I will never be a LEMMING again!

– Associations and an emotional statement on the war in Ukraine –

*A LEMMING is a crowd member with no originality or voice of their own. One who speaks or repeats only what they have been told.

(DE) I was a LEMMING* for half of my life. Born into the young Democratic Republic of Germany, even as a toddler, I was subjected to socialist achievements such as a weekly crèche, from Monday morning to Saturday evening in the community only, and all-day kindergartens. Later, as teenagers, we gathered as Pioneers and then in the Free German Youth (FDJ).

Community and collective in word and deed, in thought and feeling! And I somehow fell through the cracks.

Because of my lack of social aptitude, I was denied a place at university in my desired subjects of history and art education, even though I had passed the A-levels “with distinction”.

So what had I done wrong? I didn’t want to be the person responsible for agitation and propaganda (AgitProp) in the FDJ group. So I was only suitable for the subject of mathematics, which probably required less social unison.

This obsession with collective unison produced a society of lemmings.

Only the class enemy and my father watched West German television in the sixties. We children were not allowed to do so, and my communist father excused his media alienation by saying that he had to know the class enemy.

There were no internet or social media channels back then. Still, there was citizenship as a curriculum subject. There was a wall a thousand metres away, and behind it, the class enemy was supposedly waiting with murderers and bombs.

Our government and the political leaders kept us ignorant at all levels – working, eating, sleeping and paying homage to socialism, just not thinking for ourselves but repeating uncritically what was said.

And so I was like a LEMMING. So I followed the herd to the cliff.

But the information was unstoppable. We listened to Radio RIAS and watched West-TV; we began to think and to doubt.

Artists and writers were waking up and protesting against being patronised and disempowered. It was a learning process.

I recognised the lies and the liars and realised the betrayal of our lives.

The freer our thinking became, the narrower our scope became. For example, I received disciplinary punishments for being a teacher and not going to the polls at 8 am but 2 pm. My boss felt compelled to discipline me because I had no problem fulfilling my civic duty as a teacher to go to the polling station “at the same time as the antisocial elements” who went to vote at that late hour.

I received disciplinary sanctions for not participating in the communal reading of Neues Deutschland every morning in 1986. For this purpose, a teacher had to read specific articles from the party organ “Neues Deutschland” to the assembled staff and school employees. I stayed away from this spectacle and explained that I had been able to read by myself since childhood. However, in the eyes of my superior, this was insubordination that needed to be sanctioned.

Nevertheless, I didn’t really fight back and remained a LEMMING until the end of the GDR and beyond.

The liberation from the “collective” in my head took a few years.

It was only in a completely different school and cultural environment in Munich that I was amazed and delighted to learn how democracy works on a small scale. I was allowed, even expected, to think for myself. My opinion was heard. And I understood the difference to the atmosphere and constraints of my socialisation in the GDR.

Live democracy

I was allowed to participate in a democracy; I was allowed to live democracy, speak my mind, travel to many countries, tear down walls in my brain, and understand what LIFE really is.

Because the value of a democratic society still touches me deeply, the Russian invasion of Ukraine shakes me to the core. It is not only destruction, displacement, suffering and death that shock me, but above all, the fear that the Ukrainians could be deprived of their democratic basis.

And that is why Ukraine must not be turned into Putin’s LEMMING STATE.

The people of Ukraine have learned and lived democracy for 30 years.

They are no longer lemmings. They are fighting for their lives and for a life of democracy and humanity.

I have turned off my heaters and oiled my bicycle. Of course, this is only a tiny contribution, but I never want to be a LEMMING again.

And I don’t want to contribute to others having to be LEMMINGS either. (KK)

There is not only one way in a democracy.