Human Challenges : Weblog

Friday Jun 01, 2007

Heiligendamm

Concerning global politics interesting things are going on here in the North of Germany. Just a few days ago there was the meeting of ASEAN countries with the EU (ASEM: Asia Europe Meeting) in Hamburg. Main topic was the climate change. According to the German weekly Spiegel the meeting was a failure in these regards. Unfortunately there has been a clash with the police from anti-globalization protesters.

Since weeks and even months the German government and the press treat the topic of potential violent demonstrations in the context of the Group of 8 (G8) annual summit in Heiligendamm taking place from June 6.-8. At a G7 summit in Genoa/Italy 2001 the demonstrations of 200.000 people turned into heavy violence that left one dead shot by police. A main international demonstration has been organized for tomorrow in Rostock, biggest City nearby (apparently there are demonstrations organized in other countries as well, see here for US).

Heiligendamm is located on the east German part of the Baltic Sea coast and is a particularly nice place with a long history. It's buildings are dating back to the 18. century. All along the coast east of Luebeck there are old resorts that have unintentionally been protected by communism from bad urban planning and from ugly buildings of the post war era which disturb the picture on the west Baltic coast. With Boltenhagen, Kuehlungsborn, Heiligendamm and several resorts on the islands of Ruegen (e.g. Binz) and Usedom close to the polish border it is from my perspective one of the most authentic, natural and beautiful coasts we have in Europe.

I have been in Heringsdorf on the island of Usedom for the past long week-end only 3,5 hours drive from Hamburg. It is part of the three “Kaiserbäder” (The Emperor's Spas) on a more than 40km long fine sand beach. Ideal for nice long beach walks and never thought of that before, ideal for nice long cocktail lounge nights, as I discovered the Coco Lounge being one of the finest cocktail bars I have ever visited, drinks, music and interior - just perfect! Claus Ermlich will give a special warm welcome to all international guests!

So lets hope for peaceful events during the next days. Generally those demonstrations can be a good thing as they make people aware that the industrialized countries are not alone on this earth and the world's problems are not only resolved by them. It may augment the pressure on them to come up with concrete results. On the other hand the globalization has helped many countries to raise their populations standard of living. It looks like the potential demonstrators have many different mind-sets, from extreme opponents to any globalization to those who say we need to manage globalization, influence it, not just let it go. That's something I would go with too!