The truth is: Saxony is a cosmopolitan state. Its economy thrives on its export strength, its universities have the highest proportion of international students after Berlin, and its state government has passed an “Action Plan for Recruiting International Specialists and Workers”.
And Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU), a former science politician, recently celebrated the fact that two major research centers with international appeal are coming to the country.
The truth is also: Saxony has a problem with misanthropy. By that I don’t mean acts of violence, which are quickly condemned here, as they are everywhere.
I mean the small gestures, the not just whispered everyday remarks directed at men, women and children who look, speak or live differently than the self-proclaimed common people see fit.
The problem becomes even greater when those who have it cannot even recognize it as such. Just like the Bautzen CDU district administrator Udo Witschas, who “deliberately wanted to calm down before Christmas”: School and leisure sports will not “bleed for this asylum policy”. No refugees in gymnasiums and also not in vacant apartments in multi-family houses, because otherwise one would “accept the endangerment of social peace”.
Others recognized Witscha’s video statement for what it was. “Devastating,” said a Bautzen pastor. Deputy Prime Minister Martin Dulig (SPD) spoke of a “hate speech disguised as a Christmas speech”, and the Secretary General of the Federal CDU also distanced himself “emphatically”.
Prime Minister Kretschmer, on the other hand, said it was “obvious that there is a shortening” and that the video was “completely taken out of context”. Like there was a connection that made it less misanthropic.
The truth is: Saxony will have to make a decision. And Kretschmer, who is so committed to a flourishing science, too. Cosmopolitanism and misanthropy don’t go together. Neither in Saxony nor anywhere else.
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