Letters to the editor

“Respect conveyed for the long-suffering Lebanese people”

The article “The survivors or: In search of a future” by Karin Leukefeld in Current Concerns No. 14 of 28 June 2022 touched me in a special way. A few days earlier, I had met a Lebanese taxi driver in Cologne while travelling by taxi: an extremely friendly, somewhat elderly person. I learned that he has lived in Cologne for 14 years, is the father of a family of already grown-up children who attended school in Cologne. He told me a lot about his home country Lebanon, about the lack of state order and the chaotic conditions there, about the horrendous inflation, but also about his brother who stayed there. When his brother urgently needed medicines, they were not available in Lebanon. So he sent them to his brother from Germany. However, the brother could not easily receive the package with the medicines. Someone, perhaps the postman, had intercepted it and was now demanding 50 US dollars to hand it over. What else could the brother do but pay the 50 dollars!
   I could not forget the descriptions of this sympathetic Lebanese taxi driver.
   When I read Karin Leukefeld's report a few days later, I was deeply touched and felt a sense of having met the Lebanese taxi driver. I was able to deepen my impressions of Lebanon gained during the taxi ride in a particularly impressive way, among other things because the author showed the social and political context of the current conditions. In addition, Karin Leukefeld gave me respect for the long-suffering Lebanese people and their courage to live, their will to survive. I am grateful for that.
   Once again, I asked myself what we, what I, as an individual, can do against this crying injustice caused by the power interests of the Western hegemon and its vassals. To connect with like-minded people, to keep myself informed, to keep talking and perhaps to provide modest material help through donations. These were the modest answers I found.

Annelene Neuhaus, Cologne

A thank you

As a long-time reader of Current Concerns, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the staff of this newspaper for their tireless and valuable efforts in publishing, on a voluntary basis, a high-quality newspaper that is oriented towards the common good, ethics and international law.
   Especially in view of the almost omnipresent propaganda with which most media in Germany have been “supplying” us on all channels and around the clock since the beginning of the Ukraine war, the importance of Zeit-Fragen (Current Concerns) as a “Journal for independent thought, ethical standards and moral responsibility” becomes particularly tangible.
   Current Concerns does not take part in the general disinformation and provides articles that are mostly withheld from the readers of the mainstream media, whereby their contributions to the diverse political, social and educational questions are of great importance for our living together.
   Many thanks! And please keep up the good work!

Wolfgang Ley, Cologne