In a recent interview with USA Watchdog
— https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/10/13/if-impeach-gate-fails-elites-will-crash-economy-to-get-rid-of-trump/ —
I described Western journalists as prostitutes who whore for a living.
One of
them who did so—Udo Ulfkotte—describes what it is like. For the naive and
insouciant Western people who need to hear the truth from the horse’s mouth,
here is a translation of one of Udo Ulfkotte’s lectures on the subject.
Kopp in Germany published Ulfkotte’s
book, Gekaufte Journalisten (Bought Journalism) several
years ago. It
was a best seller. An
English language edition was authorized, but its publication was blocked by
intelligence services. You
can get an idea of the book from the lecture.
If the link doesn’t work for you, here is the transcript:
In 2014,
the German journalist and writer Udo Ulfkotte published a book that created a
big stir, describing how the journalistic profession is thoroughly corrupt and
infiltrated by intelligence services.
Although
eagerly anticipated by many, the English translation of the book, Bought
Journalists, does not seem to be forthcoming anytime soon.
[We
covered that story at the time – Ed.]
So I have
made English subtitles and transcribed this still very relevant 2015-lecture
for those that are curious about Ulfkotte’s work. It covers many of the
subjects described in the book.
Udo
Ulfkotte died of a heart attack in January 2017, in all likelihood part of the
severe medical complications he got from his exposure to German-made chemical
weapons supplied to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
TRANSCRIPTION
[Only the
first 49 minutes are translated; the second half of the lecture deals mostly
with more local issues]
Introducer
Oliver: I am very proud to have such a brave man amongst us: Udo Ulfkotte
Udo
Ulfkotte: Thanks…Thanks for the invitation…Thanks to Oliver. I heard to my
great surprise from Oliver that he didn’t know someone from the intelligence
services (VVS) would be present. I wish him a warm welcome. I don’t mean that
as a joke, I heard this in advance, and got to know that Oliver didn’t know. If
he wants – if it is a man – he can wave. If not?… no?…[laughter from the
audience]
I’m fine
with that. You can write down everything, or record it; no problem.
To the
lecture. We are talking about media. we are talking about truth. I don’t want
to sell you books or such things. Each one of us asks himself: Why do things
develop like they do, even though the majority, or a lot of people shake their
heads.
The
majority of people in Germany don’t want nuclear weapons on our territory. But
we have nuclear weapons here. The majority don’t want foreign interventions by
German soldiers. But we do.
What
media narrates and the politicians say, and what the majority of the population
believes – seems often obviously to be two different things.
I can
tell you this myself, from many years experience. I will start with very
personal judgments, to tell you what my experiences with ‘The Lying Media’ were
– I mean exactly that with the word ‘lying’.
I was
born in a fairly poor family. I am a single child. I grew up on the eastern
edge of the Ruhr-area. I studied Law, Political Science and Islamic Studies.
Already in my student years, I had contact with the German Foreign
Intelligence, BND. We will get back to that later.
From 1986
to 2003, I worked for a major German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(FAZ), amongst other things as a war reporter. I spent a lot of time in Eastern
and African countries.
Now to
the subject of lying media. When I was sent to the Iran-Iraq war for the first
time, the first time was from 1980 to July 1986, I was sent to this war to
report for FAZ. The Iraqis were then ‘the good guys’.
I was bit
afraid. I didn’t have any experience as a war reporter. Then I arrived in
Baghdad. I was fairly quickly sent along in a bus by the Iraqi army, the bus
was full of loud, experienced war reporters, from such prestigious media as the
BBC, several foreign TV-stations and newspapers, and me, poor newbie, who was
sent to the front for the first time without any kind of preparation. The first
thing I saw was that they all carried along cans of petrol. And I at once got
bad consciousness, because I thought: «oops, if the bus gets stuck far from a
petrol station, then everyone chips in with a bit of diesel’. I decided to in
the future also carry a can before I went anywhere, because it obviously was
part of it.
We drove
for hours through the desert, towards the Iraqi border. Approx. 20-30
kilometers from the border, there really was nothing. First of all no war.
There were armored vehicles and tanks, burned-out long ago. The journalist left
the bus, splashed the contents of the cans on the vehicles. We had Iraqi
soldiers with us as an escort, with machine guns, in uniform. You have to
imagine: tanks in a desert, burned out long ago, now put on fire. Clouds of
smoke. And there the journalists assemble their cameras.
It was my
first experience with media, truth in reporting.
While I
was wondering what the hell I was going to report for my newspaper, they all
lined up and started: Behind them were flames and plumes of smoke, and all the
time the Iraqis were running in front of camera with their machine guns,
casually, but with war in their gaze. And the reporters were ducking all the
time while talking.
So I
gathered courage and asked one of the reporters: ‘I understand one thing, they
are great pictures, but why are they ducking all the time? ‘
‘Quite
simply because there are machine guns on the audio track, and it looks very
good at home.’
That was
several decades ago. It was in the beginning of my contact with war. I was
thinking, the whole way back:’Young man, you didn’t see a war. You were in a
place with a campfire. What are you going to tell?’
I
returned to Baghdad. There weren’t any mobile phones then. We waited in Hotel
Rashid and other hotels where foreigners stayed, sometimes for hours for an
international telephone line. I first contacted my mother, not my newspaper. I
was in despair, didn’t know what to do, and wanted to get advice from an elder
person.
Then my
mother shouted over the phone:’My boy, you are alive!’
I
thought: ‘How so? Is everything OK?’
‘My boy,
we thought…’
‘What’s
the matter, mother?’
‘We saw
on TV what happened around you’
TV had
already sent lurid stories, and I tried to calm my mother down, it didn’t
happen like that. She thought I had lost my mind from all the things that had
happened in the war – she saw it with her own eyes!
I’ll
finish, because I am not here to make satire today. I just want to say that
this was my first experience with truth in journalism and war reporting.
That is,
I was very shocked by the first contact, it was entirely different from what I
had experienced. But it wasn’t an exceptional case.
In the
beginning, I mentioned that I am from a fairly poor family. I had to work hard
for everything. I was a single child, my father died when I was young. It
didn’t matter further on. But, I had a job, I had a degree, a goal in life.
I now had
the choice: Should I declare that the whole thing was nonsense, these reports?
I was nothing, a newbie straight out of uni, in my first job. Or if I wanted to
make money, to continue, look further. I chose the second option. I continued,
and that for many years.
Over
these years, I gained lots of experience. When one comes from university to a
big German newspaper – everything I say doesn’t only apply to FAZ, you can take
other German or European media. I had contact with other European journalists,
from reputable media outlets. I later worked in other media. I can tell you:
What I am about to tell you, I really discovered everywhere.
What did
I experience? If you, as a reporter, work either in state media financed by
forced license fees, or in the big private media companies, then you can’t
write what you want yourself, what you feel like. There are certain guidelines.
Roughly
speaking: everyone knows that you won’t, for example in the Springer-newspapers
– Bild, die Welt – get published articles extremely critical of Israel. They
stand no chance there, because one has to sign a statement that one is
pro-Israel, that one won’t question the existence of the state of Israel or
Israeli points of view, etc.
There are
some sort of guidelines in all the big media companies. But that isn’t all: I
learned very fast that if one doesn’t – I don’t mean this negatively – want to
be stuck in the lower rungs of editors, if one wants to rise; for me this rise
was that I was allowed to travel with the Chancellor, ministers, the president
and politicians, in planes owned by the state; then one has to keep to certain
subjects. I learned that fast.
That is,
if one gets to follow a politician – and this hasn’t changed to this day – I
soon realized that when I followed the president or Chancellor Helmut Kohl etc,
one of course isn’t invited because your name is Udo Ulfkotte, but because you
belong to the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Then a
certain type of reporting is expected. Which one? Forget my newspaper, this
applies in general. At the start of the trip, the journalist gets a memo –
today it is electronic – in his hand. If you are traveling abroad, it is info
about the country, or the speeches that will be held. This file contains
roughly what will happen during this trip. In addition there are short
conversations, briefings with the politician’s press manager. He then explains
to you how one views this trip. Naturally, you should see it the same way. No
one says it in that way. But is is approximately what one would have reported.
All the
time you…no one tells you to write it this or that way…but you know quite
exactly that if you DON’T write it this or that way,then you won’t get invited
next time. Your media outlet will be invited, but they say ‘we don’t want him along’.
Then you are out.
Naturally
you want to be invited. Of course it is wonderful to travel abroad and you can
behave like a pig, no one cares. You can buy what you want, because you know
that when you return, you won’t be checked. You can bring what you want. I had
colleagues who went along on a trip to the US.
They
brought with them – it was an air force plane – a Harley Davidson, in parts.
They sold it when they were back in Germany, and of course earned on it.
Anyway, just like the carpet-affair with that development minister, this is of
course not a single instance. No one talks about it.
You get
invited if you have a certain way of seeing things. Which way to see things?
Where and how is this view of the world formed? I very often get asked: ‘Where are
these people behind the curtain who pulls the wires, so that everything gets
told in a fairly similar way?’
In the
big media in Germany – just look yourself – who sit in the large transatlantic
think-tanks and foundations,the foundation The Atlantic Bridge, all these
organizations, and how is one influenced there? I can tell from my own
experience.
We
mustn’t talk only theoretically. I was invited by the think-tank The German
Marshall Fund of the United States as a fellow. I was to visit the United
States for six weeks. It was fully paid. During these six weeks I could…this
think-tank has very close connections to the CIA to this day, they acquired
contacts in the CIA for me and they got me access to American politicians, to
everyone I wanted. Above all, they showered me with gifts.
Already
before the journey with German Marshall Fund, I experienced plenty of bought
journalism. This hasn’t to do with a particular media outlet. You see, I was
invited and didn’t particularly reflect over it, by billionaires, for example
sultan Quabboos of Oman on the Arabian peninsula.
When
sultan Qabboos invited, and a poor boy like me could travel to a country with
few inhabitants but immense wealth, where the head of state had the largest
yachts in the world, his own symphony orchestra which plays for him when he
wants – by the way he bought a pub close to Garmisch-Patenkirchen, because he
is a Muslim believer, and someone might see him if he drank in his own country,
so he rather travels there. The place he bought every day fly in fresh lamb
from Ireland and Scotland with his private jet. He is also the head of an environmental
foundation.
But this
is a digression. If such a person, who is so incredibly rich, invites someone
like me, then I arrive first class. I had never traveled first class before. We
arrive, and a driver is waiting for me. He carries your suitcase or backpack.
You have a suite in the hotel. And from the very start, you are showered with
gifts. You get a platinum or gold coin. A hand-weaved carpet or whatever.
I
interviewed the sultan, several times. He asked me what I wanted. I answered
among other things a diving course. I wanted to learn how to dive. He flew in a
PADI-approved instructor from Greece. I was there for two weeks and got my
first diving certificate. On later occasions, the sultan flew me in several
times, and the diving instructor. I got a certificate as rescue diver, all paid
for by the sultan. You see, when one is attended to in such a way, then you
know that you are bought. For a certain type of journalism. In the sultan’s
country, there is no freedom of the press.
There are
no human rights. It is illegal to import many writings, because the sultan does
not wish so. There are reports about human rights violations, but my eyes are
blind. I reported, like all German media when they report about the Sultanate
of Oman, to this day, only positive things. The great sultan, who is wonderful.
The fantastic country of the fairy tale prince, overshadowing everything else –
because I was bought.
Apart
from Oman, many others have bought me. They also bought colleagues. I got many
invitations through the travel section in my big newspaper. 5-star. The
reportage never mentioned that I was bought, by country A or B or C. Yemenia,
the Yemeni state airline, invited me to such a trip.
I didn’t
report about the dirt and dilapidation in the country, because I was influenced
by this treatment,I only reported positively, because I wanted to come back.
The Yemenis asked me when I had returned to Frankfurt what I wished…In jest, I
said «your large prawns, from the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean, they were
spectacular.», from the seaport of Mocha (Mocha-coffee is named after it). Two
days later, Yemenia flew in a buffet for the editorial office, with prawns and
more.
Of course
we were bought. We were bought in several ways. In your situation: when you buy
a car or something else, you trust consumer tests. Look closer. How well is the
car tested? I know of no colleagues, no journalists, who do testing of cars,
that aren’t bribed – maybe they do exist.
They get
unlimited access to a car from the big car manufacturers, with free petrol and
everything else. I had a work car in my newspaper, if not, I might have
exploited this. I had a BMW or Mercedes in the newspaper. But there are,
outside the paper, many colleagues who only have this kind of vehicle all year
round. They are invited to South Africa, Malaysia, USA, to the grandest
travels, when a new car is presented.
Why? So
that they will write positively about the car. But it doesn’t say in these
reports «Advertisement from bought journalists».
But that
is the reality. You should also know – since we are on the subjects of tests –
who owns which test magazines? Who owns the magazine Eco-test? It is owned by
the Social Democrats. More than a hundred magazines belong to the Social
Democrats. It isn’t about only one party, but many editorial rooms have
political allegiance. Behind them are party political interests.
I
mentioned the sultan of Oman and the diving course, and I have mentioned German
Marshall Fund. Back to the US and the German Marshall Fund. There one told me,
they knew exactly, ‘hello, you were on a diving course in Oman…’ The CIA knew
very precisely. And the CIA also gave me something: The diving gear. I received
the diving gear in the United States, and I received in the US, during my
6-week stay there, an invitation from the state of Oklahoma, from the governor.
I went there. It was a small ceremony, and I received an honorary citizenship.
I am now
honorary citizen of an American state. And in this certificate, it is written
that I will only cover the US positively. I accepted this honorary citizenship
and was quite proud of it. I proudly told about it to a colleague who worked in
the US. He said ‘ha, I already have 31 of these honorary citizenships!’
I don’t
tell about this to be witty, today I am ashamed, really.
I was
greedy. I accepted many advantages that a regular citizen at my age in my
occupation doesn’t have, and shouldn’t have. But I perceived it – and that is
no excuse – as entirely normal, because my colleagues around me all did the
same. But this isn’t normal. When journalists are invited to think-tanks in the
US, like German Marshall Fund, Atlantic Bridge, it is to ‘bring them in line’,
for in a friendly way to make them complicit, naturally to buy them, to grease
them with money.
This has
quite a few aspects that one normally doesn’t talk about. When I for the first
time was in Southern Africa, in the 80s, Apartheid still existed in South
Africa, segregated areas for blacks and whites. We didn’t have any problems
with this in my newspaper, we received fully paid journeys from the Apartheid
regime to do propaganda work.
I was
invited by the South-African gold industry, coal industry, tourist board. In
the first invitation, this trip was to Namibia – I arrived tired to the hotel
room in Windhoek and a dark woman lay in my bed. I at once left the room, went
down to the reception and said ‘excuse me, but the room is already occupied’
[laughter from the audience]
Without
any fuss I got another room.
Next day
at the breakfast table, this was a journalist trip, my colleagues asked me ‘how
was yours?’ Only then I understood what had happened. Until then, I had
believed it was a silly coincidence.
With this
I want to describe which methods are used, maybe to film journalists in such
situations, buy, make dependent. Quite simply to win them over to your side
with the most brutal methods, so that they are ‘brought in line’.
This
doesn’t happen to every journalist. It would be a conspiracy theory if I said
that behind every journalist, someone pulls the wires.
No. Not
everyone has influence over the masses. When you – I don’t mean this negatively
– write about folk costume societies or if you work with agriculture or
politics, why should anyone from the upper political spheres have an interest
in controlling the reporting? As far as I know, this doesn’t happen at all.
But if
you work in one of the big media, and want up in this world, if you want to
travel with politicians, heads of state, with CEOs, who also travel on these
planes, then it happens. Then you are regularly bought, you are regularly
observed.
I said
earlier that I already during my study days had contact with the intelligence
services.
I will
quickly explain this to you, because it is very important for this lecture.
I studied
law, Political Science and Islamology, among other places in Freiburg. At the
very beginning of my study, just before end of the term, a professor approached
me. Professors were then still authority figures.
He came
with a brochure, and asked me: ‘Mr. Ulfkotte, what are your plans for this
vacation?’
I
couldn’t very well say that I first planned to work a bit at a building site,
for then to grab my backpack and see the ocean for the first time in my life,
to Italy, ‘la dolce vita’, flirting with girls, lie on the beach and be a young
person.
I
wondered how I would break it to him. He then came with a brochure [Ulfkotte
imitating professor]:‘I have something for you…a seminar, Introduction to
Conflict Studies, two weeks in Bonn…I am sure you would want to participate!’
I
wondered how I would tell this elderly gentleman that I wanted to flirt with
girls on the beach. Then he said ‘you will get 20 Marks per day as support,
paid train journey, money for books 150 Marks…You will naturally get board and
lodging.’ He didn’t stop telling me what I would receive.
It buzzed
around in my head that I had to achieve everything myself, work hard. I thought
‘You have always wanted to participate in a seminar on Introduction to Conflict
Studies!’
So I went
to Bonn from Freiburg, and I saw other students who had this urge to
participate in this seminar. There were also girls one could flirt with, about
twenty people. The whole thing was very strange, because we sat in a room like this
one, there were desks and a lectern, and there sat some older men and a woman,
they always wrote something down. They asked us about things; What we thought
of East Germany, we had to do role play.
The whole
thing was a bit strange, but it was well paid. We didn’t reflect any further.
It was very strange that in this house, in Ubierstraße 88 in Bonn, we weren’t
allowed to go to the second floor. There was a chain over the stairs, it was
taboo.
We were
allowed to go to the basement, there were constantly replenished supplies of
new books that we were allowed to get for free. Ebay didn’t exist then, but we
could still sell them used. Anyway, it was curious, but at the end of the
fortnight, we were allowed to go up these stairs, where we got an invitation to
a continuation course in Conflict Studies.
After
four such seminars, that is, after two years, someone asked me ‘you have
probably wondered what we are doing here’.
He
explained that a recruitment board from the intelligence services had
participated. But I had no idea that the seminar Introduction to Conflict
Studies was arranged by the defense forces and run by the foreign intelligence
service BND, to have a closer look at potential candidates among the students,
not to commit them. They only asked if they, after four such seminars, possibly
could contact me later, in my occupation.
They gave
me a lot of money. My mother has always taught me to be polite. So I said
‘please do’, and they came to me. I was then working in the newspaper FAZ from
1986, straight after my studies.
Then the
intelligence services came fairly soon to me. Why am I telling you this?
The
newspaper knew very soon. It is also written in my reference, therefore I can
say it loud and clear.
I had
very close contact with the intelligence service BND.
Two
persons from BND came regularly to the paper, to a visiting room. And there
were occasions when the report not only was given, but also that BND had
written articles, largely ready to go, that were published in the newspaper
under my byline.
I
highlight certain things to explain them. But if I had said here: ‘There are
media that are influenced by BND’, you could rightly say that ‘these are
conspiracy theories, can you document it?’
I CAN
document it. I can say, this and that article, with my byline in the paper, is
written by the intelligence services, because what is written there, I couldn’t
have known. I couldn’t have known what existed in some cave or other in Libya,
what secret thing were there, what was being built there. This was all things
that BND wanted published. It wasn’t like this only in FAZ.
It was
like this also in other media. I told about it. If we had rule of law, there
would now be an investigation commission. Because the political parties would
stand up, regardless of if they are on the left, in the center or right, and
say: What this Ulfkotte fella says and claims he can document, this should be
investigated. Did this occur in other places? Or is it still ongoing?’
I can
tell you: Yes it still exists. I know colleagues who still have this close
contact. One can probably show this fairly well until a few years ago. But I
would find it wonderful if this investigation commission existed.
But it
will obviously not happen, because no one has an interest in doing so. Because
then the public would realize how closely integrated politics, media, and the
secret services are in this country.
That is,
one often sees in reporting, whether it is from the local paper, regional
papers, TV-channels, national tabloids and so-called serious papers.
Put them
side by side, and you will discover that more than 90% looks almost identical.
A lot of subjects and news, that are not being reported at all, or they are – I
claim reported very one-sided. One can only explain this if one knows the structures
in the background, how media is surrounded, bought and ‘brought onboard’ by
politics and the intelligence services; Where politics and intelligence
services form a single unity. There is an intelligence coordinator by the
Chancellor.
I can
tell you, that under the former coordinator Bernd Schmidbauer, under Kohl, I
walked in and out of the Chancellery and received stacks of secret and
confidential documents, which I shouldn’t have received.
They were
so many that we in the newspaper had own archive cabinets for them. Not only
did I receive these documents,but Schmidbauer should have been in jail if we
had rule of law. Or there should have been a parliamentary commission or an
investigation, because he wasn’t allowed…
For
example if I couldn’t bring along the documents if the case was too hot, there
was another trick. They locked me in a room. In this room were the documents,
which I could look through. I could record it all on tape, photograph them or
write them down. When I was done, I could call on the intercom, so they could
lock me out. There were thousands of these tricks. Anonymous documents that I
and my colleagues needed could be placed in my mail box.
These are
of course illegal things. BUT, you ONLY get them if you ‘toe the line’ with
politics.
If I had
written that Chancellor Helmut Kohl is stupid, a big idiot, or about what
Schmidbauer did, I would of course not have received more. That is, if you
today, in newspapers, read about ‘soon to be revealed exposures, we will
publish a big story based on material based on intelligence’, then none of
these media have dug a tunnel under the security services and somehow got hold
of something secret. It is rather that they work so well with intelligence
services, with the military counterespionage, the foreign intelligence, police
intelligence etc, that if they have got hold of internal documents, it is
because they cooperate so well that they received them as a reward for well
performed service.
You see,
in this way one is in the end bought. One is bought to such a degree that at
one point one can’t exit this system anymore.
If I
describe how you are supplied with prostitutes, bribed with cars, money; I
tried to write down everything I received in gifts, everything I was bribed
with. I stopped doing so several years ago, more than a decade ago.
It
doesn’t make it any better, but today I regret everything. But I know that it
goes this way with many journalists.
It would
make me very happy if journalists stood up and said they won’t participate in
this any longer, and that they think this is wrong.
But I see
no possibility, because media corporations in any case are doing badly. Where
should a journalist find work the next day? It isn’t so that tens of thousands
of employers are waiting for you. It is the other way round. Tens of thousands
of journalists are looking for work or commissions.
That is,
from pure desperation one is happy to be bribed. If a newsroom stands behind or
not an article that in reality is advertising, doesn’t matter, one goes along.
I know some, even respected journalists, who want to leave this system.
But
imagine if you are working in one of the state channels, that you stand up and
tell what you have received. How will that be received by your colleagues? That
you have political ulterior motives etc.
September
30 [2015], a few days ago, Chancellor Merkel invited all the directors in the
state channels to her in the Chancellery. I will claim that she talked with
them about how one should report the Chancellors politics. Who of you [in the
audience] heard about this incident? 3-4-5? So a small minority. But this is
reality. Merkel started already 6 years ago, at the beginning of the financial
crisis, to invite chief editors…..she invited chief editors in the large media
corporations, with the express wish that media should embellish reality, in a
political way. This could have been only claims, one could believe me or not.
But a
couple of journalists were there, they told about it. Therefore I repeat:
Merkel invited the chief editors several times, and told them she didn’t want
the population to be truthfully and openly informed about the problems out
there.
For
example, the background for the financial crisis. If the citizens knew how
things were, they would run to the bank and withdraw their money. So
beautifying everything; everything is under control; your savings are safe;
just smile and hold hands – everything will be fine.
In such a
way it should be reported. Ladies and gentlemen, what I just said can be
documented. These are facts, not a conspiracy theory.
I
formulated it a bit satirically, but I ask myself when I see how things are in
this country: Is this the democracy described in the Constitution? Freedom of
speech? Freedom of the press?
Where one
has to be afraid if one doesn’t agree with the ruling political correctness, if
one doesn’t want to get in trouble. Is this the republic our parents and
grandparents fought for, that they built?
I claim
that we more and more – as citizens – are cowards ‘toeing the line’, who don’t
open our mouths.
It is so
nice to have plurality and diversity of opinions.
But it is
at once clamped down on, today fairly openly.
Of my
experiences with journalism, I can in general say that I have quit all media I
have to pay for, for the reasons mentioned. Then the question arises, ‘but
which pay-media can I trust?’
Naturally
there are ones I support. They are definitely political, I’ll add. But they are
all fairly small. And they won’t be big anytime soon. But I have quit all big
media that I used to subscribe to, Der Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine, etc. I
would like to not having to pay the TV-license fee, without being arrested
because I won’t pay fines. But maybe someone here in the audience can tell me
how to do so without all these problems?
Either
way, I don’t want to financially support this kind of journalism. I can only
give you the advice to get information from alternative, independent media and
all the forums that exist.
I’m not
advertising for any of them. Some of you probably know that I write for the
publishing house Kopp. But there are so many portals. Every person is different
in political viewpoint, culturally etc. The only thing uniting us, whether we
are black or white, religious or non-religious, right or left, or whatever; we
all want to know the truth. We want to know what really happens out there, and
exactly in the burning political questions: asylum seekers, refugees, the
financial crisis, bad infrastructure, one doesn’t know how it will continue.
Precisely with this background, is it even more important that people get to
know the truth.
And it is
to my great surprise that I conclude that we in media, as well as in politics,
have a guiding line.
To throw
more and more dust in the citizens’ eyes to calm them down. What is the sense
in this? One can have totally different opinions on the subject of refugees
with good reasoning.
But facts
are important for you as citizens to decide the future. That is, how many
people will arrive? How will it affect my personal affluence? Or will it affect
my affluence at all? Will the pensions shrink? etc. Then you can talk with
people about this, quite openly. But to say that we should open all borders,
and that this won’t have any negative consequences, is very strange. What I now
say isn’t a plug for my books. I know that some of them are on the table in
front.
I’m not
saying this so that you will buy books. I am saying this for another reason
that soon will be clear. I started to write books on certain subjects 18 years
ago. They have sold millions. It is no longer about you buying my books. It is
important that you hear the titles, then you will see a certain line throughout
the last ten years. One can have different opinions about this line, but I have
always tried to describe, based on my subjective experiences, formed over many
years in the Middle East and Africa.
That
there will be migration flows, from people from culture areas that are like; if
one could compare a cultural area with an engine, that one fills petrol in a
diesel engine then everyone knows what will happen, the engine is great, diesel
is great, but if there too much petrol, then the engine starts to splutter and
stop.
I have
tried to make you aware of this, with drastic and less drastic words. What we
can expect, and ever faster. The book titles are SOS Occident; Warning Civil
War; No Black,Red, Yellow [the colors in the German flag], Holy War in Europe;
Mecca Germany.
I just
want to say, when politicians and media today claim no one could have predicted
it, everything is a complete surprise; Ladies and Gentlemen, this is not at all
surprising. The migration flows, for years warnings have been coming from
international organizations, politicians, experts, exactly about what happened
and it is predictable, if we had a map over North Africa and the Middle East..
If the
West continues to destabilize countries like Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria,
country by country, Iraq when we toppled Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan. We as
Europeans and Germans have spent tens of billions on a war where we allegedly
defend peace and liberty, at the mountain range Hindu Kush [in Afghanistan].
And here, in front of our own door, we soon have Hindu Kush.
We have
no stabilization in Afghanistan. Dozens of German soldiers have lost their
lives for nothing. We have a more unstable situation than ever.
You can
have your own opinions. I am only saying that these refugee flows didn’t fall
from the sky. It is predicable, that if I bomb and destabilize a country, that
people – it is always so in history – it hasn’t anything to do with the Middle
East or North Africa. I have seen enough wars in Africa. Naturally they created
refugee flows.
But all
of us didn’t want to see this. We haven’t prepared. And now one is reacting in
full panic, and what is most disconcerting with this, is when media and politicians,
allegedly from deepest inner conviction, say: ‘this was all a complete
surprise!’
Are they
drunk? What are they smoking? What sort of pills are they eating? That they
behave this way?
End
transcription
The
transcription has been edited for clarity, and may differ from the spoken word.
The subtitles and transcription are for the first 49 minutes of the lecture
only. Subtitled and transcribed by Terje Maloy. This article is Creative
Commons 4.0 for non-commercial purposes.