ALLIANCE FO§ DEMOCRACY

Dispensation from obligations

The former Education Minister Annette Schavan requested the Free University of Berlin to grant her “Dispensation from her honorary professorship”. Schavan received this from the FU in the year 2008 for her “Services to science and society” in the subject of Catholic theology. Schavan gave as the reason for this request her new office, which makes her the Ambassador to the Vatican.
It may be a bureaucratic farce, that one office must follow another by dispensation; it could however also be the biggest joke of all time, which Annette Schavan, the woman who likes to put her foot in her mouth, continues to tell, as if it were the only thing in her otherwise sad life, which she must now spend without a doctorate, since it became known that she should have “formulated more thoroughly” some text references in her doctorate thesis. Since Mrs. Schavan is clearly not very capable of this, such a title is a useful habit, since the University of Lübeck quickly awarded her a “Dr. h. c.” – perhaps yet another necessary bureaucratic step? Mrs. Schavan was in any event not suitable for such an honourable doctorate, no, she should rather be credited for the channelling of tax funds as subsidies for the University of Lübeck for the support of the Medical Faculty, which was to be closed by the black-yellow state government.
This may all appear a little as if Schavan had made these agreements at the time she was still in the government, and was Merkel’s best friend, and which she is now putting into practice even without a seat in the government. And that is also so because the closure of a University is no great advertisement for the work of the Schleswig-Holstein CDU, and would not be to the taste of her bosom friend, who just happens to be the leader of the Christian Democrats. In the end, the CDU just managed to win in Schleswig, and the closure of a seat of learning stirs up too many awkward questions. This is not at all what the dictator Merkel wants to see.
Two things therefore become clear: Tax funds are misused to beautify the work results of the parties, and the word of a politician means something. It is just so frightening that it just unfortunately causes this misuse to be used to cover up failures. Overall not a very attractive image of the idea of political democracy. A hand may wash the other, but the water could be clearer. Let us wish Mrs. Schavan some good contacts in Rome with the really powerful, and may she find the encouragement and peace which revel in the glory of a Schavan. And let us hope that we as German citizens are no longer bothered by nor have to pay for such theatricals. And let us remember ancient Rome, where politicians still washed their hands in innocence (a political back door, which could well get under Mrs. Schavan’s skin); and let us remember the 8th Commandment: “Thou shalt not lie”, something which politicians in particular should allow themselves to be measured by. What a pity that there is no God who could take action against such professional liars – the hands of the people are tied.