«Nude government»: Germany’s former foreign minister is causing a stir in New York with her poor English skills.
Annalena Baerbock of Die Grünen is a good example of the decay of the German education system, writes Harald Martenstein in WELT.
Baerbock is likely to start her new job as President of the UN General Assembly in New York soon. Her application speech caused confusion in the hall.
– We have a nude government in Germany, Baerbock said.
The word «new» was apparently too complicated for her.
Germany has long been regarded as a cultural and academic role model. But this is history. Martenstein thinks it’s good if the outside world gets a realistic picture of Germany.
Some Germans today can’t even speak proper German. We have a nude education system in Germany.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, students loudly protested against excessively difficult language in final exams in English. The students are, among other things, furious that the English text contained «difficult passages», which the students felt created «unrealistic expectations».
In Germany, we will never read exam texts with difficult passages again. This is not satire.
Among other things, the term «gentrification» appeared in the exam text. Many high school graduates were unfamiliar with this difficult word.
This was despite the fact that they were allowed to use a dictionary. It didn’t help much, as the students didn’t understand the word «dictionary».
Use of the word «negro» shocked the students
The exam text was also accused of racism, even though the author of the text was black writer Mary-Alice Daniel, who was born in Nigeria in 1986.
She used the word «negro» in a text about racism, and woke students could not tolerate this.
Writing a literary text about racism in which no racist terms appear is about as impossible as writing an account of the Nazi era in which neither «Hitler», «Gestapo» nor «SS» are allowed to appear.
If we are to follow this path, Martin Luther King Jr. must be cancelled, because he too often used the forbidden word in his speeches.
People are warned against «Martin Luther King», which must not be confused with «Burger King», which is harmless. No, stop, of course not for vegans.
The skin colour «Black» should always be written with a capital letter, while «white» should be written with a small letter. Black Lives Matter can be shouted in violent demonstrations without anyone reacting, but saying white lives matter, even in lower case, is «systemic racism».
Woke is a new face on an old phenomenon
Education levels are declining at a rapid pace. This is well documented in Germany, but the level is at least as bad in Norway, Sweden, the UK and several other European countries.
At the same time, more and more people are going to university, with students who, on average, seem to have a lower intellectual level than secondary school pupils 30 years ago.
As a result, the number of nonsense subjects has exploded, people are studying gender ideology and African dance, and can’t understand why they don’t get high-paying jobs afterwards.
At the same time, a repressive egocentric hypersensitivity is growing, a kind of contemporary totalitarianism.
Few know anything about literature, virtually no one knows anything about history.
In some places, modern history is taught almost exclusively. This can create the impression that the German past consists almost exclusively of the Nazi era; there’s nothing positive about that.
In Norway, history lessons are largely a perpetual praise of the Labour Party’s role after the war and the «fantastic» Norwegian welfare state. The betrayal in 1940 is given little space, the traitors are ignored as far as possible, while the war heroes are celebrated.
Of course, the heroes deserve all the praise they can get, but as a nation we should recognise how few they really were, especially since the war sailors were largely ignored, even though many of them sacrificed everything.
Woke is just the latest face of an old historical phenomenon: stupidity.
Both when it comes to Germany in particular and the West in general, the focus everywhere is solely on guilt and evil.
The students’ reaction to this, surprising to some, is increasing right-wing radicalism among some, and woke hypersensitivity among others.
In such a climate, stupidity thrives far better than reflection, which should be self-evident. If you don’t have to think before you make up your mind, since this is predetermined, your brain muscle is never trained. A muscle that is not trained decays.
Happily, there is hope, because the young generation seems to have recognised the madness. This is certainly true of a large proportion of boys, while girls are lagging a little behind, since as a group they are better – or more inclined – to adapt.
To rub it in for arguers: I’m talking about the groups of boys and girls here, there are of course many individuals who stand out from the general trend.
Either way, we will not get rid of the problems so easily. Those who are 15-17 years old now are likely to get brainwashed lecturers if they choose to study at some of the ruined universities in the West.
The fight against brain-dead woke thinking will therefore probably go on for more than one generation. Let’s hope the youth have good mental stamina.
