Hanover’s regional bishop Petra Bahr sees a lot of need for discussion among the population when it comes to dealing with the corona pandemic. “I see that people have sealed the experience of the pandemic in a kind of cocoon,” says the theologian in a podcast interview with the political journal Rundblick. For these people, these were “two black years” and many “did not come to terms with that time in a good way.” Bahr compares it to a trauma: you seal off what is disturbing your life – but it is still there. This approach is not without consequences: what is only “insufficiently sealed” will later seep “like pus from a wound.” “If it continues to be sealed like this, it will break out somewhere else,” warns the pastor in a conversation about the heated mood in the country. Bahr does not attribute the fact that there have been tendencies towards radicalization in connection with the pandemic solely to the restrictions on basic rights. “I think it was a complicated mixture of loneliness, anger, despair and the feeling that the state is restricting our options for action.” That is why she is now calling for places for exchange to be created: “I want us to develop spaces in which we can talk about what we have encountered as a society, what we have encountered personally in our relationships, in our different way of working.”
Petra Bahr in the Politiknerds podcast with Niklas Kleinwächter | Photo: Lada
But what should a reappraisal look like and where should it start? The theologian sees several points for this: Firstly, she hopes that by changing priorities, politicians will finally focus on those groups that they neglected during the pandemic. “There was hardly any compensation for children and young people. I still find that really shocking, because we have known from all studies for a long time that children and young people were given far too little attention for a long time because the focus was on the vulnerable group of the very elderly. There are such simple options, but they were never taken,” she says, pointing to dilapidated school toilets or a lack of digital learning structures. Politicians should also now adequately equip the public health system, which was the first priority in the pandemic. Secondly, the regional bishop gives a concrete example from her own professional environment that is intended to describe what reappraisal should mean in interpersonal relationships. Recently, she sat down with kindergarten managers and talked to them for four hours about what the circumstances of the pandemic meant for them. “The response was that it really helped them to talk about it for so long to come to terms with it in a different way,” says Bahr.
The theologian, who as a member of the German Ethics Council also advised on a recommendation for compulsory vaccination, clearly distinguishes her call for an emotional review from a review in a political-technocratic sense. She is less concerned with the retrospective review of specific measures – even if, in her view, there is a lot to be dealt with. Another question that needs to be clarified is: Why is public health care in Germany the way it is? Why were people not prepared for a disaster that had been announced? How does the disaster structure work in Germany? “These are things that can be looked at very soberly,” says Bahr, and believes that the only reason why one should do this is to be able to derive something from them for the future. “What I do not understand by review under any circumstances is reckoning, also in a personal sense.” However, it is now almost too late for a classic review, since a certain “historicization” has set in, says Bahr. She sees a problem in the fact that, with sufficient distance, one can no longer put oneself in the shoes of the situation at that time and also the “incredible pressure” that prevailed at that time.
This article appeared on August 8, 2024 in issue #133.
