André Glucksmann on the conventional Germans and their false hopes for Russia

Has German Chancellor Angela Merkel beaten French President Nicolas Sarkozy in all disciplines? This is a question that preoccupies Paris and Berlin at the moment. But the true problem is Germany's relapse into petty bourgeois conformism and its blind faith in the East, writes André Glucksmann in the liberal-conservative daily Corriere della Sera: "The citizens on the other side of the Rhine today are no imperialists. ... They are thrifty, don't get into debt and don't live at other people's expense like the southern Europeans or the Americans. In short, they have reverted to the habits of the petty bourgeois. ... Its new boundary, its new Far East is the 'modernisation' of Russia. ... Germany's crazy ideas are not the result of imperialism or thirst for adventure. But to believe Russia can be modernised without democratising its society is a daydream. Ten years of Putin's 'vertical power' have turned the dream into madness. Despite the manna of petrol and gas revenues the unfettered corruption has prevented an economic boom. Without freedom of opinion there can be no control over the dealings of the mafia. Without democratisation there can be no modernisation."

» more information (external link, Italian)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Germany, » Russia
All available articles from » André Glucksmann

» To the complete press review of Tuesday, June 22, 2010