[WERE WE RAISED TO BE SLAVES?
The domination of the nursery is the greatest political concern in order to be
able to rule over people who then grow up.
[CAN WE FORCE PEOPLE TO WAKE UP?
How do I have to shape my message so that people join in?
My first response is always, forget that.
You can't get people through the messages.
They have to go through their own experience.
They have to experience pain themselves.
Division is a principle to prevent protest movements from achieving exactly that, namely to bundle
around one person and make the protest capable of winning a majority and capable of governing.
The more people focus on the essential conflicts, the less energy is wasted and suffering caused in these petty wars.
This can actually happen relatively quickly and even seamlessly by a few people joining forces here and there.
Change begins with a simple question.
What can we do?
This was precisely the question at the heart of the Freedom Barometer 2025, which I conducted together with the A-WEF.</b
An online survey in which more than an incredible 22,000 people took part.
22,000 people who have given a clear answer.
They have had enough.
Enough of political paternalism, enough of media manipulation, enough of an undermined democracy.
The will to stand up against this is great, but the blockades are just as great.
We really want to know.
What paralyzes peaceful protest and what is needed to finally turn frustration into movement?
So I continued my search and I found answers.
Dear viewers, you are about to hear concentrated expertise.
The essence of more than 10 hours of interviews with seven renowned academics.
From the historian to the psychoanalyst to the communication scientist.
Top-class experts in their field who shed light on our key issues from different perspectives:
Seven courageous people who ask uncomfortable questions and give equally uncomfortable answers.
Those who question and who stand up for change themselves.
They raise their voices.
And together we have held in-depth discussions on how we can succeed in joining forces for a better future.
How we can be strong together against division, corruption, lies and propaganda, against tyranny and
war. And for peace, freedom, humanity and honesty.
Even if we don't agree on everything, there are common goals that unite us.
And that's exactly how it will be for you too, dear viewers.</b
Because you have also switched on to find out how dissatisfaction can become change.
What hurdles there are, what opportunities there are and what you can contribute yourself.
And I can tell you: if you ask yourself these questions, you've already taken a big first
step. Because change starts with yourself.
The individual is far more powerful than they often think of themselves.
The domination of the nursery is the greatest political concern in order to be able to
rule over people who then become adults.
Most people are alienated from themselves.
Through upbringing, through relationship mistakes, that they can't become the way they are meant to be, the
way they want to develop, but the way they have to become.
In the end, however, most children manage to adapt to expectations.
Adaptation as a survival strategy, as Dr. Hans-Joachim Maaz describes it.
Something that many people learn very early on.
Whoever meets expectations gets recognition.
If you blend in, you won't stand out.
And you are often even rewarded for it.
This pattern can work for a long time.
Some people get through life well with it.
It becomes problematic when something changes.
When the world becomes more uncertain, when old rules no longer apply.
When social upheavals shake up your own world view</b
When the old adaptation behavior no longer feels right.
Then, a crisis can occur.
Something should actually happen at this point.
You have to look inwards, deal honestly with your own history.
But that's exactly what many people avoid because it hurts.
Because it calls into question everything you've built your life on.
Instead of changing something, many remain conformist - even as adults.
Even when they have long felt that they are dissatisfied.
From his therapeutic work, Dr. Maaz reports that some people even become ill because they
have bent and lied to themselves for years.
And now comes something that many may be familiar with.
When people start to release this pattern, they often feel better inside.
But it becomes more difficult on the outside.
Relationships are changing.
Tensions arise.
This is generally very often the price you pay when you start to see clearly.
Something that many of the critical people who woke up today had to experience first-hand.
And this conflict doesn't just affect adults, but children too.
Because what happens when parents try to be honest with their children, when they encourage them
to be themselves and question things critically?
Then these children often end up in conflict, says Hans-Joachim Maaz.
A conflict between what they experience at home and what school and society expect of them.
Basically, as parents we only have the chance to raise our children in such a way that they fit into a
dysfunctional, normopathic society or we treat them more humanely, more honestly, more openly.
Then the children have a big problem in achieving success in a normopathic society.
That's a tough finding.
Parents are faced with a dilemma.
If they adapt their children, they have a better chance of keeping up with the system.
If they raise their children openly, honestly and critically, it often becomes more difficult for them.
Harder in a school, harder in society.
A tragic contradiction and one that needs to be discussed.
In particular, how parents should really deal with this dichotomy in order to ultimately achieve a free society.
Whether the solution is really
I for my part, at any rate, dare to doubt that it lies in educating children to be dishonest and to act.
So we see that the root of evil, conformity, subservience and the inability to stand up for
one's rights often lies in childhood and youth.
If you have never learned to stand up for yourself, you will also find it difficult to do so as an adult.
Resolving all this is crucial if we want an enlightened, responsible and autonomous society.
But it's not something that can be done overnight.
What can be changed immediately, however, is our own behavior towards our fellow human beings.
Right now.
And that brings us to another big topic.
All those who have managed to break out of conformity and go through life independently, autonomously
and courageously have a great gift within them.
Clarity, courage, personal responsibility, the ability to question and stand up for yourself.
With this gift, they can also help others, those who can't yet get out of their skin but perhaps want to.
But this requires community, exchange, support and networks.
Because, as the saying goes, we are only strong together. And yes, that's exactly how it
is. Alone, you often come to a standstill.
The Freedom Barometer 2025 shows that many people feel alone.
They would like to get more involved, but they lack community and cohesion.
And the survey also clearly shows that many recognize the following.
The division, deliberately driven by the media and politics, prevents a common impact for common goals.
Political scientist and democracy researcher Professor Ulrike Guérot is also clear about this.
Division is a principle to prevent protest movements from achieving exactly that, namely to bundle
around one person and make the protest capable of winning a majority and capable of governing.
Division is no coincidence.
It is an old principle of domination: divide and rule.
Something that has been used for several millennia.
Today it's left versus right, vaccinated versus unvaccinated, woman versus man.
The division, the opposition, is everywhere.
Leading politicians and their media are sowing discord, stirring things up against each other, working
with contact guilt, dividing the good and the bad.
Most likely precisely so that the people cannot unite, be strong together for higher
goals that would actually unite the many.
Peace, freedom, a just world, a good life for all.
In order to work on this together, a dialog would be needed, but this is being prevented.
Instead, we get caught up in petty trench warfare, says communication expert and psychologist Dr. Roman Braun.</b
According to him, all our energies should be wasted there, in these trench wars.
We are supposed to be distracted while the real machinations that really harm us happen in the background.
When people realize that the opponent is not the other citizen, but the
mechanisms behind it, then something changes.
Then there will be room for real action again.
Division weakens.
This is not only evident today, but also in history.
The historian and philosopher Professor David Engels points out that resistance always needs community.
Without a common "we", protest remains ineffective.
He talks about civil revolutions from times gone by, which will hardly exist in the same form today because ...
Such elements of resistance, of revolution, naturally also require a correspondingly solidary civic community
or mass of the people, or whatever you should call it.
The other problem, however, is that most of these people in Europe no longer recognize themselves, because they
are so fragmented by identity politics and migration that there is no longer any natural solidarity.
When people no longer feel connected, it becomes difficult to stand up for something together.
If everyone is only fighting for themselves, there is no power for change.
And that's exactly what we often experience today.
Values are what holds societies together, what makes them strong and unites them.
Values are also what sustains people, what gives them orientation and what makes them willing to take risks.
Professor Engels says clearly: without higher values that point beyond one's own life and personal happiness, hardly anyone
will stand up for goals such as peace, freedom or justice.
At least as long as he is not directly affected himself.
He currently sees this as a central problem when it comes to protesting against current injustices.
Many people still live too comfortably to leave their comfort zone, especially when their own
well-being is considered the greatest good.
It is precisely then that the willingness to risk it for overarching goals is lacking.
For the Christian Professor Engels, the cause of this deficiency lies above all in a lack of faith.
The problem is that in a society in which there is no longer any real absolute truth and in which one's own life is actually
seen in a very materialistic way, in which people no longer believe in a truth, no longer believe in God, no longer believe
in an afterlife, no longer believe in absolutes, but actually only see their own little local
life as the most important and absolute thing.
In such a situation, we naturally have little reason to actually take to the streets, to sacrifice
something, to sacrifice comfort, perhaps to sacrifice our own lives for a higher purpose.
Of course, an unjust regime can go quite far before people take to the streets.
At the same time, people's solidarity has been broken up by mass migration, identity politics and family disintegration.
Even the family is now fragmented.
This means that there is actually very little left, at least on the part of
Europeans, that is worth fighting for in any way.
As long as your life is reasonably comfortable, you often stay put.
Comfort makes you calm. And that's part of the problem.
Professor Engels puts faith in God at the center when he speaks of higher values.
Human beings can, of course, also be supported by other, overriding values that motivate them and give them strength.</b
It is crucial that we only leave our comfort zone if we want to achieve more in this
world than simply maximizing our own happiness.
Social scientist Günter Roth points to a similar core.
He puts it matter-of-factly: those who only weigh up whether protest is worthwhile rarely become active.
But many would do exactly that.
They decide whether to take action based purely on a cost-benefit analysis.
And it is often more worthwhile to stay still.
And it's also true, as we know from experiments on helping behavior: The more people watch, the more people see a problem
or an accident, the less likely it is that someone will help.</b
The greater the likelihood that everyone is waiting for the others.
Unfortunately, we are oversaturated and we also live in an extremely affluent society.
Many come to terms.
Others are withdrawing.
Others emigrate.
Protest is postponed or abandoned altogether.
Political scientist Professor Ulrike Guérot also sees this as a major problem.
She talks about retreat and flight as the main problem when it comes to the question: Who actually stands up?
I think the bigger problem instead of protest and the ineffectiveness of protest is
almost this tendency towards privatization.
I'm exhausted, I can't take any more, it's no use. We're not getting anywhere.
Yes, many people are discouraged. Many emigrate out of fear of what is to come.</b
Others take their protests abroad because they fear personal consequences at home.
This fear of individual disadvantages generally prevents many people from expressing
themselves publicly or getting involved in any way.
A problem that communication scientist Michael Meyen also addresses.</b
Mayen puts it clearly.
It is labeled. A label is stuck on those who protest or simply question critically.
They are maligned and they are belittled. So that we don't find out the following truth:
Yes exactly, there are many of us.
Much more than we think.
Because those who stand up against injustice, who warn and point out lies, are deliberately kept down.
This makes their number appear smaller, their influence weaker and their value lower than it actually is.
However, this perception corresponds less to reality and more to the result of successful propaganda.
Young people in particular are put off by this.
Those who still have a lot to lose and therefore shy away from siding with the swearers or
right-wing extremists or whatever other labels there are.
Communication scientist Michael Meyen makes it clear: there is potential for protest.</b
It's not small either, but it's unevenly distributed.
We know roughly that this protest potential is a third of the population.
We also know where this protest potential is based or lives.
It tends to be an older clientele, a more rural clientele. Rather not successful entrepreneurs. No one who is still
dependent on receiving anything for free from the state.
When in doubt, young people risk everything.
We know this from the history of the revolution.
It was always young people who brought about change, because they were prepared to risk a lot for a very long life.
This is more difficult with older people.
It's much more difficult in the countryside.
It is particularly difficult when you know that power - where it is determined how reality is to be interpreted -
is now in the university cities, in the big cities, and not where there is more potential for protest.
And on top of that, the reinterpretation of history would discourage young people.
If we look into the past, we see that everything that happened before 1933 is now being labeled as the
prehistory of National Socialism in Germany's dark past.
This makes it difficult to refer to positive things from the centuries, the years before.
The Germans, for example, are constantly being told that such-and-such a revolution is useless.
Every revolution in Germany has failed.
Not true at all, if you take a closer look at things.
If you look at the 1848 revolution in its long-term effects, if you look at the 1918 revolution, the sailors'
uprising; if you look at the '89 revolution in the GDR.
In the narrative, in the narratives about this revolution, however, the important things are suppressed.
If I am not told that the revolutions seem to have failed at first because the revolutionaries were not prepared to resort to
the last resort - namely simply killing their opponents - but instead opted for
negotiations, for normal human interaction.
If I'm not told that, then I don't understand why the revolutionaries of 1848 were either dead, fled
to America or disappeared into insignificance.
And then there's something else.
People are told that they alone are part of a crazy minority.
This works by simply not showing protest.
This prevents others from joining in. And also that a public discourse on the criticized topics arises at all.
For political scientist Ulrike Guérot, it is therefore clear that protest can only be effective if it is visible.
However, this is often not the case.
Especially not when protest displeases the ruling regime.
It is therefore often not because there is too little protest.
The problem lies primarily elsewhere.
In other words, I think we actually have a lot of protest.
The problem is that the protest is going nowhere.
The protest does not seem to be articulated somehow, that legislation is changed, that resignations are made, that trust is
restored. In other words, that somehow measures are being taken where people can then also see: The protest has borne fruit.
That is, my question is not whether we are demonstrating enough.
My question is: where is the protest?
That's my first question. And it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
And the second question is: Which protest is the good protest today?
Because we basically have a landscape of opinion that is fundamentally divided. And in this respect, we
already differentiate between protest as good or bad.
For example, when we have protests like last year - everyone against the right - then that's good
protest. It's shown everywhere, in all the media.
But when, as recently in The Hague, for example, there were really, really big protests against Gaza, against
the genocide in the Gaza Strip, then that is not shown.
We also have the question: Which protest will be shown?
In recent years, we have a situation where protesting as a disturbance of public order
is also prohibited by law, so to speak.
And that is why the protest is becoming increasingly quiet.
The situation in science, the field in which knowledge is created, is similar to that of protest.
Knowledge on the basis of which politics, medicine and ultimately society as a whole make decisions.
But here, too, only certain narratives are permitted.
Different research approaches are often discredited by framings such as right-wing extremist or dubious
and thus rendered untrustworthy from the outset.
But there are also colleagues here who say, no, we no longer need the controversy
requirement for some things, such as climate change, yes.
And I found that quite interesting, because this colleague on climate change then said that he would like to take a factual
analysis first to show that this is not controversial at all.
So now, naive as I am, I thought: Okay, he's going to present some climate data or climate correlations there.
But he didn't at all.
He took a study that shows that in Europe, climate change is mainly questioned by radical
right-wing or far-right parties, so to speak.
And therefore, because they are unconstitutional, they should not be dealt with.
So if something like this is even taken seriously as a scientific statement, then we have a real problem.
Many hold back. Many prefer to say nothing. For a variety of reasons:
This can be caution, or fear, or insecurity, or simply a lack of options.
Ulrike Guérot takes a similar view.
She also says it can't go on like this.
Protest must become louder. And it needs to get bigger.
Because only then would we have a chance of it being seen.
In other words, what we are talking about is that citizens want to express their displeasure and that
this displeasure translates into political change.
And that simply doesn't happen anymore. Neither via online protest nor via analog protest.
Now the question is whether this is still the right form of protest.
The answer is actually no.
And the question would be: Where could one then start the protest?
Of course, other radical forms of protest could work.
I'm going to say general strike.
For example, that we don't want to go to war.
Other forms of protest could of course be to withdraw from things on an individual level, so to speak.
The only thing I can say is that they are very expensive.
You have to be very committed. You have to do a lot of research to say: I won't go there, I
won't pay for it. I'm not going there anymore.
I don't know, I don't buy from Amazon. I only pay with cash now.
So of course you can do all that. And these are very specific personal denial strategies.
But the real question is how long you can keep this up.
In this respect, I think these are the forms of protest: Demonstrations, general
strike, individual protest on a small scale.
How can we get as many people as possible to participate?
Many believe that the right message just needs to be communicated correctly, that the lack of willingness
to participate is primarily a communication problem.
False indication, says Michael Meyen.
It was about something completely different.
This is a question that is almost always the very first thing I am asked as a media researcher.</b
How do I have to shape my message so that people join in?
My first response is always: Forget it.
You don't get people through the messages, they have to go through their own experience.
They have to experience pain themselves, they have to realize that something has to change so that they feel better.
You won't get people to do things that you yourself believe need to be done with communication messages alone.
This is a problem.
It's also a problem because we know that the life cycle requires a certain amount of
time before you can have such experiences.
Until you experience that you are hitting walls, that you can't go any further.
In my research, I have always asked what leads to one person ending up on the protest side and the other
person financing the Antifa or standing with grannies against the right or similar groups.
And it is always an experience that clashes with the narrative that is disseminated via the state media or
other educational channels, universities, schools, adult education centers, museums.
It has to be a personal experience.
That takes time, especially when you're young, when you're still trying to get in.
I wouldn't judge young people at all.
They have to build their own lives first.
They also have to adapt.
They have to try to get into a position.
And then at some point they will find out that things might not work out for them either.
You have to be patient and work less on the design of the messages.
This mandatory vaccination would have been something that would have gone into the body.
And people were ready, regardless of the communication, every Monday - even when the weather wasn't good.
So it literally has to be up to the people, says Michael Meyen.
Much more than a little pinch in the wallet.
It really has to be something that threatens your existence, your life.
Only then are many people ready to leave their comfort zone.
The only problem is that by then it can often be too late.
David Engels is also skeptical when it comes to broad resistance among the population.
The citizens are too lethargic.
Many did not want to play an active role in shaping things, but preferred to let them happen.
In the end, history teaches us, a few will once again decide the fate of many.
In the end, another elite will prevail and drive change forward.
In Professor Engels' view, we need to move away from the idea of fundamental,
grassroots democratic change on a large scale.</b
The historian also cites the coronavirus era as an example.
Other than Michael Meyen, however, as a negative example.
David Engels says that, overall, the system has got away relatively well with its authoritarian approach.
Even if there was resistance, it was limited in relation to the overall population.
Only a few would have actually rebelled openly.
The saying goes: strategy beats mass.
It's not necessarily about reaching more and more people or motivating new ones.
Much more important is something else.
Those who are already prepared to fight for a better future today should unite better.
They need to pursue a clearer strategy and become more capable of acting together.
David Engels thus clearly contradicts Ulrike Guérot's view on one point.
She says: protest movements must become bigger and, above all, more visible.
Michael Meyen points out, however, that motivating people to protest is extremely difficult, especially through messages.
In the end, the decisive factor is your own experience.
Where are the similarities?
What can we build on?
The first point is clear:
Change begins with ourselves, with the individual.
However, many people have never learned to take responsibility.
They have learned to meet expectations, avoid conflicts and adapt.
And yet - there is great potential in our countries, because they exist.
People with higher values.
People who live self-determined lives, who take responsibility and who build bridges.
And here I am with David Engels.
We don't need the masses.
There is no shortage of people.
There is a lack of connection.
Change does not start with the masses.
It starts with the individual.
So the question is: what can the individual do in concrete terms?
Here and now.
This is exactly what the outlook is all about.
[OUTLOOK: WHAT TO DO?
Many people want to do something.
The will is there.
What is often missing is direction.
So the first step is not to ask how we can get more people to get involved, but rather: What can
those who are already willing to do actually do?
I also asked the numerous interviewees in the course of this documentary the same question.</b
And the result was five concrete measures that everyone can implement immediately.
Measure 1:
Build communities and network
Besides patience, my second piece of advice is actually networking.
This is an important point.
The milieus have found each other. The protest milieus have found each other.
There are groups all over the German-speaking world that meet regularly, that work on content, that have come together.
Even if it's only because they are concerned with nutrition, because they are thinking about how they can design their
garden in such a way that they can provide for themselves.
These structures must be kept alive in order to be ready when an opportunity arises to be able to implement
what is central for many, democracy to have a say in the conditions under which one lives.
What we have to do is build from the bottom up.
This is fundamental, that we must not put all our cards on politics, but: We must first rebuild this resilient civic civil
society from below, which can also defend itself against it.
Measure 2: Speak your mind The second concrete measure that everyone can implement immediately is: Speak your mind.
Disseminate information and support independent media, because information is everything.
Information is the key.
You only have to look at what the other side is doing to control information.
Whoever can define today, whoever can determine today what we all perceive as reality, has power, can rule.
So we have to help our fellow human beings to get out of the bubbles that have been produced by the
consciousness industry, which are supported in many ways, if you look at this whole NGO complex.
So people who are paid from taxpayers' money to reinforce messages, to get messages across
to people that they find in the state media.
If you look at it, that's the way to go.
So if you don't take a stand, you have no chance of living in freedom.
I found it very exciting that 'speaking your mind out loud' is an important form of protest. And that's actually true.
If you take communication theory, especially Elisabeth Nolle-Neumann's theory of the spiral of silence, then this
is a means of breaking up processes of standardization.
This theory of the spiral of silence says that humans have a fear of isolation, that this is our
greatest fear, to be excluded from the association.
If the leading media report consistently over a long period of time and I disagree, then at some point, according to
this theory, I will stop speaking out publicly because I have to worry about being excluded from the association.
But out there on the street, I see people standing at stalls who have a different opinion.
I'm listening - I suddenly heard something else from the next table in the pub.
In the train compartment, people were talking quite differently.
There was someone sitting on the beach with a Kontrafunk towel.
So obviously there are opposing positions after all.
This then encourages people who would otherwise not dare to speak their mind.
So I find it very exciting that this has obviously been recognized by the people who took part in this survey.
Measure 3: Define your own and common goals Unfortunately, the third concrete measure is often overlooked.
At the same time, it is crucial.
Even if it is not easy.
It's about defining your own and common goals.
Because if we don't know where we want to go, what we are fighting for and not always
against, then everything ends in chaos.
Without clear goals, there is no strategy, no bundling of forces and no convincing answer
for others who ask why should I participate?
If you can't say what you stand for, you can't take anyone with you.
So there is a threshold from thinking and feeling to acting.
The saying often goes that the journey is the reward, which is almost true.
So we need a goal to get an idea of a path at all.
When I have the goal, I know, ah, this is the way.
And then we need the way to have the courage to set out.
We need an idea of the path.
So I come from the goal to the path and from the path I come to the departure.
And there is no way.
The people see no way.
So they say you're looking for a way out, right?
There we are. So we are searching for the way.
And if the path is not clear, I don't need to set out.
I don't need to get up.
And the question is also whether the goal is clear.
The goals must also be clear.
This is also an important point.
It must be an easily achievable - not easily achievable, but a concrete achievable goal.
Not against hunger or poverty in general, but very specifically.
Measure 4: Self-reflection The fourth concrete measure that each individual can implement
immediately is one that is very unpopular.
To reflect on yourself.
Something that many people don't like to hear.
I know there will be an immediate backlash.
What does all this have to do with me?
If I start by looking at myself, what is my part in the conflict or in the unhappiness that I am experiencing, I actually
have the best, but perhaps only, chance to change something.
So with the realization about my part, about myself, I have a chance to do something
different with myself, to change, to develop myself.
I basically have this power over no one.
Measure 5: Take action Let's now move on to the fifth and final measure, which everyone can implement immediately.
And that is acting, yes, acting.
No matter what - but start with it.
Because you experience self-efficacy by doing it yourself.
Taking action gives us strength and hope because we can see how things get moving.
We see that we can make a difference as individuals. Even if it is often only on a small scale.
But every contribution counts. Even if it's just about being a role model.
Our freedom is much more than putting a cross in some voting booth once every four or five years.
Our freedom lies in the fact that we must live according to our ideals at every moment, with all the consequences.
And that ultimately means
To become a role model.
Becoming a role model for yourself.
Becoming a role model in front of his family.
Being a role model for those around him.
Practicing every action in such a way that you can look yourself in the mirror in the morning and
say, yes, I am living according to my ideals.
Yes, this world I live in is perhaps suboptimal.
It may even be dystopian.
Maybe I'm risking a lot with this.
But I live this freedom in my individual life.
I think that only when a significant number of people actually come to want to become role models
themselves, to live what they want society as a whole to become one day, only then can progress be made.
And that is of course the important step.
We should be who we are and act as we are.
Not because we hope it will have any impact on history or politics in general, but because we believe in it.
And that's why I think that this hand attitude Etiam si omnes ego non, even if everyone else is doing
something, I'm still not going to do it, is the action or is the attitude that we need.
To behave the way we want to, out of conviction.
And even if we know that everything is doomed to fail, even if we know that we are the only ones to do it anyway.
From conviction, because it is our way, because we believe that what is important is not something
that will somehow be written in the history books.
And if we then actually have citizens and, above all, politicians who are role models themselves,
who are personally what they want society to become, then change is actually possible.
And it doesn't need the many millions now either.
Often all it takes is a personality who can really be a genuine role model, where many people can say to themselves,
I want to be like that one day, that change is possible.
Think of the Middle Ages alone.
What have people like Bernard de Clairvaux or St. Benedict not achieved?
By starting to found a monastery under their own steam, they actually brought about the entire spiritual rebirth of
the West and were therefore role models for generations and centuries of people who wanted to do the same.
It doesn't take millions of people to all become like that. It often only takes one person or a
small group to transform an incredible amount.
But even that is apparently very difficult today, as I said.
But we have to get there.
This is a matter for the individual.
Yes, the individual can make a huge difference.
Only by the fact that he is, that he acts, is seen, relates to others.
We ourselves cannot even imagine how much each and every one of us actually achieves.
We don't know how many people we have become role models for in our lives. How few
words have often led to great developments.
Yes, we need other people in our lives. But no, we don't necessarily need them to change the world.
We can start now. Just for us alone.
Then it's David against Goliath.
We know that David will win in the end.
Yes, David wins.
And if you look closely at the story of David and Goliath, we can see some parallels to our time.
David did not try to fight like Goliath.
He put on no armor. He didn't take a sword.
He didn't go into hand-to-hand combat.
David realized he would lose on this field.
So he did something else.
He used what he could, what he was used to. His slingshot, his agility.
And he kept his distance.
Then he seized the moment, one single one.
He targeted the one spot where Goliath was vulnerable.
And that's exactly what made the difference.
David didn't hesitate.
He didn't wait for better conditions.
He acted when the opportunity presented itself.
And perhaps that is precisely the decisive point for us today.
Change does not mean playing by the rules of the powerful.
It means recognizing your own possibilities, your own strengths and having the
courage to use them when the moment is right.
We cannot force the opportunity itself.
But we can be prepared, clearly, awake. So that we don't hesitate when she comes.