Do you recommend the upcoming federal government under Friedrich Merz from the CDU at least the modification of the debt brake?
This would be well advised. It is so tragic what happened to Germany: the country will now have to pay a high price for the mistakes of the past.
Let’s take the auto industry in Germany, which has lost so much trust with the diesel scandal. The entire political class has put an eye on it. In fact, Germany’s crisis can be put to a denominator: Angela Merkel.
You have to explain that.
Forgive myself when I comment on the policy of your country, but I think that Merkel was not a good chancellor. Merkel has admitted that the German infrastructure became even worse. Now Germany has to invest quickly and strongly.
Instead, migration dominated the last election campaign. Which brings us back to the Roman Empire and its downfall: from circles of the AfD “Barbarians” and “Migration” Warned that Rome had already put the end.
In doing so, they claim the same as Trump in the USA, who sees the root of all evil in uncontrolled migration. But that is a decorated nonsense. Rome had to deal with war -loving peoples like the Huns who had generals like Attila. That is quite a different difference to the people who, for example, risk the crossing over the Mediterranean in small boats. The AfD in Germany, the racial embleme nationally in France, Donald Trump in the USA, where you also look, the common denominator almost all of these nativistic movements is that they want to reduce immigration and even want to undo in some cases. You see a threat in this. But given the demographic location in the western countries, further immigration – quite controlled – is inevitable and in the interests of the employer.
The West is in a crisis of meaning, as they say. With us in Germany there is the winged word of the “Late Roman decadence”. Is there anything?
This expression comes from the former FDP boss Guido Westerwelle, isn’t it? In fact, the legend is circulating that Rome is almost culturally rotten internally. This whole story goes back to historian Edward Gibbon …
… The multi -volume of history of history “Decay and downfall of the Roman empire” published in the 18th century.
Exactly. For Gibbon, Rome began to fall in when it left strangers: by the way, an interesting mix of Christians and barbarians like Goths and vandals, which ultimately allegedly had the empire and its will to live eroded. Literary Gibbon’s work has its value, it is scientifically overtaken by the work of my co -author Peter Heather and that of other researchers. Rome was by no means alone “Late Roman decadence” As a basis, but the decline was driven by events on its colonial periphery. Gibbon’s influence continues to this day, even a well -known historian like Niall Ferguson misunderstood it.
In 2015 there were these terrible terrorist attacks in Paris, then Ferguson published a comment. In it he wrote that Europe had not only become decadent, but also “Stranger” have let in. Gibbons greetings! What is the episode of Ferguson’s argument and the like -minded? Build walls, control borders, keep strangers outside and let the nationalist muscles play. This is Trump’s script. Unfortunately, he is extremely wrong. An example: In the United States, just five percent of the population are illegal immigrants, at the same time these people are among the most productive workers, as far as we know. Of course there are problems in the USA and Europe in the field of migration. I don’t want to deny that at all. But she is hardly able to destroy our civilization.
What do you recommend so that the West can currently survive with its wars and conflicts in the fire -threatening world situation?
The West has a huge advantage: its culture. It is one of the most powerful elements of western power. Much of the world is shaped by this. What music listens to students around the globe? Those from America. Who sets the tone when it comes to fashion? France. And which car brands are still considered a status symbol despite all the crises and scandals? Those from Germany. China does not almost export its culture to the same extent because it simply does not have the attraction of Western culture. This is another analogy to the Roman Empire: the Greek-Roman culture was once so dominant that we still consume it today.
What about the tangible policy?
Building walls is a historically pretty bad idea. It just doesn’t work. Above all, we have to put up with the fact that the West suffers a relative loss of meaning. That sounds damn hard, but if it is well managed, it doesn’t have to end in the disaster. We will be able to keep our standard of living through the right decisions, which is so much more than our ancestors had. The western states can also expand their relationships with the countries in Africa, so new partnerships in this world, which have become so fragile, result. Above all, politicians have to tell people in western societies the truth.
Without sensational technical innovations that are not in sight, the West will never grow again as in the past. Combined with the aging, more will also be necessary instead of less migration. Who else should guarantee old -age insurance? Who the productivity?
One last question: the Roman Empire was abandoned, including great statesmen and successful generals, but also tyrants, gorgeurs and megalomaniac. Is there a Roman emperor that Donald Trump resembles?
That is a good question. I put her Peter Heather, who is much more competent when answering. In a way, they all resemble Trump, Peter told me, because the ideological and ceremonial environment of the position as Roman emperor was so great that absurd megalomania was the order of the day. So everything is said.
Mr. Rapley, thank you very much for the conversation.
