Transformation process leaves rough ride behind<\/p>\n
By Harry Bhaskara<\/p>\n
Five Indonesian journalists, including one from The Jakarta
\nPost, visited Germany last month in connection with the fifth
\nanniversary of Germany's reunification. The following are the
\nfirst articles in a series of reports based on the visit.<\/p>\n
BERLIN (JP): Five years after the reunification of Germany,
\nany trace of the Berlin Wall is barely visible. The 165-kilometer
\nwall has been reduced to a mere 300-meter stretch which has been
\npreserved.<\/p>\n
This remaining section of wall served as a \"stretched-giant-
\ncanvas\" for artists during the euphoria of unification. The
\nfamous picture of Brezhnev kissing Honnecker is recorded here.<\/p>\n
Small chips of the wall, however, are still to be found in
\nsouvenir shops or sold by side-street vendors near the
\nBrandenburg gate.<\/p>\n
Checkpoint Charlie, which was the entrance and exit gate
\nbetween East and West Berlin, has now been turned into a museum.<\/p>\n
This formerly split city, now the \"laboratory\" of unification,
\nis beautifying itself to become the German capital in the year
\n1999. When driving around Berlin's streets you don't feel you are
\nin a formerly separated city except when you happen to encounter
\nthe Trabant cars manufactured in former East Germany.<\/p>\n
It is moving to think how the two ideologies used to sit side
\nby side in animosity, each treating its part as a \"spoiled kid\"
\nof free market and socialism \"shopping window\" respectively. In
\nthe past, Bonn set aside one third of the whole West German
\nbudget for West Berlin.<\/p>\n
The combined results after the toppling of the wall is a
\nmagnificent city with beautiful scenery; well preserved
\nhistorical buildings in the east, and modern buildings in the
\nwest.<\/p>\n
But there is another wall which is harder to demolish.<\/p>\n
\"We've never known that a political system can change people's
\nminds,\" said Mrs Barbara John, a commissioner for foreigners'
\naffairs in Berlin. \"If they have no money they think there must
\nbe an apartment without payment. Bread must cost 1 mark. Why?
\nBecause they are used to it.\"<\/p>\n
Under the German Democratic Republic system, everything was
\nprovided by the state. A joke making the rounds says that eastern
\nGermans think electricity comes from an electric socket, not from
\na power company.<\/p>\n
\"They have a certain 'entitlement' mentality. Born on the
\nwrong side I can understand, but I don't think five years is
\nenough to catch up with the west-side standards,\" said Dr. Erich
\nFollath, foreign editor at Der Spiegel weekly news magazine.<\/p>\n
The value system broke down completely, he said, and the west-
\nsiders think they have more knowledge about everything.<\/p>\n
\"There are psychological things which are very hard for the
\neast-siders to swallow,\" said the editor of the western German
\nmagazine.<\/p>\n
Antje Lawrence, who works for the German government, said
\nthat a wall in the mind is too simple a statement. The east-
\nsiders or the ossis, the local term for them, did not read
\nmagazines or papers from the west, she said.<\/p>\n
\"History needs time. Maybe we need another generation (to
\nclose the mind gap),\" Lawrence said.<\/p>\n
The east-siders have \"broken backbones\" and are not
\nstraightforward in expressing themselves, she said.<\/p>\n
\"They talk in circular ways to please the government or their
\nsuperiors,\" said Lawrence, \"it's very difficult to understand
\ntheir mentality.\"<\/p>\n
This is understandable, she said, since the beliefs the east-
\nsiders held for more than 40 years suddenly broke down.<\/p>\n
\"Now there's democracy, but to glorify their past they try to
\njustify the past,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Wolfgang Georgi, an eastern German journalist who works with
\nthe Berliner Zeitung, a paper owned by a western German investor,
\nsaid that west-siders or wossis think they are better.<\/p>\n
\"We don't like each other too much,\" he said referring to his
\nwest-side colleagues.<\/p>\n
Asked to compare the current situation with that of the past,
\nhe said: \"In the old days many things may have been odd,
\nembarrassing but the feeling of solidarity is strong. Today we
\nhave a more competitive situation\".<\/p>\n
Unlike in the former German Democratic Republic, Georgi said,
\nwest-siders have learned how to compete individually since their
\ntender school days. He said many east-siders still think that
\nsocialism is good but their leaders are too old to turn the
\nideology into a reality.<\/p>\n
\"Now I don't know what to believe in. It's true that Germany
\nis a democratic country but if we see the high rate of
\nunemployment...\"<\/p>\n
In Brandenburg, one of the five new federal states, the
\nunemployment rate is 14 percent. In other new states it is as
\nhigh as 18 percent.<\/p>\n
Sometimes employment cases take a funny turn. East-sider bus
\ndrivers, for instance, find better incomes in western Berlin.<\/p>\n
\"East Berlin bus drivers receive 86 percent of (the salary of)
\ndrivers in West Berlin,\" said Dr Dirk Kroegel, an advisor for
\nparliamentary affairs at the Senate of Berlin.<\/p>\n
This is a significant increase from the 40 percent after the
\nreunification.<\/p>\n
Bus and train tickets are still cheaper in the east.<\/p>\n
But the biggest difference is still in house rent. The average
\nrent is 8 to 9 marks in the west-side compared to 4 marks in the
\neast, he said.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the gap is likely to narrow in the years to
\ncome, especially since the government is allowing the legal
\nowners of property in former East Germany who now live elsewhere
\nto claim their properties. Soaring prices have always been a
\nfrightening prospect for eastern Germans.<\/p>\n
Until late last year, east-siders could not go to the west to
\nconsult a doctor because their insurance would not cover them if
\nthey did so.<\/p>\n
\"Now everybody has a chance to look for a doctor throughout
\nBerlin,\" said Kroegel.<\/p>\n
There has been great differences as far as social conditions,
\ntransportation and housing are concerned, he said.<\/p>\n
\"But I think the first step has been taken to address these
\nproblems,\" Kroegel said. \"People in the east are satisfied as far
\nas we know, but I think 40 years of separation can't be level in
\na sense since their ideas and memories will linger on and there's
\nnot much we can do about it.\"<\/p>\n
On Oct. 3, 1990, the date of unification, some 25,000 laws
\nwere introduced overnight.<\/p>\n
\"This was a very hard task. First, there was adjustment to
\nwestern democracy, and then seeing how it was functioning,\" said
\nBrandenburg government spokesman Erhard Thomas.<\/p>\n
In the following months eastern Germans were disillusioned,
\nfor their dreams did not match reality; whereas western Germans
\nwere increasingly irritated for having to continuously support
\nthe Aufbau Ost (reconstruction of the east) project.<\/p>\n
At least nobody claims to want the German Democratic Republic
\nback now, Thomas said. Everybody now wants freedom, and to
\ntravel. They are reluctant to live in a sort of jail anymore.<\/p>\n
\"For many people, the breaking up of society is the hardest to
\ngo through. Every second someone loses their job. That's why the
\nunemployment rate is high,\" Thomas said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Follath of Der Spiegel thinks the biggest shortcoming of
\nwestern Germans is their attitude that as the government has the
\nmoney, it can solve problems; and they don't want to share their
\nwealth.<\/p>\n
He said Chancellor Helmut Kohl did many things right as far as
\nthe decision to reunify was concerned but he also made a number
\nof mistakes.<\/p>\n
First, he didn't make it very clear to western Germans that
\nthey would be expected to make sacrifices. \"We had a feeling
\nsomehow that we didn't have to make many sacrifices, and
\neasterners thought that in five years they would have cars and
\nother things,\" Follath said.<\/p>\n
Western Germans pay 7.5 percent of their salaries in
\nsolidarity taxes.<\/p>\n
Second, the policy of returning property ownership in former
\nEast Germany to owners who may have resided anywhere during the
\nlast 40 years.<\/p>\n
\"It's a big mistake because it creates a bad feeling in the
\neast. They feel the west claims that which is no longer theirs.
\nThe government should have compensated the owners but not
\nreturned their properties,\" he said.<\/p>\n
The third mistake, Follath said, was that the government gave
\nthe impression that the reunification process would be easier
\nthan it really has been.<\/p>\n
After five years of unification it is still difficult to get a
\nclear picture of what has taken place. In economical terms, the
\nfive new states have already recorded a 9 percent growth rate
\nover the past five years, the highest in Europe.<\/p>\n
A survey reported in the Deutschland magazine shows that both
\neastern and western Germans are confident that the unification is
\na success. But differences between eastern and western Germans
\nthat result from socialization will continue for a long time, it
\nsays.<\/p>\n
These differences refer to people's sense of what is right and
\nwhat is wrong, in attitudes towards the economy, and opinions on
\ninternational obligations.<\/p>\n
Chancellor Helmut Kohl summed it up in his Oct. 3 Unity Day
\naddress: \"In the long run, improving personal contacts among
\nGermans is the bigger task for all of us. Here we need patience,
\ngoodwill and the readiness to listen to each other.\"<\/p>\n
If Berlin is any indication of the success of the
\nreunification process, and with 75 percent of the young
\nsupporting unification, it looks likely that the gentle
\nrevolution will smoothly continue in the coming years.<\/p>",
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