The 25 June 2006 must have been about the date when I held my high school graduation in hand. Since this day I spent a year in a voluntary service and almost finished a three-year bachelor. I traveled, have lived in different countries, met a lot of new friends, used my time for education, leisure, work and did whatever things I could imagine.
The 25 June 2006 was also the day that the Israelian soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted by Palestinian terrorists. Gilad Shalit has my age. His freedom ended when my school handed me the passport to discover the world. He cannot pursue an education, work for a living, start a family. Palestinians use a mask of his face to push for their claims (see image) and he's been without contact to his family and friends for the last four years.
A lot of smart people have lost their faith over the Israel-Palestine conflict. It's been on the minds of politicians and citizens for decades, and it will probably stay for another few years.
Yesterday, the European Youth Forum (YFJ) invited young European citizens to a debate on the precarious working conditions for young people. The video that they spread before the event shows the urgency of action:
40% of young Europeans (15-24) are on a temporary work contract, 25% are at a risk of poverty, 20,6% are unemployed. And as they grow older, precariousness does not stop. College graduates spend years going from internship to internship. They are highly qualified, highly capable and highly productive. The college graduates among my friends are far away from a stable living environment. There are simply so many qualified graduates, that enterprises and public bodies can recruit them without paying. I picked this from a random European job website: "favourable consideration will be given to applicants who are eligible for funding via Erasmus or other programmes". In other words, please give us your knowledge, your enthusiasm and your working time...oh, and please get taxpayers to reimburse us the cost.
Even those who are firmly established in an enterprise cannot settle and start a family. They are dispatched to a particular city for six months, then dispatched again. In Düsseldorf, Germany, there is a new market in shared apartments for young business employees. With their signature on the contract, young employees also buy a network of like-minded young travelers - a new temporary family so to speak.
Is this the end of bourgeois civilization, if not everywhere then at least among university graduates? Are families now founded at age 40 instead of 30, or not at all any more? The futurist Matthias Horxsuggests that young citizens have to accommodate these changes and take out the positive implications. He concedes that the job market is becoming more complex; citizens have to be flexible and react to the changes in demand as they occur. If demand arises for a wellness consultant, then citizens should specialize in this field. And re-specialize if demand falls again.
On the other hand, Horx believes that flexibility allows citizens a greater liberty and a more self-determined life. Work must not be the only factor of personal identification and satisfaction, he says. Temporary occupations allow citizens to refocus on themselves and on their own skills rather than the needs of their enterprise. Thus, saving money during working periods may allow a few months of reflection phase or training when a temporary contract has terminated. But not all young citizens have the possibility to save if they need to care for a family at the same time.
Certainly, a more flexible society also bears opportunities. Life in a shared apartment with young, highly qualified business employees will provide more contacts, more network and maybe more creativity and technology than a family home. But shouldn't the choice be left to young people themselves?
The audience at the New Energy Debate of the European Youth Forum answered that question with a resounding "yes!". In questions to Commissioner Maroš Ševčovič (inter-institutional relations) and the chairman of the Parliament Intergroup on Youth, Damien Abad, MEP, members of international and national youth organizations demanded quick action on youth unemployment. They also demanded that non-formal learning and a combination of university and vocational education be given a formal status, and recognized by European employers. This way, they hope, young citizens will be able to clearly present their skills to the market. Damien Abad (30) recognized the needs in his answers to the audience and proposed two further ideas: an Erasmus for apprentices and a European status for interns.
Those can only be small steps on the way to a more secure future for young citizens in Europe. It is clear that there is no way back to former patterns of bourgeois society. Education, consistently following the development on the market and reacting to new situations - these are the patterns of the knowledge society. But it is up to politicians, enterprises and organized civil society to make these changes socially sustainable. The initiative of the Youth Forum was certainly a first step in the right direction.
States lose their sovereign exercise of power. The future belongs to global enterprises. Business and investment opportunities outrank local development concerns and consumer protection. We still vote for elected politicians, but our vote no longer has any importance. The votes we take with our wallet determine what happens in the world.
And most importantly: The future belongs to a new kind of energy. The global enterprise "Orley Industries" owned by billionaire Julian Orley produces highly efficient Helium-3 on the moon and sends down to earth in a space elevator. A little ride away from the Helium-3 fields, Orley is about to open the first hotel in space.
The novel "Limit" by Frank Schätzing (currently only available in German, but most certainly translated within the next few months) shows the world as it might be in 2025. The author paints a slightly exaggerated but often enormously interesting and sometimes eyebrow-raisingly realistic picture of the world as it could be. Although the 1300-page book starts out rather slowly and readers have to remember a range of characters and places, the carefully conceived plot soon has you hooked and makes this book a page turner.
Yet, while the storyline is thrilling (a young Chinese dissident and blogger discovers a plot against Orley Industries with enormous economic consequences - and has to fear for her life as killers find her trail), for me the main value of this book is the brave new world it proposes. In between the action, Schätzing has his characters think back to "that minor financial crisis in 2008", discuss the demise of oil, ponder the eco-city "Dongtan" currently built outside Shanghai, breach the topic of the Chinese ankang and many more deeply interesting viewpoints, seen from the perspective of 2025.
And in contrary to Huxley's "Brave New World" and Orwell's "1984", Schätzing's "Limit" is not so far beyond the limits of imagination. Indeed, several times I found myself hoping that the world might become as Schätzing conceived it - while at other points you anxiously hope that our politicians won't cave in to global players as much as it is described in the book.
After his two political books "The Swarm" (nature fights back at human beings) and "Lautlos" (highly sophisticated terrorist attack on US president Clinton), Schätzing again wrote a well-researched book that raises your political knowledge and keeps you entertained along the way. Definitely an interesting read for those people passionate about the future of our planet.
A few years ago the Somalian refugee Ayaan Hirsi Ali caused a major political uproar in the Netherlands. Within a few years, she went from being a refugee to becoming a member of parliament and she spoke out fervently against the - then - tabou topic of Muslim integration. Based on a pillar system in Dutch society in which Catholics, Protestants, secularists and Muslims live in parallel and without interference to one another, the Dutch state long turned a blind eye on mistreatment of Muslim women in the Netherlands, as Ali argues in her autobiography Infidel. After she long believed in Islam during her adolescence, the treatment of women led her to become atheist and she's fought today's interpretation of Islam ever since. Her film "Submission" led to many discussions and triggered the violent murder of her director Theo van Gogh in the middle of Amsterdam - stabbed multiple times in the chest by a radical Muslim, who attached to the knife a life threat for Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She subsequently left the country and fled to the US.
Now Ali came back to the Netherlands for a week to present her second book, Nomad. Like Infidel, it carries a lot of autobiographic traits, arguing that Islam is slowly croaching upon Europe and that Christians (led by the Vatican) and secularists have to join forces to push it back. "We have to bring Muslims away from Islam", she says in this interview regarding her book. I have not read the book yet, but the comments I read suggest that she is hitting a nerve again, and polarizing without wishing to polarize. With her former liberal ally Geert Wilders campaigning for the national elections, the atmosphere in the Netherlands is tense; fear comes up that Wilders may actually win the elections in June with his anti-immigrant propositions. Ali may have distanced herself from Wilders, but the tide of the time is absolutely unfavorable to immigrants and especially Muslims. On the other hand, in a heavily secured television debate in her former university Leiden, female Muslim students took Ayaan Hirsi Ali under fire for her criticism of Islam. "Have you ever even bothered to read the Qur'an?" was the questions she was asked most of all. To polarize matters further, during her brief stay in the Netherlands Ali also accepted an award from the youth wing of the ultra-orthodox protestant SGP party which certainly drove Christians and Muslims further apart.
News coverage doesn't suggest that there is a completely new debate in the Netherlands - but the publication of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book at this time certainly has an impact upon political thinking and the elections. If it it will be for the better or for the worse - that remains to be seen.
It is surprising how harsh the reactions were from the German side when French finance minister Christine Lagarde told policy-makers in Berlin to step up domestic consumption. German enterpreneurs suggested other Member States "do their homework" and step up their own competitiveness so that they wouldn't need additional German investment. The government and Commissioner Günter Oettinger agreed that German products should remain cheap as not to compromise its export revenues.
But in my view, Christine Lagarde is absolutely right. As I have expressed here, Germany's so-called "competitiveness" is essentially a public bailout of the enterprises on the shoulders of the working population. Of course it is true that Germany has the strongest economy in Europe and contributes much to growth in other Member States. But that can be increased by shifting resources back from the businesses to the consumer: A legally imposed minimum wage as practiced almost everywhere in the EU would raise aggregate consumption - and note that people have proven on various occasions throughout the crisis that they did not save the money they had at their disposal - which then means
more consumption of domestic goods and services
more consumption of foreign (inter alia European) goods and services
more possibility to invest in enterprises at home and abroad, and thereby a greater involvement of the citizens into economic decision-making and a greater democracy in some enterprises
Yes, it also means that enterprises have less financial room for manoeuvre and investment. It means that some enterprises will relocate, to European states with a lower labor cost (beneficial for inter-EU trade) or to extra-European states (bad for the EU). But as the high-skilled services sector is taking ever-increasing importance and businesses have already come back from Asia in fear of technology theft, a large part of enterprises will not compromise the conditions that they find in the education level, social climate and infrastructure of central Europe.
Therefore, Christine Lagarde is absolutely right. For the last ten years, German entreprises, withholding pay rises of the employees despite inflation and higher product revenues, have benefitted from a society that does not take to the street except against nuclear power and right-extremists. They have benefitted from a disunited, individualized workforce that can be easily put under pressure. They have benefitted from state contributions if they employed a recipient of social security.
Let's not talk about repaying those ten years. But it is about time the employees/consumers obtained their rights for the benefit of the rest of Europe.
Update: Couldn't say it better than Robert von Heusinger in this article (translation: Google Languages/myself):
"Let's take the economic growth as the epitome of wealth and power of an economy.Here the matter is clear: France grew by an average of 1.5 percent in the last ten years, while Germany only grew by paltry 0.8 percent. Also in terms of employment as the epitome of participation and self-esteem of the people, the country across the Rhine performed better: while France's employment grew by 0.8 percent per year on average, in Germany it only climbed by 0.5 percent.
Where does this French success come from?From domestic demand, private consumption.It averaged 2.2 percent, four times as high as in Germany (0.5 percent). How did France achieve this - in spite of globalization?Through higher wages, that's the simple answer.The slightly more sophisticated one: it was achieved through an economic policy that recognizes interrelationships instead of blindly reducing national debt, shrinking the state sector, and relying merely on competitiveness."
Update 2: Christine Lagarde is completely wrong, on the other hand, if she suggests to finance consumer spending through tax cuts. That would take money away from state services like education and research and development that dearly need it. Consumer spending has to be financed through the real economy. The money has to be shifted from the enterprises to the citizens, not from the state to the citizens.
ihr habt es geschafft! Wie wir gerade erfahren haben, wird es auch ab Sommer 2010 Förderungen für internationale Freiwillige geben!
Als Ergebnis des Drucks, den ihr alle mit Briefen, Protestaktionen, Anrufen, etc. aufgebaut habt, wurde heute, am 12. März 2010, ein spontanes Treffen wichtiger Entscheidungsträger einberufen und gemeinsam beschlossen, dass es auch im Sommer 2010 eine Förderung für Freiwillige im FSJ geben wird!
Das ist eine super Nachricht und ist der Erfolg vieler Menschen, die ihre demokratischen Rechte wahrnehmen, hinschauen und sich gemeinsam für eine Sache einsetzen!
VIELEN, VIELEN DANK an euch alle, die ihr euch auf vielfältige Art eingebracht und engagiert habt: mit Mailings und Briefen, mit Beschwerden und Anfragen bei Abgeordneten, der Organisation von Unterschriftenlisten und der Organisation von Flashmobs! Ohne euch wäre das nicht möglich gewesen!
Bitte leitet diesen Erfolg auch an diejenigen weiter, die vielleicht nicht auf unseren Verteilern stehen. Das heißt auch, dass Flashmobs und Briefaktionen nicht mehr notwendig sind!
Nach meinem Post gestern hat Kosmopolito über die Pläne der Bundesregierung geschrieben. In den Kommentaren hat Felix das Anschreiben für die Abgeordneten etwas verändert, damit es in die Form bei abgeordnetenwatch.de passt. Abgeordnetenwatch ist eine einfache Möglichkeit, mit Bundestagsabgeordneten zu kommunizieren, allerdings muss man sich vorher registrieren. Ich kann jeden Leser nur bitten, von dieser Möglichkeit Gebrauch zu machen und auf seinen Abgeordneten und die in der Email genannten Politiker Druck auszuüben.
Die genannten Abgeordneten sind Mitglieder des Ausschusses für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend; hier geht es direkt zum Ausschuss auf Abgeordnetenwatch. Ich habe in der kurzen Spanne seit gestern abend schon drei positive Zuschriften von Abgeordneten erhalten, die das Vorhaben unterstützen und hoffe, dass es bald noch mehr werden.
Hier die aktuellen Positionen der Parteien zu dieser Frage:
Florian Bernschneider von der FDP hat sich in diesem Interview mit der Welt (Stand: 3. März 2010) eindeutig für den Ausbau der Freiwilligendienste ausgesprochen: "Deswegen müssen wir die Förderung (bisher knapp 50 Millionen Euro) ausbauen, um die Stellen zu erhöhen und in ihrer Qualität zu stärken."
Die Position der CDU/CSU ist derzeit unklar, aber wie schon berichtet schreibt der ICJA Freiwilligenaustausch weltweit (ICJA e.V.), "dass man sich im Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend darauf geeinigt hat, noch im Mai diesen Jahres den §14c Abs. 4, in dem die Höhe der Fördermittel (421,50 €/TN-Mon.) festgelegt war, zu streichen".
Die Grünen lehnen die Mittelstreichung für den Internationalen Freiwilligendienst ab, sagt der zuständige Bundestagsabgeordnete Kai Gehring in einer Pressemitteilung: "Die Zukunft liegt im quantitativen und qualitativen Ausbau der Freiwilligendienste. Die notwendigen Mittel dafür stehen nur dann zur Verfügung, wenn die überholten Pflichtdienste endlich beendet werden."
SPD, Grüne und FDP kämen bei einer Abstimmung im Plenum auf 307 von 622 Stimmen, sofern tatsächlich jeder Abgeordnete gegen die Mittelstreichung stimmen würde. Das reicht aber noch nicht. Ich kann die aktuelle Position der Linken nirgendwo finden und habe deswegen meine Zweifel, auf welche Seite sie sich schlagen wird.
Das bedeutet im Umkehrschluss, dass Lobbyismus zwar überall zugleich ansetzen muss (wie gesagt, der persönliche Abgeordnete ist eine wichtige Macht), dass allerdings vor allem bei der CDU/CSU und der Linken Druck ausgeübt werden muss, damit sich die Positionen verändern. Meine Hoffnung ist es, dass SPD, Grüne und FDP gemeinsam mit der organsierten Zivilgesellschaft und den Bürgern gegen die Mittelstreichung kämpfen werden damit das Ministerium seinen Vorschlag zurücknimmt.
Update 2: My apologies to all English readers of this blog. Despite an international implication, the cancellation of the international volunteer programs by the German government is essentially a domestic question. A communication campaign first has to target German politicians. This is why I chose to blog it in German.
