Konrad Watrin: Amid the gloom of polycrisis, there are also reasons for optimism

Vladimir Mitev

Konrad Watrin is a historian, political scientist and specialist on the Middle East (PhD), who has been working as a correspondent and a teacher.

Cross-border Talks’ Vladimir Mitev speaks to him about contentious issues in German society:

– the weakness of the liberal center, as seen in the European elections as well as the regional elections in Saxony and Thuringia;

– the triple extremist threat to German society, which he defines as coming from the extreme left, the extreme right and the Islamist tendencies;

Both discuss also international relations from a German perspective:

– are we seeing a return to Angela Merkel’s policy of supporting stabilocracies in Southeastern Europe;

– is there a disturbance in the German-Ukrainian alliance;

– who are the good guys in the Middle East, when Israel is subordinated to international isolation over its bloody war in Gaza and Iran has elected a reformist prime minister.

Welcome to another cross-border talk where we will now focus on European affairs. We will be discussing a number of probably problematic or contentious issues with Konrad Watrin, who is a former teacher, also has an academic background and has worked as a former correspondent, a foreign correspondent for his nation’s media. We have just had elections in Thuringia and Saxony where a certain tendency has been confirmed, that is – of certain weakness of the liberal center in France and Germany. I know that Conrad is somebody who has also studied in the USA and has strong liberal and democratic convictions. He is probably thinking about these issues: what is going on with, let’s say, the liberal center and with Europe? First of all, Konrad, if you allow me to start with this…

We see that there is a rise of political forces which are labelled by many as neo-fascist, either to the right or to the left. How is this rise of the, let’s say, peripheral forces changing German politics?

The polarization which we have in Great Britain, in France, in Italy, less in Italy maybe, but especially in the United States is the kernel of the problem. The frightening thing is that it mixes with the, well, almost traditional tendencies which are hard to explain of East Germans which make up about one third of our nation and their general frustration about the so-called change after the revolution of 1989, which is a very complicated phenomenon. There is simply tremendous frustration because they just feel cheated and they feel slain over the table, as we say in German. And they feel so, although the facts are against it. The recent fact is that the development in Eastern Germany in part is even better than in Western. 

We in Western Germany have lots of social problems as well, but the decisive factor then is the migration question, which, just like in France, in Britain, leads to the very traditional dictatorial trick to focus on the other, on the foreigner and to blame someone else. It could be Jews, it could be Russians, it could be Turks, it could be Muslims it could be Chinese, whoever. Focusing on them as a problem leads to the fascist movement. 

The most frightening phenomenon as the last elections have shown is that the youth is turning right. Some of our states now are allowed to vote from 16 on. The youth used to be Green, liberal, maybe a bit left-wing, but in any case – directed towards the Green. Now they are directed towards the right and that is really frightening, especially the boys. At the same time, according to recent studies, the young girls are turning more left. 

Okay, but still you just constatate that there are rising problems. What is the path forward that you want for German democracy or society?

Well, the path forward, I guess, goes into the direction of two things. First of all, we have lots of social problems which have not been acknowledged in the recent decades. There is a huge failure of Angela Merkel’s 16 years, although it would be much too easy to blame everything on her. It is also a failure of the social democrats. 

For example, the housing problems are getting worse and worse – and worse. We simply don’t have enough living room space, cheap enough for people to afford. Then, if you then have one, two, maybe up to three million refugees which are accepted in the country and get housing for free, in contrast to the Germans, then you have legitimate reasons why Germans should start to feel uncomfortable. Especially those in the lower stratas, which of course also feel threatened by these foreigners, refugees, migrants, because they are a competition in the job market. That is a natural thing.

The same happens in England, in the United States, in France. This is the de-industrialization period we are living in, you see. The direction, I think, has to be, first of all, about trying to keep up economic stability. At the moment it is not so bad, but does not look really good either. Germany is kind of weak at the moment and we have to improve this, we can only improve this in the international and European context. Because we are entirely dependent on trading.

The second thing is education. I think this is even more important. I think it’s more a cultural question. It’s not necessarily the economy which is the decisive thing, as Bill Clinton says, it’s culture, stupid! he would say today.

Because if so many stratas fall apart, there is no cultural center, there is no cultural political identity in our country, which has to do with the war, with the historical heritage, it’s very difficult. And now we have developed into a very, very, very open, liberal and social, ecological society. But people are having real problems. The debate is on how far it’s the fault of the government that these problems have been increased. I must say I’m not sure about this, but we see different stratas, the young ones especially, but also the elder, which simply turn to become more and more illiterate, uneducated, uninformed, which is a very modern tendency for at least two decades now since the invention of the internet. Let’s call it the TikTokization of our communication system. 

If the young folks just scroll through the internet and don’t read anymore, if they just get informed by TikTok, which influences people on passing by, so to speak, and by a certain number of people, simply inserting slogans and propaganda stuff – this is a terrible situation. 

We can see this even in our best schools, that even intelligent young students, and you can see that in the universities, are simply no longer informed. Our culture turns into a culture where there is extreme misconception and mistrust against the public media, which have been the best we had in Germany, according to the BBC model. No one  is reading and getting information from intelligent newspapers or weeklies, and we have very, very good and very independent media in Germany, maybe better than even in France, Britain, and not to speak of Italy.

People are just lazy, perhaps they are just under so much pressure, but maybe the decisive thing is just ignorance. You think you get informed while you scroll over the internet, but you don’t really learn anything, you just have some headlines, and that doesn’t explain things. If you are not confronted with realities and you don’t deal with it anymore, then I think this is a really dangerous situation for our Western democracies, not to speak of the East European democracies.

You have been working with migrant rights in the UK from the beginning of August 2024, and you are working with migrants for a long time. You try to contribute to their integration in German society. So, you have your experience.

How justified is it to speak about Muslim immigrants in general, predominantly as some kind of a threat and only as some kind of security issue? And also, isn’t the extreme right extremism a greater threat to German society?

Well, this is extremely complicated. We have three major threats, and they are changing from week to week, but they are threats at the same time. We have a very strong left-wing threat, very strong, because our cultural sphere, our media system, even the educational system is permitted by people who became socialized after 1968, and they are more left-wing up to left-wing extremists.

There are many shadows there. In this strata, for example, in the academic circles, as you can see at the universities now, we have very strong tendencies of anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism, and this is a threat. 

Then we have the new right arising, which is associated with the AFD, and there are fascists in this party. The party originally started as a neoliberal conservative movement of professors who were just skeptical against the kind of European system we have. They were not even against Europe. But this party then was taken over by more and more right-wing people, and now we have entire regions in Eastern Germany who are fully in line on a very right-wing basis with the AFD. It’s hard to say how much is simple protest and frustration and how much is true fascism. I wouldn’t dare. At the moment, I don’t know any reliable numbers on this.

You cannot set this equal to the results of the elections. We have between 20 and 30% AFD in some of the states in East Germany, and this is going to be a very, very difficult situation now in balancing new coalitions. We have to be much more flexible. We’re probably going to have Italian conditions here. You have a similar situation. In England, it’s easier because they have  an advantage of the electoral system they have. But this system can also be a disadvantage. It’s too complicated and I do not want to take sides. 

I spoke of left-wing, right-wing, and then we have Islamism. It has been neglected and ignored in particular by the left-wing/liberal intelligentsia in this country, by the media. All three are real threats. The good thing is, there is no real threat to the constitution. There is no real threat of a revolution. Fortunately, there is no charismatic figure. No, there is no leader. Björn Höcke or such people are just local idiots. They are not charismatic leaders. All together united, they could become a threat.

Now, it’s really up to whether we are reasonable enough in our country to set up, well, to withhold more. Everybody has to retreat a little bit because the climate is almost eruptive and kind of aggressive. 

Right now, I’m in France. Although the split society in France is much more radical, the climate is so much more comfortable, so much more easy. This is a difficult thing in Germany. There you cannot make the migrant, the foreigner responsible for all the problems. There is so much coming together. From my experience with these people, I’ve been teaching these people, my wife has been teaching them for decades, you must always distinguish. You have astonishingly interesting people. You have astonishingly nice, you have very, very human creatures and you have lots of idiots as well. Uneducated, sick, traumatized, especially many people coming from Islamic societies. It’s really striking that hardly anyone seems to realize how many deeply traumatized people come from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, even Egypt, whatever. They are traumatized because of having been tortured. They have been persecuted. Then we have these migrant children of the second and third generations who are preaching the humanitarian Islamic religion, which never existed in the home countries of their parents. This is such an absurdity. This is virtually unknown, I think, just among a few more or less educated people. 

I think the direction goes into enlightenment, political education, which means not only schools, but also, and I think it has started, the media in our society. There are some very, very good media. But in the last, maybe up to one or two years, three years, the AfD and the new right started taking over language, the slang of the former left, which is a really dangerous thing. It’s a Putin method, so to speak.

There used to be a mainstream, left mainstream, which always claimed we were responsible for anything. It was always the evil coming from the United States, the evil coming from Brussels, not to speak of Israel, of course. And this has changed. I think one can see this in the last months and the last few years, that they are getting more and more cautious, more and more realist, more and more, I would say, more liberal, yes. 

But traditionally, liberalism has been very weak in Germany. And that is one of the major problems of Germany. It used to be strong during the Kaiserreich, during the German Empire. At least there was a very powerful liberal party, although the climate of society was not liberal at the time, it was more chauvinist. And this, as we all know, led to World War I and then the breakup, the revolution, the short Weimar period, and then the Nazi total breakdown, so to speak.

But as a political force, liberalism has been very, very weak, in contrast to Great Britain or the United States. And that, it would be good if this tendency could be strengthened.

In Europe, a number of stabilocracies appeared, with one person who somehow provided security and order, and these regions didn’t create a lot of problems for a move of goods or for move of maybe money or whatever, but maybe you are familiar with this term, stabilocracy, like the rule of Boyko Borisov, Gruevski in Northern Macedonia or Vučić in Serbia. I wanted to ask you, because that was Angela Merkel’s time when this was happening, and now there is criticism of her, some of her policies. At the same time, Germany and the European Commission signed recently a huge cooperation contract with Serbia for the use of lithium. And on the other hand, we see that Ursula von der Leyen and Bulgarian former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov supported each other strongly during the EU elections, even though Borisov himself had some populist anti-European messages and recently also the law against anti-LGBT propaganda in schools.

So I want to ask you, do we see in your view a return to the German and EU policy towards Southeastern Europe that supports stabilocracy? And if there is such a return, isn’t there potential for some reaction, anti-democratic and anti-EU reaction, in these societies?

That’s a topic for real specialists. The truth is that hardly anyone deals with it in our country. It’s just the political elite and only those in power who care for Southeastern or Eastern Europe.

For the political and also the media elite, the so-called opinion leaders, it’s a geostrategic necessity. If we want to unite this European continent in a peaceful, democratic way, we have to have open societies and democracies all over Europe. Until the borders of Russia. 

In the 90s, we were even dreaming of including Russia into it. That obviously didn’t work. And it will take at least another 100 years, I’m afraid, until there will be another rapprochement to Russia.

But in detail, this is a question for specialists. There is even a more or less informed media in our countries. I bet it’s only a few professors at universities who really know what’s going on in Moldavia, whether we have to stabilize such countries, or just let them go wherever. 

This is so far away, so far away from the public interest that you have to ask only some of the specialists in our foreign office, or maybe in Brussels. But of course, we get crazy when we hear about lithium. 

Not everybody says, well, we have to accept them, the ‘stabilocrats’. But there’s so much resentment against them. There’s a really understandable resentment or criticism of bureaucracy, especially of  the successor parties of the former communist parties. There’s so much justified criticism of tendencies of corruption, etc., that people are more or less afraid if we have to take all those people into the opinion. This is a populist meaning, which you can hear quite often.

Okay. I still believe you’re an informed German citizen, because I know you really follow various media and you really think on many levels about what is going on around Germany. So my next question also maybe is a little bit in this category, because you are probably aware that recently there was this investigation that accused an Ukrainian team of people who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.

It coincided with the German announcement that it will not send additional military aid for Ukraine until the end of the year. And curiously, it was Donald Tusk, who is generally considered a pro-German politician in Poland,who said: everyone who promotes Nord Stream should be ashamed and be silent. And we also saw Andrzej Duda, the Polish president from the sovereignist tendency visiting Kyiv.

I was wondering, in your reading, what is going on in this group of countries, Germany, Poland, Ukraine? Is there some change of the game which was taking place for maybe at least one year? Because Germany was a very strong supporter of Ukraine. And so, what is going on?

I can’t say. Frankly, I can’t say. I don’t think there is a change going on.

It is not directed against Ukraine. First of all, it’s astonishing. It was in the news that there was something going on, that a Ukrainian was suspected of having blown Nord Stream. 

I don’t know. Where did he hide? In Poland? I forgot the details about that. But two days later, there were no consequences. When I heard this first, I thought, wow, this is going to blow up the whole alliance with Ukraine. But no. There is a strange consensus in even our critical media not to pursue this. Speculation is forbidden. To a certain degree, this is reasonable. We have been playing around and throwing around hundreds of billions of dollars, of euros. Just 100 for rearming our army, which barely exists.

It is necessary to do that. But we have social problems. We have housing problems. We can’t afford to solve them. And then we have the 2, 3 or more millions of refugees and migrants, which have to be fully supported. So, the government has to get back to a certain degree of austerity policy. And the question will be: how are we going to do that, while at the same time multiplying our efforts to support Ukraine? At least officially, the expenses are still rising. 

And even if an AFD party, which is more or less pro-Russian, would come to power in Eastern Germany, which I do not see, I still do not believe that this will happen, we will continue to support Ukraine. Everybody has understood that either we help them to fight against Russia, or the next will be the Baltics, Moldavia, maybe Bulgaria, maybe, I don’t know what. I don’t think there is a split up. 

However, if we have, let’s say, Trump winning in America, if we have a left-wing government in France, or Madame Le Pen coming to power, and if the new right-wing tendencies should continue and take over in Germany, which I do not believe either, then it would become very, very, very difficult.

At the moment, it’s very hard to see that the first necessity which I would see is, what we would need is some strong Chancellor. Someone like Konrad Adenauer or Helmut Schmidt at their time, in the 50s, 60s, 70s. What we would need is a strong leader like General de Gaulle in France, with a new really uniting European idea, even on a military basis, and preparing really for a serious threat, not because we want to go to war, but because we want to prevent it.

If we would take such an effort, which is simply utopian at the moment, I think that would be the direction we would have to think of.

My final question would be about the Middle East. The war which Israel wages in Gaza leads to its international isolation. At the same time Iran has elected a reformist president, who wants to overcome Iranian isolation.

I would like to ask you, what are the prospects of a positive, peaceful, integrationist future of the Middle East right now? Who is fighting for it locally, and who are the international forces who back it?

Well, this is another very, very complex issue. Behind there is what the British called the great game. This is what’s behind, I think, everything. It’s the fight between autocratic systems, even tyrannical tyrannies like China and Russia, and what has been left from the former bourgeois, democratic, western liberal societies. And Israel here is part of it too. The new Iranian president has not very much to say.

If this line, the autocratic one succeeds, it would be only because, even in the West, a pro-Hamas, a pro-Islamic thinking would take over, which in part is the case already in Britain, which in part is the case in France, and even at American universities and at German universities. There you have very strong tendencies behind which there is  just primitive hatred of Israel, or even hatred of Jews, which is anti-Semitism, nothing else. 

Of course, the way Israel is fighting, and I’m representing a minority opinion here, this you can barely say, even in independent media in our country, is really, really tough. It’s really, really a disaster. But this country has no choice. It’s the strategy which is enforced upon Israel by the Hamas, by the fundamentalists. All these Western or non-Western people who are just criticizing the way Israel is reacting – it is just hypocrisy. One leads to the other. There is no way.

The only future way I can imagine is either the pro-Islamic forces take over in the West, which is definitely what I do not want, or the other line gets through. And this is possible, if you hear from certain countries, behind closed doors, behind the lines. You can hear, for example, from the monarchies in Jordan or Morocco, especially from Saudi Arabia and its new leader, Ben Salman, but maybe even to some other Gulf emirates, that they simply have enough. 

I even read recently an article which quoted a Saudi Arabian leader saying: we’ve got enough. Finish the people from Hamas. They unite, because they want to make business, they want to make a cooperative system as we have in Europe. The Saudis are convinced of this too. This would probably be the only realistic thing to work, but there is still a hell of a lot of work to do and it would take a lot of sacrifices.

Photo: (source: Cross-border Talks)

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