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African knowledge
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EARTHY HUNGER
Why Do People Eat Dirt?
By Jörg Blech

People in many parts of the world indulge in the curious practice of eating dirt, also known as geophagy. But why they do so has remained something of a mystery. Now a new study aims to show whether loam in the earth can be vital in protecting pregnant women from harm.


"The daily portion is about 25 grams of dirt," says Sera Young, who works full-time on research into geophagy, or the practice of eating earth. The 30-year-old anthropologist is soon to transfer from Cornell University to the University of California in Berkeley.

On every continent with the exception of Antarctica, there are people who snack on chalk, loam or marl. But it's only now that Young and her colleagues are gradually beginning to understand what force brings them to do this. Whether people are eating loam from natural sources or buying "healing clay" at the drugstore and eating it, they are clearly following some ancient craving that has been shaped over the course of evolution.

It is not only humans who indulge in a bit of dirt every now and then -- parrots, cattle, rats, elephants and chimpanzees also partake. Even prehistoric man shared this passion for eating earth -- an archaeological dig in Africa uncovered powdered loam that had clearly been used as marching rations two million years ago. But the question remains: why?

In her field studies on the island of Pemba, which belongs to Tanzania, Young observed that it is mainly pregnant women who experience cravings for earth. "It's like an addiction. There is even a word for it: vileo," she says.

However, the pregnant women do not simply sweep up their earthy meal from the streets. In fact, they go to great lengths to ensure they have the right type of earth. They rake loam from specific springs or collect it from certain places outside their villages. "The dirt cannot be dirty," Young explains.

The choosiness of earth eaters was something that struck German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt 200 years ago when he spent time in what is now Venezuela. The indigenous Ottomac people, he noted, preferred those alluvial layers where "the thickest, finest-feeling earth" was to be found.

The fact that the indigenous people devoured this dirt in "tremendous quantities" and stored it for times of hardship in the form of dried clay balls, led Humboldt to infer that geophagy was used as a makeshift solution in times of food shortages. In fact, people do eat earth particularly often in leaner times, like on Haiti in 2004 when slum dwellers were given flat cakes baked from butter, salt, water and dirt.

However, this hunger hypothesis does not really explain the phenomenon fully -- earth is also on the menu for the well fed. Many researchers, therefore, think that earth works as a natural medicine. Loam, after all, contains magnesium, sodium, calcium, potassium, iron and large amounts of silicates. In cases of severe diarrhea, according to some scientists, a teaspoon of dirt could provide the body with the minerals it has lost.

The British soil researcher Peter Hooda, however, has discovered indications that, on the contrary, loam takes more away from the body than it provides. The scientist and his team came to this surprising conclusion after carrying out a laboratory simulation of the interaction between dirt and the digestive tract. They mixed loam, gastric acid and nutrients, left the resultant muddy mixture at body temperature for long enough to react fully and then analyzed the resultant compound.

A Natural Detox for the Stomach

Their results showed that many nutrients clung on tightly to microscopically small structures in the loam. This led to a significant reduction in available iron, zinc and copper in the mud bath, which is in line with one of Young's observations on Pemba: many loam-lovers were anemic and had conspicuously low levels of iron in their blood.

In certain circumstances, however, surmises the anthropologist, the leaching effect of the dirt must be an advantage. "Dirt may help to remove poisonous substances from the body." This theory is backed up by something that Young noticed after studying over 2,700 relevant cases in literature on the subject: small children and pregnant women -- people for whom poisoning could be particularly serious -- make particularly frequent use of this natural resource.

Up until now, morning sickness has been seen as an evolutionary mechanism developed to protect the unborn child from harmful substances in food. Could geophagy be an additional strategy?

In an attempt to give more substance to her theory, Young is currently having 30 loamy samples from Pemba, Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia and other areas analyzed by the Macaulay Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, in order to understand to what extent they have the chemical potential to get rid of toxic foodstuffs.

The analyses could provide scientific proof of what many earth eaters have always said: dirt cleans the stomach.




December 30, 2007 | 10:26 AM Comments  0 comments

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Terrorism
Related to country: Pakistan

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

A story that really scared me...and i can't understand why Musharraf has let it come so far!!


PAKISTAN'S SWAT VALLEY

In the Realm of Mullah Fazlullah
By Matthias Gebauer in the Swat Valley, Pakistan

Once Pakistan's favorite tourist destination, Swat Valley is now ruled by a brutal Taliban group. The infamous commander Mullah Fazlullah has installed a Sharia emirate here, and President Musharraf has stood by and allowed it to happen.

The huge billboard on the pass high in the mountains may be yellow and faded but it's still legible. "Welcome to Swat Valley," is written in huge letters with a picture of a jeep surrounded by tourists underneath.

They are all smilling, enjoying the view from the mountains, that range 2,000 meters high into the clear blue skies. The advertisement harks back to a time when the Swat Valley was considered the Switzerland of Pakistan. Islamabad's middle classes would tramp up the mountains in the summer and in winter they would whiz down the country's only ski slopes. "A paradise on earth," was Swat's motto.

That was before the Swat Valley came to epitomize the current crisis in Pakistan, before President Pervez Musharraf used the region as an excuse for his state of emergency. The military ruler claimed to want to come down hard on the religious extremists by imposing emergency rule. And he repeats this claim at every opportunity. But it has since become clear that the general was most concerned with holding on to power.

The dangerous journey to Swat reveals a lot about how weak Musharraf and his army is in the conflict with the extremists inside the country -- and that they have been allowed to thrive for far too long. There are soldiers stationed just behind the advertising billboard. They are nervous, wear bullet-proof vests and helmets and have their weapons at the ready. "You must be mad to want to travel there," says the commander of the last checkpoint before the town of Mingora. "This is where Mullah Fazlullah's emirate begins." Anyone he doesn't like is killed.

It is a confession: The army has long lost control over the area north of here. A de-facto state within a state has been established. And a brutal commander is in complete control -- the infamous Mullah Maulana Fazlullah.



A Jihad against Musharraf

With its anarchy and lawlessness, the Swat Valley has come to symbolize Pakistan in the year 2007. This time it's not about the tribal areas, such as Waziristan along the Afghan border, where radical Islamists have been successfully undermining the power of the state. The Swat Valley is just a few hours drive from Islamabad. And Mullah Fazlullah's jihad is directed at Musharraf's regime. He and his fighters want to see a strict Islamist state, that is not oriented towards the US but to Sharia law. It is an enemy in the heart of the country -- one that Musharraf seems increasingly incapable of dealing with.

Only the remnants of Musharraf's authority are visible beyond the checkpoint. Army posts with their clay huts and corrugated iron have been deserted. The police stations are either empty or masked militants with Kalashnikovs lounge on the steps. The driver doesn't want to stop anywhere. He is only willing to embark on the journey after lengthy discussions and taking the precaution of dressing in shalwar kameez clothing, the traditional garb that resembles a night shirt. Like everyone here, he is afraid. The journey is perilous -- even journalists have been known to be beheaded on Fazlullah's orders, on suspicion that they were spies.


The history of the takeover of the Swat Valley began long before Musharraf started to raise the alarm a few months ago. It has been more than two years since 28-year-old Koran student Fazlullah built a madrassa in Iman Deri, a small pretty town near the Swat River. People in Mingora know the young man who now has a long black gray beard that reaches his belly and who drags his right leg because of a past polio infection.

He went to school in Mingora in the 1990s, but dropped out. Like many directionless youths in Pakistan, he ended up in an Islamic school or madrassa. That's when Fazlullah joined the "Movement for the Imposition of Islamic Laws," and made no bones about his aims.

"He is a simple man," says his former teacher. "But that is exactly how he is able to win over the people here." The villagers say that the construction work on the madrassa went amazingly quickly. Hundreds of volunteers helped and money was no problem. Masked armed guards began to patrol the red mud-brick building and checked visitors. Every week more and more men arrived with weapons. The creation of the Fazlullah militia had begun.

There are more heroic stories in the Swat Valley about the young Fazlullah than a 90-year-old man could be expected to have experienced. There are no photos of him, but fearful locals still tell tales of his brutal, inhuman face or the way he gallops by on a black horse. In Afghanistan, they whisper, he fought against the Russians. And then he sat with the leader of the Sharia movement in prison. The fact that this is all highly unlikely is immaterial. Fazlullah has succeeded in doing what every Taliban leader aspires to -- he has become a myth, and one that spreads fear.



Part 2: 'The Government Has Let Things Go'

Fazlullah, who named himself Mullah, copied the tactics of the Koran schools in Afghanistan. During the hour of prayer he punctually broadcast his Islamic interpretation of the Koran, thus reaching even the women behind the high walls, and gave himself the nickname FM Mullah. The authorities in the valley sat on their hands and looked on as the young Fazlullah used his preaching to openly threaten those who did not adhere to Sharia law, and by the beginning of 2007 he had begun to call the Swat Valley an "Islamic Emirate." "No one accepted responsibility," says one teacher in Mingora. "Nobody wanted trouble."

At night, Fazlullah's men distributed newsletters and threatened all the CD shops and barbers with death if they didn't close down. Several bombs exploded in bazaars, and girls' schools -- to whose uniforms Fazullah took exception -- received hate mail. In radio broadcasts, he ordered mothers not to let their daughters out of the house.

The strategy of terror worked. Today the bazaar's streets are dead. CDs are only being sold on the black market. Schools have been on holiday for weeks. Mullah Fazlullah's emirate has become reality.

Since its creation, Pakistan has been involved in two major wars (1947-48 and 1965) against its neighbor India. Both wars were caused by disputes over the border region of Kashmir. The Princely State of Kashmir and Jammu (as Kashmir was called at the time) originally opted to become part of India. Still Pakistan gained control of the western and northern parts of the region. Both India and Pakistan consider Kashmir part of their territory. The conflict last escalated in 1999, when major military clashes involving several hundred casualties took place. The clashes led eventually to the most recent military coup in Pakistan, which brought the country's current president, General Pervez Musharraf, to power. The referendum proposed by the United Nations (UN) in 1948 was never carried out.
Pakistan has experienced a military dictatorship four previous times in its history. The first military coup occurred in 1958, following a protracted domestic crisis. General Ayub Khan seized power and attempted to boost the weak economy by means of Five Year Plans. He resigned in 1969, following student protests and a general strike. His successor Aga Mohammed Jahja Khan imposed martial law at first but later allowed for political parties and elections. He lost power when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was elected president in December of 1970. Popular unrest in 1977 was followed by a military coup under General Zia ul-Haq. He banned political parties and trade unions and imposed martial law. His regime, which relied on the military, remained in place until 1988 and initiated the process of Islamization in Pakistan. In 1999, following further clashes over the Kashmir region, General Pervez Musharraf seized power in a military coup, ousting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Musharraf seized direct control of the judiciary and ousted Islamists from the military.
By virtue of its 1956 constitution, Pakistan became the first Islamic republic in the world. Islam is the state religion, although the constitution also guarantees freedom of religion. Ninety-six percent of Pakistanis are Muslim. The president is also required to be Muslim by law. Since the creation of Pakistan, tensions between various groups concerning the role of Islam within the state have dominated domestic politics, with Islamist tendencies repeatedly coming to the fore. For example, the dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq introduced Shariah, or Muslim religious law. In 1997, Pakistan was the first state to recognize the extremist Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Support for the Islamists in Pakistan has increased in recent years. President Musharraf is confronted with a newly vigorous Islamist opposition: Islamist party alliances have seized power in the Baluchistan region, which borders on Afghanistan, and in the north-western border region. Military operations against the Taliban and al-Qaida militants driven out of neighboring Afghanistan and assisted by regional tribal elders have occured repeatedly in these areas since 2003. Thousands of radical Islamists from Pakistan are fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan. At the same time, the Musharraf administration has become one of the most important US allies in the struggle against terror.
Pakistan's population repeatedly pinned its hopes of achieving freedom and democracy on the civilian governments in the country's history. During the first years following independence from Britain, the country struggled with major economic problems and the migration of millions of Muslims from India to Pakistan. The first genuinely democratic phase lasted from 1971 until 1977. But Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto developed an increasingly authoritarian leadership style. Accusations of malpractice and corruption were levelled against him. Massive protests over electoral fraud led eventually to the military coup under General Zia-ul-Haq. Bhutto was executed. In 1986, his daughter Benazir Bhutto returned from exile. Two years later, she won the election following Zia-ul-Haq's death in an airplane crash, the exact causes of which remain unclear. Bhutto ruled from 1988 until 1990 and from 1993 until 1996. But she also disappointed the hopes the Pakistanis had placed in her. She was charged with corruption in Pakistan and later with money laundering in Switzerland. Her two-time successor Nawaz Sharif, the head of the Muslim League, is not remembered positively either. He ruled between 1990 and 1993 and between 1997 and 1999. Pakistan carried out its first subterranean nuclear weapon tests under his rule. Sharif was deposed by Musharraf's bloodless coup in 1999. He was subsequently also convicted for corruption and fled the country. Like Bhutto, he hopes to take power again during the next elections. American and European diplomats see the valley's takeover as further evidence that their ally Musharraf is not entirely committed to fighting the extremists and that his army might not even be capable of doing so, despite the billions in aid it receives from Washington. "The government simply let the situation keep going," says a high-ranking Western officer, "and now people are pretending this is a recent problem." The USA and other countries have tried repeatedly to draw attention to the Swat Valley, but were reassured everything was under control. "Now it's too late."

Musharraf only responded, as is so often the case, when the West exerted pressure. At the end of October, a Western photographer snuck into the Sharia state and took spectacular pictures: donation tables where poor villagers gave their last possessions to the armed Jihad, hooded militants patrolling the streets. The intelligence agents warned that Uzbek, Tajik and other al-Qaida sympathizers were enjoying the protection of Mullah Fazlullah. The US started putting pressure on Musharraf to finally act.

Since then, the army has suffered painful losses to the militants. Several soldiers have been beheaded, the pictures published on the Internet. The militias are so brutal that in many cases, the army and police have cleared out voluntarily, relinquishing their weapons. Fazlullah always keeps his PR in mind. When he lets soldiers go, he gives them each 500 rupees compensation. They should be able to buy themselves something to eat on the way home, he jokes. The symbolism is perfect: As Musharraf's army becomes more demoralized, Fazullah provides for its soldiers.

Since the state of emergency was announced, Musharraf's generals have been sending report upon report from the Swat Valley. The military's press department has even sent a colonel to the front. This week the army announced that it had sent in 15,000 soldiers, plus dozens of combat helicopters and mortar shelters. Forty are reported dead so far although nobody can confirm that figure. Even local journalists based in Shangla and Matta have left the area. One of the last pictures taken by a wire photographer shows a police station that has been renamed "Taliban Station" by the militants.

Fazlullah's militants are ready for combat. Earlier this week, Fazullah's spokesman, Siraj Uddin, told SPIEGEL ONLINE in a telephone interview, "The army has no idea where to shoot, they're just killing civilians." His people had only heard of the state of emergency over the radio. "The army is running after us, helplessly," he said in triumph, "for the world, this may be new, but for us it's a game we've been playing for a long time." Not surprisingly, he committed to a fight to the end: "We'll defend our mission till the last breath is drawn."

At the end of the interview, Uddin wanted to speak with the Western reporter without an interpreter. "How are you?" he asked in broken English, "my English not good." He didn't wait for an answer. "We are fine, first class, inshallah," he said. Then he hung up.





November 30, 2007 | 8:56 AM Comments  0 comments

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Gewalt als neues Mittel im Konflikt zw Regierungsoldaten und Rebellen
Related to country: Congo


Demokratische Republik Kongo
Massenvergewaltigung als Waffe

Sendeanstalt und Sendedatum: WDR, Sonntag, 11. November 2007


Bildunterschrift: ]
Völlig erschöpft kehrt ein kongolesisches Ärzteteam zurück aus den umliegenden Dörfern. Wieder hat es eine Frau nicht geschafft. Verblutet auf dem Fußmarsch ins Krankenhaus nach einer Vergewaltigung.

Die meisten Frauen hier wurden missbraucht oder verschleppt, von Milizen oder Regierungssoldaten. In der Notaufnahme der kleinen Klinik von Goma warten sie stundenlang auf Hilfe.

Kongolesische Ärzte , wie Dr. Claude, arbeiten rund um die Uhr. Um das Leben der 34-jährigen Chantal hat er vor drei Wochen stundenlang am Operationstisch gekämpft. Jetzt will er in einem Gespräch mit einer Sozialarbeiterin herausfinden, ob sie stabil genug ist, auf eigenen Füssen zustehen. Im Augenblick wird jedes Bett gebraucht. Die Frauen können sich in der Klinik höchstens 2,3 Wochen ausruhen.

„Ich bin von fünf Rebellen des Milizenchefs Laurent Nkunda vergewaltigt worden, weil mein Mann ein Regierungssoldat war. Sie haben ihn gezwungen zuzugucken und dann umgebracht. Dann hab ich mich mit einer Waffe zu den nächsten Blauhelm Soldaten durchgeschlagen.

Claude Masumbuko, Mediziner
„Chantal ist sehr mutig. Aber viele der Frauen haben keine Schulausbildung und wissen gar nicht, dass eine Vergewaltigung ein Verbrechen ist.“

Viele Opfer werden von ihren Familien verstoßen. Diese Angst plagt auch Chantal.

Und schon eilt Dr. Claude zur nächsten Patientin. Ein Notfall. Die Mutter ist verzweifelt. Mehrere Soldaten haben ihre 8-jährige Tochter missbraucht. Noch ist Arine bei vollem Bewusstsein. Doch Dr. Claude muss schnell handeln. Das Mädchen verliert viel Blut. Soldaten und Milizen überbieten sich gegenseitig in ihrer Brutalität, klagt er. Sie schrecken weder vor kleinen Mädchen noch alten Frauen zurück.
Im Zimmer nebenan liegt eine 12-Jährige, deren Gebärmutter Claude nicht retten konnte. Arine muss schnellstens operiert werden.

Mutter Margarita und Arines Opa stehen nun schreckliche Stunden des Wartens bevor. Frauen sind wie Freiwild, meinen sie wütend.

„Meine Tochter ist gerade mal acht Jahre. Sie haben sie stundenlang vergewaltigt. Sie ist doch noch ein Kind und kam gerade von der Schule nach Hause.“

Kibibi Rukara, Opa 70 Jahre alt

„Das waren Regierungssoldaten, die meine Enkelin vergewaltigt haben. Das zeigt doch, dass unsere Regierung überhaupt keine Kontrolle hat. Früher hätte es das nicht gegeben auch nicht im Krieg.“
Um ihr Essen müssen sich die Patientinnen selbst kümmern. Dabei sprechen sie immer wieder über die blutigen Details, die kaum ein Außenstehender ertragen könnte. Endlich können sie hier reden über Kommandanten und deren ungehemmte Lust auf Gewalt. Ob Regierungssoldaten oder Rebellen. Sie sind alle gleich, klagen die Frauen. Und wehe dem, der zwischen die Fronten gerät.

„Für mich ist das eine Art der Kriegsführung. Ich bin von sechs Soldaten vergewaltigt worden und danach haben sie mich noch mit einem Buschmesser verstümmelt. Sie haben mich wochenlang in ihrem Lager gefangen gehalten.“

„Mich haben Rebellen in den Busch verschleppt und immer wieder vergewaltigt. Als ich dann schwanger wurde haben sie mir den Fötus aus dem Leib gerissen.“

„Wir müssen lernen zu vergeben, auch wenn uns das schwer fällt. Sonst frisst uns dieser Hass gegen die Männer am Ende noch auf.“

Ohne ihr Baby hätte Chantal längst aufgegeben. Nur wegen ihrer Tochter quält sie sich morgens überhaupt aus dem Bett.

Die 8-jährige Arine hat ihre Operation überstanden. Dr. Claude schaut immer wieder nach ihr. Eigentlich müsste auch er endlich mal wieder schlafen, doch das Schicksal der Kleinen liegt hm am Herzen. Aus medizinischer Sicht wird sie sich erholen, doch das Trauma wird sie nur mit Hilfe ihrer Familie überstehen. Der Rat des erfahrenen Arztes: die Mutter soll sich unbedingt einer Sozialarbeiterin im Krankenhaus anvertrauen. Der Alptraum ist für Mutter und Kind noch lange nicht vorbei

Ähnlich geht es Chantal. Ihre Zeit im Krankenhaus ist abgelaufen. Eigentlich brauchte sie jetzt den Schutz eines Frauenhauses. Doch sie will versuchen mit ihrer blinden, vierjährigen Adoptivtochter und ihrem Baby in ihr Dorf nach Saké zurückzukehren. Der Abschied fällt allen schwer. In den Wochen im Krankenhaus sind sie zu Verbündeten geworden. Gegenseitig haben sie einander aufgebaut.

Und dann geht es auch schon los in einem der wenigen Geländewagen der Ärzte.

Die Flüchtlingslager um Goma platzen aus allen Nähten. 100.000 neue Flüchtlinge allein in den letzten drei Wochen seit Chantal ins Krankenhaus eingeliefert wurde. Es verschlägt ihr die Sprache. Straßensperren verbauen uns den Weg. Die Rebellen von Laurent Nkunda rücken vor, heißt es. Überall lauert Militär. Die Stimmung ist gereizt. Sie hat Angst, selbst vor Regierungssoldaten. Vor allem wenn die am helllichten Tag „Pombe“ selbstgebrauten Whiskey trinken.

Ihr solltet mich respektieren, ruft er uns warnend zu.

Endlich haben wir uns zu ihrem Haus durchgeschlagen. Hier hat Chantal zehn Jahre lang gelebt, bis zu jener Nacht, in der die Rebellen über sie und ihren Mann hergefallen sind. Beim Anblick ihrer persönlichen Sachen hat sie das Bild ihrer Peiniger vor Augen. Die Truppen von Laurent Nkunda sind mittlerweile bis zu den Bergen über ihrem Haus vorgerückt. Chantal wird klar: sie kann hier nicht bleiben.
Ihr Zuhause hat sie also auch verloren. Genau wie all die anderen Flüchtlinge da draußen auch.



November 13, 2007 | 10:50 AM Comments  0 comments

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East and West Germany
Related to country: Germany


SPIEGEL STUDY
Germany Still Divided 18 Years After the Fall of the Wall
To mark the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, SPIEGEL polled over 1,000 Germans who had grown up on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The disturbing conclusion is that, 18 years after the Wall came down, Germany remains as divided as ever.


DPA
Tourists walk past the East Side Gallery, one of the few remaining stretches of the Berlin Wall. The caption on the picture reads "There are many walls which need to be broken down."
Friday marks the 18th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It also marks the day on which children born on Nov. 9, 1989 will become legal adults -- the first generation to have grown up in the country following the collapse of communist East Germany and its reunification with West Germany.

Together with pollster TNS Forschung, SPIEGEL recently conducted a poll of two generations of eastern and western Germans in order to provide a progress report on the extent to which unification has taken place within the national psyche. Does the proverbial Wall still stand in Germans' heads nearly two decades after reunification?

Poll respondents included 500 people from the 14-24 age group. When the Wall fell, the oldest people in this group were just six years old -- too young to get any serious notion of what life was like in a country divided by the Cold War.

In addition, SPIEGEL polled 500 representatives of the generation that were the parents of the post-reunification youth. This enabled SPIEGEL to determine differences between the younger and older generations and their thinking about reunification. The results show that, even 18 years after the fall of the Wall, there is still no such thing as a truly unified Germany.

Eastern Germans are less satisfied with and less optimistic about their situation than those living in the states that made up the former West Germany. They are also less convinced about the virtues of democracy than their western counterparts -- with many believing that socialism is a good idea that just hasn't been implemented well in the past.

Indeed, the biggest differences in the survey come when eastern and western respondents are asked to share their views on life in the former East Germany. The communist state gets far higher marks from those living in the east than from those in the west. A full 92 percent of 35- to 50-year-old eastern Germans believe that one of the greatest attributes of the former East Germany was its social safety net, with 47 percent of their children in the east believing the same thing. By contrast, only 26 percent of western youth and 48 percent of their parents expressed the view that East Germany had a strong social welfare system compared to today's.

Despite the apparent "Ostalgie" for certain aspects of East Germany, most eastern Germans say they would prefer to live in the west if a new Berlin Wall were to be built today.

There is a silver lining in the report in that despite major divergences in views between the older eastern and western Germans, those differences appear to be shrinking with the younger generation in the east and west. Slowly, the country appears to be coming back together.

But how long will it take until unity is complete? That, of course, depends upon who you ask. It won't take longer than five more years, a quarter of all western German and 5 percent of eastern youth responded. When parents were asked the same question, only 12 percent and 4 percent, respectively, shared that view.

Part of the problem is identity. The study found that 67 percent of both eastern and western Germans felt they had different identities from their counterparts. When their parents' generation was asked the same question, 82 percent said eastern Germans were different from western Germans. Nevertheless, differences between eastern and western German youth are no longer as dramatic as they were within their parents' generation.

Many younger eastern Germans see the reunited country as a place where their parents are having trouble finding their way. And although they for the most part never experienced life under socialism, their thinking appears to have been partly molded by their parents' situations and the stories they have shared with them about life in East Germany.

Indeed, eastern German youth view the former East Germany in a friendlier light than their compatriots in the west. In some areas, they even view the now-vanished country with higher regard than their parents -- like when it comes to the standard of living in East Germany. It's a view through rose-colored glasses that sees an East Germany with employment for everyone, daycare for all families and a cradle-to-grave social welfare system. Of course, that generation was not exposed to the negative aspects of life under communist rule -- like long food lines or harrassment by the police state.

Still, positive sentiment towards certain aspects of the former East German remains high. A full 60 percent of eastern German youth surveyed said they felt it was "bad that nothing has remained of the things one could be proud of in East Germany."


November 11, 2007 | 1:42 PM Comments  0 comments

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