Friend of Democracy,
As I get off the train upon arrival in my hometown of Tauberbischofsheim, a town of about 10,000 inhabitants in southern Germany, which I'm visiting for the weekend, two girls, maybe four years old, run past me onto the platform, screaming with joy. Following them, presumably their mothers, two young women, casual, relaxed, wearing headscarves. All of them: people of colour.
As I stroll along the river Tauber that gives the town its name, I pass a few people sitting on a wall, presumably speaking their native language. They see the Ukraine button I'm wearing on my shirt, point to it, and greet me with sweeping arm movements, signal approval, perhaps even gratitude. I greet them back.
Based on a similar reaction, I suspect a saleswoman in the bakery on the town's market square, where I buy a butter pretzel, is of the same nationality.
As I am about to head back, walking toward the train station early Sunday morning, someone next to me locks her bike in the bike rack at a local nursing service. This young woman, who, I'd guess, has roots in Southeast Europe, is probably about to start her shift.
After boarding the train, a woman checks my ticket, whose German will probably improve significantly within the next few months.
And next to me on the train, two men are getting to know each other. They initially speak English, then switch to Arabic when they realise that the other person also speaks the language. Therefore, I only catch the beginning: one of them previously lived in Detroit and is eloquent about how wonderful it is to travel by train in Germany, unlike in the US.
With the melody of their conversation in Arabic ringing in my ears, on my way back to Berlin, I wonder how and to what extent the many changes in my small hometown over the past years will be perceived by those who live in this city every day. Because it's so much more difficult to notice such developments when they're not experienced as leaps, as is the case for me, who only comes here a few times a year. And I hope that most people in Tauberbischofsheim can notice and rejoice in the fact that their small town, like many other small towns in Germany, has now become a cosmopolitan city.
See you in Democracy,
Johannes Eber
Sadly this "not everyone" is beating a loud drum!
And marchers tend to fall in stride with the beating of that drum.
If we are not successful in finding another more attractive marching rhythm (and direction) more and more marchers will follow that drum.
Currently we even see topline politicians starting to set their steps to that drum.
We need a band daring to play another tune! Loudly and with fervor!
Here is the leadsheet of that other tune:
Our main problem is NOT migration!
Our main problem is the pending collaps of our social security systems and the lack of qualified labor.
There is no solution to that problem! but immigration!
The "Eisernes Mutterkreuz" for 5 or more children does not work.
Well managed immigration is the solution!
Who is playing the song of the opportunities of well managed immigration? Who is laying out the plans to attract the right people, to invest in them?
23% AfD bei der Bundestagswahl 2025 im Wahlkreis 276 Odenwald – Tauber