The Underground Man - Part 46

"Democracy was forced onto us by you people here. We Africans do not know anything about it. Our independence simply came to fast. What works well for you people, Democracy, s nothing you can assume is also good for us. You white people must finally come to understand, we are Africans, not a black form of white people...we are a totally different kind of breed. Our bodies might be the same when you take the thin layer of black skin from us as underneath we are white. It is the so, so, so different blood that runs in our bodies, that you will never understand us and never be able to come to us with the right help that moves us up and up in this world. Only when someone has suffered with us, lived our life at rock bottom, that person can have an understanding of our mind, at least have seen parts of it while still shaking his head wondering what is wrong with us. Romantic ideas about the black man or guilt because of the past...that can never be the answer. Never be help that we need from a friend. Asking yourself why is it that the Black Man did not discover the White Man and enslaved him centuries before the White Man took us away and exploited our countries. This question is never raised, but when going down to it right at the heart of the issue, you will have a small understanding of our own problems. And when you know our true problems, not the once White Man wants to tell us to believe that we have, than, only then, you can be a true friend and a true helper to us...not an intellectual Tycoon on fifth floor or Harvard University with nice and cozy air conditioning. Our life and our problems are real and not an imagination of you, the White People!"

"So, when you produce in Ghana and Africa at large all your chocolate, not only the price for African consumers and us here in the West will come down...but also the quality will massively improve...right?"

"So it is...Amen", was Joe proud of himself that Anna was getting his thoughts well. "Of course it all must be embedded in a larger concept to be effective and making the trick."

"And who should do it?"
Joe lifted his shoulders before answering: „No one from Africa, no one with black skin, that is for sure!"

It was late, darkness has set in. They were at home in a tiny little apartment in Hamburg Altona close to Altona Station and Max-Brauer-Allee. The building was old, very old indeed. The street carried the name of a court, dark, narrow, small. In the evenings to find a parking space for a challenge. Luckily for the tenants of the street not all of them were able to have a car out on the streets.

Hans-Jürgen shouted out to his wife in anger: "This idiot...this dam idiot!"

Irena had served fish fingers, gravy and potato mash for dinner. She had come home being third from work. Customers had disturbed her too much. "What is it?"

"The friend of Alexa`s husband...the real estate agent, he fired me today...that bastard!"

Irena opened her eyes wide: "Oh...but why? What did happen?"

"He told me I cannot be trusted. I do not perform well and that he had told me so several times...that he only kept me going on because of friendship. But that he is now fed up with me and showed me the door to leave his company!"

"But that is unfair. He cannot do that", protested Irena against it ready to pick up the phone and intervene. Hans-Jürgen asked her to stop and leave the situation as it was. He got a chilled beer from the fridge, put is naked feet on the glass table before the couch, turned on the TV set and tried to forget what had happened. He was certain, another company somewhere, somehow would give him another chance to prove his skills and talents.

"What about your paintings?" asked Hans-Jürgen while Irena was doing the washing up in the kitchen next door.

Irena shouted: "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean", answered Hans-Jürgen, "that quite some time ago you had declared with great confidence you would start painting and have your own exhibitions that would bring you riches and fame!"

"Oh...you mean that I said so?" was Irena appearing the hall to look for her duster. "I mean...yes, I possibly said that." She started to dust around the TV and Highfi set avoiding the few books she had standing in the house, more as a decoration item than having actually read any of them.

"Yes...we all know that this was your certain plan. I mean, you have told anyone that was not able to climb the next tree you would go back to painting and that it would bring you riches and fame! We all know that!"

Irena got angry. She was shaking the duster in front of her husband making him caught. He got angry asking her what would be wrong in her mind. "I am normal...only your mind seems to be disturbed...as I can see!"

"I only was asking a very, very simple question and you are getting so aggressive on me? I mean...it is not wrong to ask you how and when you want your great idea to paint pictures again put into reality for all of us to admire your great talent and ideas."

"You are an idiot...a stupid idiot...you fool", shouted Irena while leaving the living room. She turned back before using the bathroom and declared: „What I do or not do is not of your business. I mean, I can say something and then change my mind that is surely not a crime." She paused for a moment observing his reaction, then adding: "I decided to concentrate on other issues...painting must wait."

"Wait until you die?" was Hans-Jürgen as a revenge for the dust in his nose mentioning. All he would hear from his wife was the banging of the bathroom door.

"I mean when you these days watch TV or read the papers of any kind, all you can see is so much rubbish; just wasting people´s time, money and mind!" was Julia complaining, the new friend Anna had found at her work place. "There they present to you endlessly series about teenage moms how they race their kids as if Germany would be filled with such kids being mothers already. When I think of Africa and teenage pregnancy there, they would never show such stupid programs."

"Or there is a glamorous family of a rich man moving between their houses, sharing their family affairs with anyone that has never wanted to know anything about this family in the first place. Or dating shows...endless dating shows with no sense at all. Then blond ladies not looking good but having big breast and a Cafe on Mallorca with no sense in her head, no creative mind, no intention that helps people to move on in life, no good looks only blond hair discussing with her mother useless topics that nobody wants to hear really", jumped Anna to her friend´s side.

"But to honor or media landscape you must confess, they only produce such stupid, useless shows and print stories about people that have no sense at all, simply because there is a market for it. If for all these reason you mentioned no one would care and read or watch stories that are just a waste of time, certainly they would never produce them. These companies are profit driven and go wherever there is money to make."

Anna referred to an issue close to her heart: "Look at our politicians...look at their manifestos and personalities...sorry, I mean persons, what they represent. We had a time in which there were characters...politicians with a face form various parties fighting over each other and each other’s ideas. In those days there was action in parliament and newspapers. Today all politicians want to be nice, sweet and please people...clean their bottoms I mean. But I mean that is boring and not right. Politics is all about ideas and a dramatic away to sell it to voters...there must be a clear visible fight between opponents for people to be entertained, but more so to convince them by highlighting in a dramatic fashion the vision each candidate stands for. These days political correctness is taking politics by storm....so, so useless for our societies. Not that they should kill each other, but like a good actor present their points in public very well that we voters are really moved by them and do not fall asleep of all their nonsense. As for me at the last European Parliament election I went to my polling station and crossed out all thirty two parties as in my view no party these days and no single politicians deserved my vote. When you are a responsible citizen of this country Germany, trust me, no party deserves to be elected for...not for a mind that can think clear and far!"

Julia agreed and said angrily: "When you look into our society, it truly makes me cry. People are selfish, they only have their own little individual interest and want others to follow their ideas and make their wishes a demand to be heard in public and placed on the highest agenda. The numbers of parties are increasingly endless, so the organizations that voice whatever single interest...too much, simply too much and not justified by common sense. But when you mention common sense these days, people will slap you very, very well."

"Then you have to ignore such stupid people and speak out your mind to bring an end to this misery in our heads. We must come back to the point in Germany and other western societies that waking up in the morning, going to work, eating and drinking, coming home, playing games, meeting friends, educating children, having sex and multiply, cheating on our spouses, disco fun and football club meetings...that this is not the kind of life we should really live. Most of us just work and do the right things as society expects from us or our families...but at the end of the day when we had for our coffin...we are basically empty people. We look back, have eaten, had sex, had our fun...and nothing achieved that we would be calling something to be proud of...that we would have changed our life and lifted it up from level to level helping to raise future generations to lift themselves up even further than what we had achieved. No...our societies here live along rock bottom while we still remember the good olden days when Germany truly was cold the country of Poems and Thinkers. Thinking about Harry Potter or killing unknown people in video games causing pools of blood around our mind with machine guns in our hands...I mean, come on, give me a break! That certainly cannot be a meaningful life...I beg!"

"So sad these days...so sad!" sat Julia down on the bench close to Winterhuder Fährhaus watching the white swans passing by. Dog owners walked their pets, others had come out for jogging. She had never been a great fan of this place, of the houses around the lake Alster so full of people taking fresh air. It was not the tranquil place she needed to relax her mind, think far and be creative. Only Blankenese and Klövensteen on the other side of Sülldorfer Landstraße would give her the feeling of life needed to think from level to level. "We must learn again to dig deep, deep down to the bottom of life. We seem to life anyhow and when we need to justify our actions and desire, especially holding it against other believes, we go down the stairs into our cellar and look for moral standards that would suite us only to hold it into the faces of our opponents before dumping it back on the shelves well-crafted in our cellars."

"You are right!" agreed Anna with her friend getting up from the bench again to walk towards the direction of Hamburger Meile, a long stretched shopping center. "To create, to change, to influence, to innovate, to be creative, to be active, to be yourself...all that must come with a fighting spirit that does not shy away from battles...but is wise to understand during the momentum of fighting, wrong can came down and more power for change can come up. This world does not need good people, it needs the right people."

"We need the right people and not people that are political correct to please others. It often happens, while someone is hated in his life-time, when dead people start to appreciate his fight and vision and will honor him!" added Julia her mind.

"When you look into the life of Jesus Christ and what he said very early on when leaving his hometown, that a Prophet in his own village is meaningless for which reason he left Nazareth and walked away to become the person we still worship today. He did never chase people or their ideas, he was doing as God asked him to do and directions God blessed him with. Among all his disciples, look very well in his last hours, he was always alone. And it is that moment in the life of a human, this being alone among others, having our very own view of this world and the people therein, that truly makes a human of great value and not just simply an aunt stepped on whenever the aunt is not seen."

"It needs courage to live such a life!" said Julia smiling.