Because nothing interesting takes place in Armenia, except for a beauty contest (when the winner received the crown, but later they took it back), let’s talk about another international topic: elections held in Germany. Although Angela Merkel has again become Prime Minister, and her Christian Democratic party won a relative majority in the Bundestag, both this and other “traditional” parties have at least something to be concerned about. Of course, first of all, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, which for decades were the axis of the German political system, lost 65 and 40 seats respectively in the parliament in this election compared to the previous elections.
And the worst concern for people with traditional western liberal thinking is the resounding success of the “Alternative for Germany” far-right nationalist party. This party received 94 seats out of 709 in the Bundestag, and won the trust of 12.6 percent of voters. The main trump of the party is the abundance of migrants in this country, mildly put, the “non-European” behavior of some of these people, and, as a consequence, the disappointment of the Germans from liberal values, “multicultural” approaches, tolerance, and broadmindedness. Many ordinary Germans (I think more than 12.6 percent) want to get rid of both these above-mentioned values and the actual migrants.
The rest are details, though quite eloquent. One of the party leaders, 76-year-old Alexander Gauland, “respects” the “achievements” of the Nazis. He calls for rescinding the sanctions against Russia and recognizing Crimea as part of Russia. There is no contradiction between these two “directions”: German National Socialists and Soviet Bolsheviks had common interests. But the problem, in fact, I believe, is not in the “pro-Russianism” of the “Alternative”.
The problem, I think, is rather to oppose the Americans, for a part of German society is convinced that migration policies liberal values and disagreements with the Russians are compulsion that comes from the other shore of the ocean. Who would say that this view is completely groundless?
The “Alternative” holds a motto very familiar to us, Armenians: “return the power to the people”: it turns out, that the power does not belong to the people there either. And on that occasion, I recalled a conversation: a few years ago, a German politician told me in a private conversation: “You are complaining about the Kremlin’s imperialist ambitions in vain. You, Armenians, are less dependent on Russia than us Germans, on the United States”. By the way, the speaker was a Social-democrat, not Hitler’s fan for sure.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
