Ist handshaking is up-to-date again? Or shouldn’t one be constantly throwing one’s hands over one’s head in view of the world situation? In times like these, this could become a new, distinctive greeting ritual. The CDU and CSU, on the other hand, recently decided at the party conference in Augsburg not to rush into anything, but to return to the tradition of shaking hands.
After all. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that both sides were at best looking at each other’s asses. Incidentally, among primates this is considered an infallible sign of mutual identification. We’d like to digress here, but we need to get back on topic.
Did Merz deliberately let go of the scarf?
In any case, the Franz-Josef-Strauß-Haus spontaneously had a symbolic handshake embroidered on a fan scarf between the logos of both parties, out of sheer joy about the new peace. But then the trouble started again. Or how is it to be interpreted that the scarf slipped out of the hand of the CDU chairman Merz just at the moment when the CSU chairman Söder shouted “Let’s stick together!”? Did Merz even let go? That’s a worthwhile diploma, excuse me, master’s thesis topic for prospective psychologists and political scientists: “The adhesion coefficient of party chairman’s hands in the area of tension between public preservation of form and inner reluctance.”
In the east of the republic, people also had a kind of déjà vu at the sight of the Union’s logo scarf, since for decades the handshake was the symbol of the SED, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, to which the KPD and SPD had merged completely voluntarily in 1946. “In one hand now!” was the slogan at the time, which sooner or later meant “hands up” for members who refused.
But the Union leadership cannot know all this, even 32 years after reunification. The CDU still believes to this day that its East German sister, with whom it formed an unconditional unity in 1990, put up strong resistance in the GDR. History classes are just overrated.
Everything like before?
In any case, experience teaches that publicly demonstrated unity is often inversely proportional to the actual situation. Which is why those in the East who now take to the streets again and again on Mondays and greet each other there with a handshake immediately see the symbolic Union handshake as confirmation of their assertion that everything is back to how it used to be.
Apart from the fact that some demonstrators explicitly want a return to the past – some only to Wilhelm Pieck, others to Kaiser Wilhelm – the accusation, based on a merger of the CDU and CSU, is of course not true. Because there are nuances, for example with the possible name.
The united party could be called “Christian Social Democratic Union” or “Unity Party” (CSDE). But especially in these times you need something tangible, which is why “warm-up party” would certainly be well received. This name underscores on the one hand the fact that the government is on fire as an opposition and on the other hand that the concerns and needs of the people out there are taken seriously (only genuinely with an imaginary deep sigh). One could also give sugar to the alliteration monkey and write the doubly booming slogan “Warm Apartment instead of Angry Winter” on the banner of the new large party. Together with the handshake symbol, the party would also be well prepared for other crises, such as pandemics. You just have to go back to the saying “One hand washes the other”.