A New Beginning

On leaving, arriving, and starting again

Nine years have passed since the day I decided to leave my country.
Nine years are not enough to truly get to know a place, not even when you live there.
But a lot can change in nine years. Perspectives, for instance.

Between 2017 and 2026, events of global significance have unfolded: wars — above all the war in Ukraine; an unexpected pandemic that shattered many of the certainties we had taken for granted; an equally unexpected political and social crisis, with consequences above all psychological for both older and younger generations; and a surge in inflation that has resulted in the irreversible weakening of the middle class.

Nine years ago, moving abroad meant opening up the future to new hopes.
Today, it means escaping from a past that is becoming increasingly frightening, especially from a climate perspective.
Germany — strong, both morally and economically — suddenly finds itself vulnerable.

The far right is gaining ground in the polls, and it may not be long before the wall — the so-called Brandmauer — separating it from a significant role in the federal government finally collapses. The opposition remains stuck in outdated positions and, at worst, engages in a desperate race to catch up with its enemy, adopting its language and its patterns of thought: a game that, in the long run, ends up benefiting precisely those who should be suffering the consequences — namely, the AfD.

The countercultural scene is trying to stem this tide of populist hatred, but radical forces — whether Die Linke or the trade unions — see collective scepticism as the main obstacle to developing an awareness of class consciousness.

This is a fundamental concept.
Class struggle.

An idea that evokes distant memories: Marx, nineteenth-century socialism, social injustices to be defeated — forgotten, dust-covered ideas that do not seem to matter much even to the current Christian Democratic government, led by a lobbyist with abysmal approval ratings, a friend to the powerful and an enemy to the weak.

The real problem, at its root, is the unwillingness to start from scratch and try to understand what lies at the heart of the problems causing anxiety among ordinary people. The lack of common sense among today’s institutions has even led people to look back nostalgically to the charitable Angela Merkel, whose often counter-current courage was quickly cast aside in favour of a patriarchal machismo that once again puts old white men in power. Nothing different from what we have already seen in Europe with Silvio Berlusconi or Nicolas Sarkozy, or in the United States with George Bush and Donald Trump.

The return to dead and buried ideals — such as the unwavering defence of aggressor states (Russia, Israel, the United States) that use war to further their own economic and political interests — or indiscriminate cuts to education, as though there were a collective desire to prevent the new poor from becoming aware not only of their own limitations but also of their collective strength, is leading us towards a scenario in which hatred becomes synonymous with survival.

But at what cost?

Resistance is difficult in the face of global fragmentation.
Germany is not having an easy time of it at the moment.

Almost everything has changed in nine years.
Nine years may not be enough to develop a sense of belonging, perhaps. But they are enough to become aware of the need to search for new strategies.

The first step towards renewal must necessarily begin with a new sense of self-awareness: making that awareness a priority is, inevitably, a cultural task.

And that is where it makes sense to begin again.