Mimi feels a bit like Mama these days.

This is a short article from "Der Spiegel" by a 23 year old German journalist student at Munich's journalist schools, grown up in North Rhine Westfalia (NRW), one of Germany's "Länder" (equivalent of US states), in which we have elections for that state's government today. People say it is a "small Federal election" which might represent (like a canary in the coal mines) the outcome of our "big" Federal Elections in Germany on September 24th. A loss of the Social Democratic Party here (as in last weeks election for the Northern German elections of the "Land" Schleswig Holstein) would be "so to speak" sensational for NRW, as it has been in Social Democratic hands for a long time.

My own translation (responsible for all errors and "undermining bias", ahem.) of above linked article: "Mama doesn't vote".

A blue Davidstern is tattooed on Mama's wrist. It was a tattoo, made by a drunk friend. Ballpoint pen mine, narcotics. But it is there.

When I was six years old, I asked her why. And she said, "If something like that happens again, they should kill me directly."

Mom does not vote. And I am almost sure that she will not do it this Sunday for the regional election in NRW. She lives off Hartz IV. There are many reasons, most of them are mutual and none is better or more important than another. She has no money that she wants to defend or increase, no job she wants to keep. She is not afraid of refugees, because she has nothing to lose. There is enough space in the social apartment building, between smoke-yellowed curtains and children, who are pitied once a year in poverty reports.

At the age of seven I went shopping with mom on the bike. A group of skinheads with spray cans stood in an underpass. "Scheissnazis (me:Shitnazis)" Mama said and I asked aloud: "What are Nazis?" She said "Pssst" and only declared, when we were out of reach to be heard: "Assholes."

Mama would never fall for the AfD, never choose Nazis. But I read news and party programs, and Hannelore (Kraft) speeches, and (Martin Schulz) pamphlets, and ask myself, "What and who is she supposed to vote for? The Greens have no clue. At 16 I believed in "Social Democracy". Because if only everyone would understand, what is right, just vote "SPD" or "Green" and then everything will be fine. Vote for the Green would be a vote for justice. Vote for the conservatives meant voting for mean, old, rich people. At that time I could not vote myself and found this terribly unjust. That's why I urged Mama to vote until she went to the voting boot and voted in my name for who I wanted to vote for. This childish-naive belief in democracy. I still do not understand where that belief came from.

Mama has nothing to do with the Greens. They have no idea. Once we have watched together a documentation about genetically modified corn. And she said, "Why not, why not make corn bigger and better, if it helps to make fewer people go hungry." Viewed from below, so many things dissolve themselves in foolishness.

At 18, I wanted to become a journalist to save the world. To change. To write about injustice in hopes it might disappear.

Mama has read newspapers in the morning, always alternating between one of the two local papers available every year. She taught me how to write and later how to tell and write stories. She read books to me that were too long and too difficult and I loved that. Mama always wanted a daughter like the "Red Zora", naughty and wild and brave. I was a Madita girl most of the time, good-natured, polite, quiet. Once I made a kink (curtsy?) at the supermarket. I think mama has never felt so ashamed for me again.

It does not matter what Mama thinks. There is no party that makes her feel taken seriously. There is no leftist debate in which she could shout her mind's thinking into. Her problems do not interest anyone. But it will be her fault if the AfD would enter the state parliament in NRW. She will be the non-voter, the Hartz-IV Nazi, the left behind, hungry, the white garbage. On the left, voters don't matter, until election day. After all, one is morally bound to vote for the left. On the right, at least, people seem to pretend they are interested in people.

At 22 I gave up my illusions. The day Donald Trump became President of the United States, I understood that writing did not change anything. I do not care anymore.

Mom's biggest enemy are generalist statements, even if they are harmless. When I spoke of "the boys" as a child, I got scolded, which was something special, because I was never otherwise punished for something. "Not all boys the same," she said. The Turks, the Russians, the whores, the bums, the boys, the salesmen at the Lidl - were forbidden sentence beginnings. Using them was worse than coming-too-late-home, worse than not-tidying up your bedroom. Mama would have preferred to pick me up for theft from the police station, than to hear me say a sentence that starts with 'Thieves are'.

Meanwhile, I write, even if it does not change anything. About irrelevant, and ridiculous and about beautiful things. And sometimes because I have not got rid of the naive belief that writing stories help against generalist thinking.

I kind of liked this article. I don't write. I am no journalist, but I worked with them as a little woman support person. So I saw the "Mensch" in them for the most part. I just shout sometimes into the blogs, because I can't stand "generalist sentences" like that 23 year old German student. May be I grow up after 70. Hmm, so I voted, for the Greens and the SPD, not knowing any of the candidates, just so ... because it was the first time I could vote and I felt it was good for nothing, but 'heh' ...

Here is for those, who understand German, a one-hour video about the "Zeitgeist" in today's North-Rhine Westfalia. Having been a German expat in the US for the last 35 years, I see so many developments that I observed in the US for a long time. It's beyond my skills to translate. I wished I could, but it's too much for me.

Don't get upset with me for posting the video. I have this ridiculous belief that some may just happen to understand it and it would help to avoid falling into "generalist view points" like "The Germans ..."

Have a nice Sunday all.

[video:https://youtu.be/ELtKUZLLaw4]