Kelly, “areApphemed hoparelteaseedOOMOGQGnBtA, those who are disillusioned, no, disgusted, with the way the government has been running this country.” A decade ago, Kel- ly’s denunciation of West German de- mocracy might have. been dismissed as mere ideological ranting. But the Greens seem to be only the most politically visible and potent part of a vast counterculture movement in West Germany that has reached extraordinary proportions. West Germans refer to the broader phenomenon as the “alternative move- ment.” Its numbers are estimated at be- tween 4 million and 5 million, much larg- er than the 1.5 million to 2 million adherents of the Green Party itself. Thriv- ing all over the country, the alternatives include squatters and punkers, doctors and lawyers, engineers and social work- ers, who have organized hundreds of com- munes in which they are attempting to define, as one of them puts it, “a culture alongside the traditional, confining Ger- man society.” Joseph Huber, 34, a lectur- er at Berlin’s Free University and a phi- losopher of the alternative scene, sees this counterculture wave as a “new class” in West German society. The movement’s members are mostly under 35, although an older fringe of over- 50s is also active. Most of-them vigorously reject the traditional German work ethic, sense of order, loyalty to family and secu- rity in favor of nebulous concepts of self- determination and grass-roots activism. They oppose nuclear weapons and nucle- ar energy. The alternatives are passionate about a clean and safe environment, about women’s rights as well as those of oppressed minorities like immigrant workers and homosexuals. Says Carl Amery, 60, Bavarian writer, environmen- talist and Green Party member: “The al- ternative movement is trying to recapture the German warmth that-was killed in the . war years.” . There are those for: whom the coun- terculture movement is more frightening than laughable. They see in it a renais- sance of an ancient streak of German ro- manticism, a form of escapism that too of- ten has preceded political follies. For most Greens reflect old but recurring fears of the relentless advance of industrialism and urbanism that threaten the individual with a society of scientific management and assembly lines. With ro- mantic and dangerously simplis- tic longing, the alternatives look to the lost past, to what they be- lieve was a simpler, less corrupt world of noble motives and-a pristine environment. There is a strong nationalis- tic edge to the alternative movement. The counterculture’s music is purely German, both rock tunes and the protest songs of peace groups. Decrying the US. is a constant theme. Arthur Burns, the U.S. Ambassador to Bonn, is fond of complaining to: West Germans that by neglecting to teach the history of the past 40 years—West. Ger- man schoolbooks have tended to skip lightly over the Hitler and immediate postwar periods—the country has pro- duced a generation with little or no his- torical perspective. In the eyes of West German youth who cannot remember the cold war or the Berlin airlift or the Kore- an War, there is really not much to distin- guish between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Asa result, the vital Atlantic Alli- ance is sometimes questioned or even na- ively perceived as a fading and largely un- necessary relic. West German intellectuals of the Marxist-oriented left are fascinated, puz- zled but not attracted by the Greens. Says Werner Holzer, editor of the left-leaning Frankfurter Rundschau: “The intellectual left has remained aloof for the most part because of the Greens’ unruly way of thinking.” In their inarticulate way, the Greens, indeed, appear to be rejecting all the political ideologies of the past, includ- ing Marxism. Nonetheless, says Professor Richard Léwenthal of the Free Universi- ty of Berlin, the Greens’ thinking has been influenced by the Marxist teachers who are now established in West German uni- versities. This influence has presumably helped turn the Greens against capital- A palnted protester Activists wearing mutant masks to represent the face of the world after nuclear war ~— ma ALHBHOd WHYS 2000100 240026:-Srhe left- tists have not taught them how 2 parliamentary democracy works =or the importance of the legal system. They have not transmit- ted any of the utopian Marxist hope. The Old Left is responsi- ble for the gaps in the Greens’ . education.” : The rise of the Greens, be- ginning in 1979, came just as disillusionment with West Ger- many’s three other established political parties was spreading. Tn the 1980 national elections, the Greens polled only 1.5% of the vote. Later the same year, in the state election in Baden- Wirttemberg, they won 5.3% and en- tered the state parliament. In quick succession came similar electoral break- throughs in West Berlin, Lower Saxony, Hamburg and Hesse. In several of the state elections, the Greens ousted the Free Democrats as the third parliamenta- ry party. However inchoate and unrealistic their ultimate aims, the Greens have al- ready left marks on the country. That In- terior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann talks about saving dying German forests, that Social Democratic Leader Vogel now hedges on the missile issue, that the Free Democratic Party now champions the rights of foreign workers—ail can be at- tributed to the political stimulus of the Greens. More than its Catholic counter- part, the Protestant Church has been moved to respond to the concerns of West German youths.. The large-circulation press has been unable to ignore the pres- sures of the counterculture movement. A regular diet of environmental coverage is now a feature of such major magazines as Stern and Der Spiegel. Both publications have come out strongly against the de- ployment of new NATO missiles, a position closer to that of the Greens than of the So- cial Democrats. By last autumn, according to opinion polls, the Greens enjoyed support from as much as 9% of the electorate. In recent months, though, they have fallen back. One reason is that the Social Democrats, under Vogel, have moved just far enough to the left on the NATO missile and eco- nomic issues to pick up some Greens sup- porters. Another reason is that, ironically enough, the Greens’ moral credibility comes at the cost of their political credi- bility. Says a Munich tenants’ rights orga- nizer: “The Greens have trouble enough trying to find out what their supporters want, let alone having to deal with ques- tions like how they will vote on unem- ployment programs.” If the Greens fail to win 5% of the vote, their future as a politi- cal force will depend on whether Vogel’s Social Democrats maintain their leftward drift. In short, the Greens will disturb the West German political scene as long as there is room on the left for a new genera- tion of skeptical citizens with a dim sense of the past and a hazy vision of the future. —By Frederick Painten. Reported by Roland Flamini and Gary Lee/Bonn 31