Grass mowed down

Sign and Sight has translated Monika Maron's lacerating critique of Günter Grass's diary of German reunification. In the recently published selection, Grass, she writes,

is doing precisely what he accuses others of doing: he is colonising, if only mentally. He decides whose opinions are valid, he knows what's right for those gullible, backwards, Deutsch-Mark crazed East Germans, what they should want and idiotically don't want, and he steps up to intercede in their best interests, as if they were too stupid to articulate them themselves. He decides what succeeded and what failed. And German reunification was a failure for Grass, today and 18 years ago when, on 13 January 1991, finally reunited with his beloved Portuguese cacti he writes. Should, if have time and energy, take stock again next October 3rd in my usual 'dogmatic' way.

And this is exactly what he did. On October 2, 1991 Günter Grass rattled off a speech in Bitterfeld about bargains, victors, the reunification treaty as colonial order, the failure of unification. But the emphasis was on the stupidity of having ignored his, Grass's, suggestions for a cautious rapprochement and a later confederation of the two states. No, this unity is not worth celebrating, Grass said. ...Which of history's devils has ridden us, driving us to botch the gift of a possible confederation, and instead to hammer together a unity that supports nothing but its own ends.

Twelve months after reunification Grass explained to the people of Bitterfeld, who had been catapulted out of all certainties and habits, that German reunification had failed, that they themselves had been betrayed, robbed and colonised and, what's more, they were idiotic enough to have voted for this unfortunate mess.

While it's worth taking exception to some of her later points about the triumph of green capitalism in the "new states" of the re-unified country, Maron's main mark against Grass is a strong one about the rhetoric of "colonialism" doubling back on itself. The sketch of the pitiful East German is an easy one to draw. Certainly the material and systemic power was against them, but any reading of their "passivity" needs to take account of the interplay between individual autonomy and institutional, structural arrangements. (Easy on the Giddens and Castoriadis, mister!) A book like Birgit Müller's Disenchantment with Market Economics - an anthropological study of Ossis and their workplaces, review coming soon - shows the complexity of these negotiations. After reading such a work, it would seem flatly wrong to characterise as "passive" those affective and biographical labours that were entailed in the Wende for many Ossis - and Wessis, too.

Grass seems to get a few things right and his passion is certainly admirable, if a little misguided. If my bodgy Deutsch can stand it, the thing seems worth a look.