Social climate change

In Germany, just like the other climate change.

Some people cry wolf, others won't believe in it no matter what.

The K-landnews team is at a disadvantage in their quest to say something useful about the social climate of their current host country. Because we haven't been here for very long.

At the same time, this may open up a few angles many natives won't have. Like the frog you put in cold water, and then when you turn up the heat, the frog will not bolt. So, we like to think of the Germans as the frogs in their social cauldron - despite "frogs" being kind of taken already.

Some of our views are an extrapolation of general experiences and personal insights as to how changes tend to affect people. To this we tried to add conclusions drawn from talking to the locals. And, irregardless of our claim in the blog profile that we "have nothing useful to say and are confident we will never gain your trust", we have read up a bit on the last 20 years.

The authoritative answer: German social climate has changed by more than 2 degrees.

Like the real thing, is has become less predictable, more turbulent, with more short term extreme events. In some areas, the social environment has become warmer -- migrants benefit from an earlier spring, if you will, generally have a better time, despite some racism.

A few years ago, a German politician of Turkish background had an election speech up on YouTube - in Turkish. This rattled some cages, but we totally applaud the man.

In the German dominated general workplace, the lower layers of the economic atmosphere have become pretty disturbed with headwinds, wind shear, lots of localized turbulent events, while up at high altitude they have all the comforts imaginable and autopilot is a reliable mode. Ascend and descend, of course, have rough patches.

East Germany has seen a complete overhaul of its political system, and everybody has been given a new currency. If you search our earlier posts, you'll find us raving about the new autobahns in the East.

By the way, how come that sounds familiar: let's build some autobahns?

Of course, compared to the Germany of less than 100 years ago, this is a peaceful and quiet country.

But since history starts when you are born, the earlier lessons are not as immediate and as gut wrenching as those you witness with your own eyes.

We'll go back to the working class because we believe they have less of a voice than the writing classes. Which is not unique to Germany, but since we are here, we deal with the Germans.

The old social contract, where the workers were given some decent education and vocational training in return for quietly occupying their layer in society had been reinforced after WWII when there was so much work, so much growth.

In the past two decades, this contract was altered to their detriment, not to the extent as in Britain but more so than you might expect in a country with strong unions. Youth unemployment is luckily low, partly because the economy is doing well, partly because the old system has not been completely dismantled and companies are still taking in trainees -- but often without the previously guaranteed job once the training is over.

We don't know how the Western shift to more stratified societies will play out in Germany, but it is happening -- more poor people,  richer rich folks.

But give them some credit: they brought down the iron curtain under the smiling non-intervening Soviet leader Gorbatchev.  Mrs. Thatcher had no part in it. Mr. Reagan did not bring down the wall but he did  make sure that the Soviets knew they would not be invaded or blown off the planet. With a little help from their friends, the Polish and the Germans did most of the heavy lifting when they showed their fearless leaders that change was possible.

So, take a minute to thank them for this before we continue the march towards the new dark age.

One more thing: The post was written hours before the bombs at the Boston Marathon.