaign point in the same direction. The “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” promised three “wonderful results” for the chancellor on 22 May. For the first time since the “refugee crisis”, Mrs Merkel was “placed number one” among the German politicians again. In the same article, it was also said that the Chancellor had cheerfully visited a school in Berlin to arouse a “yen for Europe” there.
It is interesting, however, that the same media, which support Mrs Merkel with her “independent European way”, are still firmly integrated into transatlantic networks. A few years ago, a number of media-critical Swiss journalists founded an organisation named “Swisspropaganda”, for which they deserve our thanks, and they have now published a graphic entitled “Media in Germany: The Transatlantic Network”in the internet. A look at this graphic is worthwhile: <link https: swisspropaganda.files.wordpress.com netzwerk-medien-deutschland-spr-mh.png>swisspropaganda.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/netzwerk-medien-deutschland-spr-mh.png. Everything that has medial rank and name in Germany is represented here.
So we probably have to translate Merkel’s statement on Europe to: We do not want to work with the reigning US government. On the contrary, we will do everything to weaken this government and to displace it early, so that our true transatlantic sisters and brothers will return to the power of government as soon as possible.
And just so that there might be no possible misunderstandings, many of Mrs Merkel’s colleagues, be it of her political party or on government level, were immediately back-pedalling in the form of explanations and elucidations in the days after her beer tavern adress.
It is hardly accidental that Angela Merkel and Barack Obama have repeatedly been appearing together, so at the German Protestant Church Congress in Berlin. And it is also hardly surprising that the German leading media comment this as follows: “When Obama spoke at the Protestant Church Congress in Berlin this week, he said what many Europeans feel: wisely, and in a balanced and cosmopolitan way. How strange his successor appeared by comparison! Trump saw all the topics through tiny American glasses; he did not represent the diversity of his great country but the simplicity of an angry electorate.” Is that the new European Merkel identity – foolish arrogance, condescension towards millions of Americans who have chosen Donald Trump, and an unbearable self-complacency?
By the way, the fact that the Church Congress offered such a large forum and ample opportunity for election campaigning to two politicians like Merkel and Obama, who are so downright unchristian in their practical politics, is alone to be criticised.
It appears that Angela Merkel’s new companion in the “European Strength” policy is to be the newly elected French President Macron. This is meant quite literally. It is reported and documented in videos on the Internet, how the US and the French President shook hands. The interpretation and the appropriate quotations are also provided: “According to his own words, the new French President Emmanuel Macron used an extra-firm handshake to teach colleagues like Donald Trump to respect him. ‘The way I shook hands with him was not without ulterior motives’, said Macron to the French newspaper ‘Le Journal du Dimanche’. Such a handshake is a ‘moment of truth,’ he added, referring to his first meeting with the American president on Thursday in Brussels. He had pressed Trump’s hand in a particularly tight grip and for a long time. ‘You have to show that you will not make small concessions, not even symbolically,’ the Head of State continued.” – That was not a tabloid newspaper, but the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, – and it was not the only one. World politics by means of handshakes – is this the expected sign of a newly awakening “Grande Nation”?
Or is it just a sign of the new drama, the Merkel-Macron-Grotesque?
What is certain, however, is that in this way, Europe will not find its independent path. Like this, not a single problem of today’s EU will be solved. And it is not the “populists”, who are the problem – even if this view is to be rammed down the Europeans’ throats now. The problems consist of substantial political, economic, social and not least ethical erosions. Also the existing political plans of Macron and Merkel will find little favour in many EU countries: more EU thanks to the enemy images Trump and Putin – more migrants in all EU states in the future, despite the slogan of secure EU external borders, more money for the preparation of war, as well as an EU army with its command center in Brussels (and directed against the “double threat of Russia and Trump” (“Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” of 28 May), a centralised budget for the Eurozone with a “Euro” finance minister … and in order to achieve all this also a new amendment of the European Treaties.
Apart from the mainstream media, there are interesting reports about really new ways to take in Europe. On 27 May, F. William Engdahl, an American analyst and journalist living in Germany, published a text entitled “Eastern Europe Tilts to OBOR and Eurasia” on his internet site (<link www.williamengdahl.com englishneo27may2017.php>www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO27May2017.php). (OBOR is the abbreviation for “One Belt, One Road”). Here is the preamble of the text: “Small but geopolitically important steps were taken by key members of the European Union from the EU’s Eastern periphery. While largely ignored in Western mainstream media and in Brussels, they could well portend a longer-term alternative economic space to the failing construct known misleadingly today as the European Union with its bankrupt Eurozone single currency and European Central Bank. I refer to the talks recently in Beijing at the major Belt and Road Forum, between leaders of 29 nations and China’s President Xi Jinping with the Prime Ministers of Hungary, Greece, Italy, Spain as well as the President of the Czech Republic and the President-elect of the Republic of Serbia.”
At the end of the article, Engdahl describes the meeting as “the seed crystal of a world geopolitical renaissance that contains the potential to replace the now-dead Anglo-American globalisation model of top-down fascist economic domination, with a model truly based on mutual benefit among sovereign nations”.
Here I want to add a request to Mrs Merkel and Mr Macron, and to all who support their policies: Is it not high time to think carefully once again? •
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