And we are jointly liable for our future. German citizens can and should be able to demand more from each other than from others in terms of attentiveness, consideration, and regard. This is where some object: others need help much more urgently. They are starving. That is correct. That means, for example, that Germany must become more active in this area than before. Precisely this presupposes that we, the Germans, jointly want this, even if it hurts. We can help Somalia; we can enter into treaties with Somalia, but we cannot unite with Somalia.
So then: we, Westerners and Easterners, are Germans, because our fatherland, our mother tongue, our history, and our culture bind us together. And that is why it is good and normal that we, united by so much, once again live together in a shared state with equal rights and obligations, and also jointly manage our common affairs. Responsibility is tied to closeness, closeness is achieved through communication. Despite forty years of separation, that is easier between East Germans and West Germans than between Germans and Vietnamese, with whom we in the East until now were supposed to be connected under the abstract heading “socialist world camp” – while at the same time, Vietnamese guest workers among us, as well as the Soviet armed forces, were kept in isolation and largely prevented from having any genuine interaction with the population.
We have enough that unites us to overcome what separates us. No doubt, differences between Easterners and Westerners will remain for a long time – let them, I say, Germany was always full of differences, just as long as they no longer separate us. Germany was always polycentric, the land of many capitals, a fatherland of fatherlands, for which a federation of German Länder is the most appropriate form. The GDR has divided itself again into five Länder, which are older than the GDR; they were broken up for base reasons back then and have now been reestablished. Incidentally, the regional element had already emerged as a uniting factor before the Wende, especially strongly in the south and north of the GDR.
When I say: Germany is the country I like best (even if it’s not necessarily the most comfortable one), this is not nationalism of a kind that discriminates against anyone, for every person’s country should be able to be his favorite. After all, I am not discriminating against anyone when I say: my children are the children I like best. For I am their only father, and that creates obligation – sometimes also in an unpleasant way. It is perfectly all right that this country and its problems are more important, more serious, and more immediate to me than those of other countries, just as it is perfectly all right that I am not indifferent to the rest of the world. And it is perfectly all right that the tone in which I speak about Polish matters is different than the tone I use for German matters. For I do not live in Poland, and therefore I don’t have to behave as though I lived there. And that will change only slowly when Poland joins the EU. We must develop something analogous to interpersonal tactfulness, something like international tactfulness.
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