In dresden was toxic. The question we are asking today is this east and west how united is germany . To discuss, im joined in the studio by three seasoned commentators and analysts, beginning with author and academic johannes staemmler, who says germany is united, but only on the surface. Also joining us is andreas kluth, germany correspondent of the economist magazine. East and west, he believes, are growing slowly together economically but growing further apart in psychopolitical cultures. A warm welcome to Anna Sauerbrey of der tagesspiegel, who also writes for the International New york times. She says recent abuse and attacks have brought back the ugly east. Johannes, we begin with you. You were born in dresden, which has been the focus of a lot of attention. People have been talking about the troubling events. What do you make of it all . Johannes it really hurts to see the pictures from dresden. Intellectually, i do not find it so hard to understand that people are aggravated, that they need some way of articulating their disbelief. Emotionally, i find it really hard to see it happening in dresden, to see it happening this way, and to have a feeling there is not much communication going on. There is no discussion. Peter when you say you are hurt, can you describe that hurt for us . Johannes being born in dresden, a place most people have some attachment to where they come from. Dresden is a pretty city. It really made a comeback after 1989, 1990. It draws a lot o of attention, visitors, high culture. But there seems to be a considerable part of people that do not take part in it, that dont care about the picture of the city. They just see they are left behind or not talked to. That is why they used the scene monday. Peter when we talk about those scenes, anna, one politician, claudia roth, was in the thick of it. She says afterwards, she was confronted with organized, brutal, and unrestrained hatred. How concerned are you . Anna of course, i am concerned. It is not just people expressing their rage in the streets. We also see the rage entering the political system in its organized form, the alternative for germany, in many of the eastern parliaments that have voted. Of course, that is a reason to be concerned. I also think it is not too late to pick up a conversation with those people. I think it was right c claudia roth tried to talk to the people, though she did not succeed. Peter until recently, reunification was viewed as one sort of one of the Great Success stories in recent decades. Something has gone wrong, though. Andreas especially in the narrative people in the east tell themselves about what has happened in the last 26 years. What i find interesting is i recently went to mecklenburg, western pomerania, a state that has an election, that has 8 unemployment, which is higher than the whole of germany and lower than the rest of europe and lower than what the state has had since unification. Objectively, they are doing well. There are few foreigners there and few refugees. Yet they have a nanarrative they are the losers of reunification, that they got shafted. Reunification was not a merger, but a takeover by the west. I think they fit into that theme we see, from trump to brexit, of alienation. I think the refugees play into that. There are very few refugees. I did not meet any when i was there. But they feel they are losers. They are angry at the Political Correctness they perceive us here to be dabbling in. They are fed up. That is the psychology of it. Peter you are nodding, anna. Anna i agree. It is not only part part of the motives are mixed. We have the economic deprivation that really does exist. Many people have improved their lives. The poverty has lowered. We see less of the exodus of the young people that happened after the wall came down. There are points of improvement. We also see significant economic differences. That is one motive, i think. Of course, the refugee crisis has brought up emotions that were maybe stored away for a couple of years, for at least five or six years, where we have seen those improvements and brought it back to life. Of course, we have the third layer i totally agree with you there a global populist movement that makes people feel that, even though they are a minority, they are allowed to set the tone. If the government does not do what they want individually, the government has to be dismantled or toppled over. That is how the cry merkel has to go comes into life. Peter johannes talking about victimhood on one side and Angela Merkel has to go on the other. It is interesting for international viewers, i am sure. People on the east tend to say they have been left behind since reunification. When you look at the two top jobs in german politics, the president , mr. Gauk, and the chancellor, Angela Merkel, they are both from the east, and they are despised by other people from the east. What on earth is going on . Johannes it is the two of them, and there is there is not much e elite from the east, to e honest. The president and the chancellor w what more can you want . But looking at the military, big enterprises, many socially relevant areas, you do not find east germans in the top positions even after 25 years. What i find more frightening is that the very old narrative comes to the surface, the construction of us versus them. Constructing us is easily done, especially when you feel left behind. If you find an us, you just need a them. Back in the gdr, the them were the elites, the western political system. People could withdraw from the system by pointing at the others running the country and running it badly. That is why they are putting gauk and merkel on the other side. They do not relate to them. Same goes with the foreigners. It is someone else entering our system, challenging our we. It is a very basic, very simple structure. But it does not allow communication, does not allow debate. Peter very, very harsh language is being used. I was listening to some of the expletives being thrown at the chancellor. It was unbelievably vulgar language. I was personally shocked. I wonder if im getting oldfashioned or if the discourse has moved on. You talked about rage. Andreas i was shocked. I have taken many trips to the east, all around here in berlin. A year ago, i wrote a story on a part of saxony. At that time, there had been many riots against refugee homes, a corner near the czech republic. I traveled around. Like you, i was shocked. I am used to a western or multicultural berlin, the way we are sensitized in our language and the way they are not. It really seemed like an alien culture, a foreign country, even though i spoke fluent german and have a german name. It was different and very shocking. I have to tell you, they are not an exception. You would find the same in parts of northern england. Peter where i come from. Andreas where you come from. If you go to appalachia, west virginia, trump land, you would find very different and deliberately unp. C. , raw language which makes them feel authentic. Peter we have talked a little bit about Angela Merkel. Lets listen to two other german politicians as they try to put the events we have been talking about in dresden into perspective. We will listen to the governors commissioner for east german affairs. Before that, lets listen to the speaker of thehe german parliament, president of the bundestag. The people who are here today, booing and shouting and otherwise expressing their outrage, have obviously forgotten what shape this city and this country were in before reunification was achieved. The situation in eastern gegermany is complicated. These demonstrators are a minority. The vast majority of those who live in the Eastern States are neither xenophobic or rightwing extremists. This majority has become a silent m majority. I would appeal to them to speak out. Peter interesting comments. We heard Norbert Lammert saying many people in east germany seem to have forgotten what their country was like before reunification. Is that an impression you share . Johannes they have not. Most do not want to go back to gdr. It is not old people. Peter what do they want . They are against everything out there today. So it seems, at times. Johannes i do not know what they want. It seems they do not want to actually talk to someone. They just want to scream out their aggravation. I have a hard time saying it is all of east germany. As you say, you find these people in many parts of the world. What i see is the political system, the Political Parties, and Civil Society needs to reach out in one form or the other. This is nothing to be done in a week. This is something that has not been tried sufficiently in the last 25 years. Looking at how german parties are organized, you will find they are very weak on the local level in east germany. Maybe it is too strenuous, too expensive. Andreas speaking of Political Parties, i think one thing that is interesting to remind viewers abroad of is that most east germans have none of the traditioional affiliation and practice with the Political Party system, which is west germanys system that was brought in. Old east germans went from one dictatorship to the second. In 1990, suddenly got democracy imported that had already evolved. You find very fluid and somewhat weimar republiclike conditions. For instance, another party very strong in the east, besides the alternative for germany on the far right, is the left, the successor of the communist party of germany that some of these people marched against. It is seen as a regional they stick up for us. As johannes said, it is us against them. There is a lot of voter migratation between them. They have not grown up with the social democrats, the christian democrats, with the debates west germany had. They came in and felt this does not concern us. They are seeking some sort of protection in a group. That is the problem. The Political Parties are not rooted there. Peter the question is how far it has to go. We heard the commissioner for Eastern German Affairs saying it is time for the proud people of dresden, very proud people when are they going to stand up and be counted . Anna it is a bit unfair to say they are not out on the streets either. There have been counter demonstrations against pegida. There are a lot of Civil Society movements, artists, teachers, local politicians, who exist and go out and protest the protests. They are maybe not loud enough, but it is hard to be that loud. We have seen that on monday. It is hard to come up with the same level of aggression. Of course, that is something that is immediately playing in the favor of these movements who are really very small. Even though i said in the beginning, i am concerned about the turnout of the recent votes. But when you look at the longterm attitudes, political attitudes, how they evolve, there is not much of a difference in the turnouts in the votes in those basic attitudes. For example, xenophobia, we have maybe 6 , depending on how you measure it, in the west. Then you have a constant 10 in the east who harbor those xenophobic attitudes. That is a significant differencece, but it looked bigr on monday and on the many pegida outings than Long Term Development shows. Peter tell us more about the proud people of dresden and how they can respond here. Johannes the proud is omnipresent. I have not seen any other city where people constantly go into the same museums year after year, just being proud of where they are and who they are. The last time they demonstrated altogether was 1989. Maybe it is the subtext of dresden being a more administrative city, being used as some kind of king, buying all this beautiful art, flowing around the beauty of being. I do not know what it would take to pull people on the street. There is always a bigger pegida demonstration. Peter when you go back to dresden, do you have these conversations with people . What are we going to do . We have all this lovely art. We are proud of our baroque traditions and so forth. The reputation of the city is being ruined. Johannes im sad to say that even those people that are against pegida, they say, lets not report on it. Lets wait until they go away. Like the nazis, which they didnt. They just didnt go out on the street anymore. The momentum of, i go out and expose m myself with the opinion of, this is not my city. I do not want this broadcast. This is not a notion that people have. Andreas i have encountered that, too. I found people on my trips to saxony. There is a german word we have heard often dont soil your own nest. You can find liberal saxons against pegida. But as soon as i say, tell me about this, and i already know they are active against it, they withdraw. I do not want to soil my own nest. I thinink they are rounding up e wagons, very much, against any outsider. They are not interested in what is going on in the country, in europe, in the world. If you are interested in solutions, you have to look at the Syrian Civil War and much else. They want to maintain their identity, which they think is under siege. Anna the idea that pegida was going to go away was not that wrong. For a while, it looked like it would go away by its own. 2015 happened, refugees came in, and the mood started to turn. Pegida was almost dead. Maybe we will see a decline again. Johannes something is broken. Every time something is happening in the city that is destroying a little bit of the east german picture, all these movements go away at some point in time. But there is no debate in culture after it. It is always, we have gone throroh this. Lelets go back to busininess. The rounding up the wagon effect is us against them. They hate that someone comes fromom the outside saying, even me, a son of dresden, saying, what do you do . It is the dont tell us what to do. Peter i would like to pick up on one word you used you talked about the elites in eastern germany and what role they play in all this. I found an interesting fact when i was reading up on the story. Only 20 of Senior Management in the east are actually from the east. That means 80 are not. That is in support andreas that is part of the victimhood narrative that preceded the refugee crisis. From their point of view, the first invaders made the easterners secondclass citizens in their own country. Now a new class of outsiders comes in. The premier of saxony once said to a group i was part of, even in american history, it was the secondtolast group that was always most virulently against the last or most recent. In a sense, they feel they are immigrants to their own country even though they never moved. The new arrivals, they let it out on them. Peter there is a problem with how this feeds into the great debate on democracy. An east german sociologist put it like this east germans see themselves as unrepresented in their institutions. As a result, they dont identify with those institutions. It is democracy that suffers. Anna it certainly is. As i said earlier, it is a problem if a minority does not exact the choices of the majority anymore. I believe these people out on the streets in dresden are really part of a tiny minority. We still see those, support for merkel declining. We see some sort of general agreement for a social democratic, conservative, or at least Mainstream Party regime in germany. I think it is many different factorors that play into the situation we see right now, a certrtain discontent with democracacy as we know it. The rule of the majority is part of it. Peter do you understand the anger of those people who go out on the streets and say we are underrepresented, not represented . Johannes that would be a great quote, if they were screaming, we are not represented. That would be a starting point for a brilliant new way to go. But they say, you are not one of us. You are betraying the people. You are betraying the people. You have to repeat that. We arere the peoeople, and you e betraying us. I do have some understanding for why they feel that way. And i am thinking of what could be done. I mean, there is a fulbright program. We are sending journalists from one continent to the other to get to know each other. We should send people from the west to the east, east to the west, have people join the bundestag for a week and see how difficult it is to find a compromise. I mean, something that actually exposes at least a couple people to the difficult mechanics of democracy. Peter one berlin journalist commenting on this said two countries in one. Is that right . Andreas sounds like two countries, one system. I used to live in hong kong. I was born in america. I am american with german parents. I moved to germany four years ago. After a childhood where i spent a few years inin west germany. I thought i knew germany. I thought i knew german culture. What i discovered when i went to the e eastern parts is surprisingly alien to me. I sympathize with them. I think it is two countries in one. Peter one commentator said people in germany still have a wall in their head after all these years. Do you have a wall in your head . Anna not that i know of. What rings wrong with me with two countries in one is that it is not our problem as westerners. It is a problem we all have and should all tackle. Peter how divided is germany . One sentence. Johannes below the surface, it still is, but there is a lot we can do about it. Peter thank you for your input, all three of you. If you have enjoyed the show as much as i have, come back next week. Byebye. 8uxuqea x x x rc host this week, global 3000 heads to venezuela where life for many is becoming increasingly expensive and difficult. Whats happened to the countrys socialist legacy . We visit senegal where for decades, the booming peanut business has been wreakiking hac on the countrys sosoil. How mumuch longeger can itit go . But we start in iraq, a country under siege from the socalled islamic state. 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