Fischer's foreign policy away from German eye

By Richard Meng

FRANKFURT (DPA): Imagine for a moment that the world was changing and no one was interested. It may not be quite as bad as that, thanks, paradoxically, to Joschka Fischer, Germany's Green foreign minister. After all, he was the one who fueled Green- pacifist fears after a shapeless visit to Moscow and his tight- lipped trip to Washington. For a while the aerial attacks on Iraq and Fischer's wishy-washy response had managed to stir emotions over a foreign-policy issue.

But otherwise, it holds true that after two years, which Germany's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens has spent getting off the ground, a familiar normality has set in. Few are now bothered to concern themselves with international affairs.

Initially, Gerhard Schroeder's coalition was as amazed at the weak interest in matters non-German as it was at the high expectations the outside world had of a reunited Germany. In the intervening time, the government has adjusted itself happily to the fortuitous reality that the media in the main pays scant attention to complicated foreign-policy processes.

Their message: on no account should outside affairs be presented from an internal perspective in simple words: that would only secure the home audience's long-term interest. The bewilderment which greeted the official silence over Iraq is also a sign of how inconsistent the bewildered observer is. And this is not just about Fischer.

The helpful message from the chancellor's office is that "megaphone diplomacy" never achieved much. But a governmental step backwards can take on many forms; for instance, a retreat into diplomacy and its formless, but consistently professional realism. This evinces not least the realization that the current government's initially propagated lack of involvement was gloriously naive.

The fact is that, for historical reasons, international faith in this larger Germany has had to be retooled again and again. Behind this, however, lies resignation in the face of a dilemma. The United States with its self-centredness is the classic example of this.

The German public also functions quite undeterred in the national mould, despite its fundamental euro-friendliness and the emotions which military adventures tend to kindle. The flames now being fanned over Fischer's distant past -- while his foreign policy remains ignored -- is sure evidence of this.

And no-one understands that better than the media-chancellor. International diplomacy, with its hand-crafted rituals and the accompanying isolation and self-importance, is no less a difficult stage to portray oneself on for the watching world.

The players are therefore only too willing to accept that, in the jet-set politics of this multipolar world, much boils down to direct, personal ties with the high and mighty. And the cap fits, even if it is in reality anti-political, because the show itself is the central theme.

Chancellor Schroeder and President Putin of Russia go skating together, the text accompanying the television pictures is insignificant and meaningless. Fischer and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell understand each other -- and that is all their citizens need to know. Public debates on the topics covered in their talks are not only lacking, they are not wanted. In their stead, carefully crafted media messages are broadcast, if necessary for several client groups at once.

None of this is a recent discovery; the difference is that the Fischer and Schroeder generation no longer attempt countermeasures. That this Germany, which is so wound up in itself, still lacks awareness of its international role is only commented on and bemoaned by its leaders when even their own rare keynote speeches are lost in the maelstrom of daily excitement.

In the interests of credibility, only those who actively oppose this state of affairs can criticize it. In other words, only those leading a discussion -- to clarify goals -- which is devoid of the new German superciliousness.

The repercussions of EU enlargement, missile defense and arms controls, poverty and the debt gap, Islamism and human rights, limits to co-operation with violent regimes: in all departments, not only is an agenda lacking, but also internal political ambition -- the tribulations of self-assurance for Germany's otherwise so keenly propagated civil society -- above and beyond the business of day-to-day diplomacy.

Foreign policy without the public, in contrast, all too often leads to the country's thinkers being dismissed as mere tiresome detractors. The government meanwhile swims with the powerful current, unapproachable and self-righteous. And as long as the TV pictures tell the story, it does not even realize just how much it is simply drifting with the flow.