The demand that there should be “no bans on thinking” is part of modern rhetorical tools. The phrase announces that a radical proposal is about to be brought to the table – and that there will be attempts to immediately shove this proposal off the table.
This is also the case with a new “discussion offer” by the Left Party parliamentary group in the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt: There should be no bans on thinking about the reform of public broadcasting, the paper says. The politicians propose a purely East German public broadcaster for the federal states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Brandenburg, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
The crisis-ridden Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) would be dissolved, and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania would be taken away from the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). The aim is to give the East more weight and a say within ARD, both in terms of content and personnel. Because “the dominance of West German decision-makers” and institutions such as WDR in Cologne is still too great.
The demand for more representation of East German federal states is not new. Saxony-Anhalt’s Media Minister Rainer Robra (CDU), for example, has repeatedly pointed out corresponding deficits in recent years. A little has already happened, for example with the “Tagesthemen” report “Mittendrin” or with the joint facility ARD Kultur, for which Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) is responsible.
No question: The scandal at the RBB justifies a major debate about the future of public broadcasting. But it is obvious that this crisis is also to be used for a wide variety of interests, in this case for an East German location policy.
As accurate as the analysis of the current situation may be, the structure proposed by the left is inadequate. Because the ARD can only be viewed and reformed in its entirety. The formation of an Eastern bloc would lead to an impasse more than 30 years after reunification.
The legitimate goal of more acceptance through more representation can only be achieved in a meaningful way by putting the entire apparatus, including ZDF and Deutschlandfunk, to the test. All federal states would have to agree on this – and really without bans on thinking.
