As a child of the UK and Germany, it has been fascinating and at least a little bit amusing to watch how the British caricature of Germany has evolved over the years.
For much of the recent past, Germany was revered in liberal British circles as a model of a well-run, grown-up country, a refuge from Brexit, a vision of what the UK could be if it shook off its xenophobic streak and elected more mature leaders.
“German conservatism produced Angela Merkel, easily the most respected democratic leader in the world, while the English variety produced Boris Johnson,” the British historian David Edgerton wrote in 2020.
If you spent a lot of time in Germany, you knew it wasn’t quite like that.
Things can take an age with Germany’s pen-and-paper bureaucracy. Its vaunted trains are often late. Politics can be chaotic with seven parties forming 17 national and regional governments. There are periodic flashes of intolerance and extremist violence, and a far-right party has seats in parliament, which is not the case in Britain.
Now, after a year of war in Ukraine, the mood has changed. After dithering over arms for Ukraine, Germany has been painted differently: as a weak link in Nato, a country of Kremlin appeasers that let itself be duped by Russia, a nation of pacifists that lacks the stomach for the fight.
Germany and its Chancellor Olaf Scholz have had tetchy relations with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who skipped Berlin on his recent European tour. Meanwhile, the UK – and Mr Johnson, of all people – have been lauded in Kyiv as staunch allies. The British gloating has been visible from space.
The British scholar Timothy Garton Ash went viral in Germany after sharing a meme that described the act of “Scholzing” as “communicating good intentions, only to find any reason imaginable to delay”.
Again, though, the truth is not so simple. Germany has come a long way in a short time, from sending 5,000 helmets a year ago to providing battle tanks today. It is the fourth-biggest military donor to Ukraine – doing notably more than France. It has absorbed more than a million refugees, far more than Britain, and quickly cut its ties with Russian energy. And it is far from the only country that got itself caught in economic entanglements with Russia, and others such as France and Britain did not have war guilt as an excuse.
The way Germans faced up to that Nazi past was an inspiration to many. Their atonement with the British, French and Americans after 1945 was an almost miraculous success. Many of us are its children. Can you blame Germany for dreaming of a similar happy ending with Russia?
And it's not just about Russia. Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union was a tragedy for Germany too. After stalling in the Russian snow, it came barrelling back to Berlin with full force, leaving Germany in a heap of ruins.
Germany was divided and occupied for the next 45 years. The scars are visible to this day. Who would not be anxious about antagonising Russia again?
The truth is that Germany has been a well-meaning but imperfect country all along – the same as Britain.
Mr Scholz was derided for asking the US to stick its neck out first with tank deliveries. But as Mr Johnson told a BBC documentary, the UK’s policy since before the invasion has likewise been to “keep in step with the Americans as far as we can”.
This is not to say that Germany does not deserve some criticism. Mr Scholz can appear haughty and indecisive. By the admission of senior figures, Germany’s misreading of Russia had costly consequences. It takes two to reconcile, and Germany realised too late that the Kremlin had chosen a different path.
But Mr Scholz won the 2021 election by coming over as a calm leader not prone to headline-grabbing showmanship. Now, those same qualities are a stick to beat him with. Perhaps rightly. But Mr Scholz’s Germany then is the same as Mr Scholz’s Germany now, not one caricature or the other. It is finding its place in a less comfortable world, obsessive over its past, and is prone to both inertia and inspiration – like Britain, for better or worse.
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Dhafeer Street
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Salama bint Butti Street
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British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
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Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Company Fact Box
Company name/date started: Abwaab Technologies / September 2019
Founders: Hamdi Tabbaa, co-founder and CEO. Hussein Alsarabi, co-founder and CTO
Based: Amman, Jordan
Sector: Education Technology
Size (employees/revenue): Total team size: 65. Full-time employees: 25. Revenue undisclosed
Stage: early-stage startup
Investors: Adam Tech Ventures, Endure Capital, Equitrust, the World Bank-backed Innovative Startups SMEs Fund, a London investment fund, a number of former and current executives from Uber and Netflix, among others.
2018 ICC World Twenty20 Asian Western Sub Regional Qualifier
Event info: The tournament in Kuwait is the first phase of the qualifying process for sides from Asia for the 2020 World T20 in Australia. The UAE must finish within the top three teams out of the six at the competition to advance to the Asia regional finals. Success at regional finals would mean progression to the World T20 Qualifier.
Teams: UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Maldives, Qatar
Friday fixtures: 9.30am (UAE time) - Kuwait v Maldives, Qatar v UAE; 3pm - Saudi Arabia v Bahrain
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The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
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Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
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More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
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