Country of Poets and Thinkers

“My son shouldn’t dare to come home and tell me some future plan like this.“, said the wife

of the carpenter, paying her groceries. “I always thought that he is gay“ she continued, yelling loud enough for half of the supermarket, including my mother’s best friend, to hear it. He, that was my brother - not gay at all - who recently started a theatre-program in Bochum. 200 km away from our 2000 inhabitant village in East-Westphalia. One of the structurally weakest regions in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).

We have a saying there, which, loosely translated says: What the farmer doesn’t know, he won’t eat. Young people are leaving the countryside is not a new phenomenon. Since the industrial revolution, urbanization is on its march. People went to the cities to work in new working fields. The pace of development painted a wealthy and cosmopolitain image of the city while the countryside, marked through traditional guilds and agriculture, couldn’t keep step. These images maintain until today. Moreover, in times of a demographic change in Germany, soon becoming the world’s second oldest country, they are becoming stronger. The so-called rural exodus in Germany won’t stop in the next 13 years, as a study, conducted by the Bertelsmann-foundation, explains. Cities grow, while villages are bleeding out. Especially the former GDR is affected as in some East-German communes the amount of inhabitants will reduce by up to 26% until 2030. While the average age in Berlin will be 43 at that time, its rural federal neighbor Brandenburg will record an average age of 53 - a gap of 10 years.

But in general, regions all over Germany apart from exurbs of wealthy cities like Frankfurt or Hamburg, are threatened. Because they are structurally weak, so the common sense among politicians, researchers and the German press. Brigitte Mohn, the Bertelsmann-foundation’s chairwoman, duns that it will be hard to provide a functional Infrastructure for decreasing ageing regions. With infrastructure she means transportation, industry, medical facilities and a working internet connection. Even though all of these aspects might be important, they cannot explain the problem of rural exodus by themselves.

It is not that easy

Neither me nor my brother left our village because of a missing bus stop or a bad wifi-connection. We left because there was no theatre, no cinema, no museum - to cut the

matter short: no cultural stimulation.

The commune of Stemwede, where we are from, will lose 12% of its 13.571 inhabitants until 2030, according to the Bertelsmann-study - A lot for a region in NRW, facing an overall value of -2.7%. Where the demographic change no longer serves as an explanation, the statistics for educationally motivated migration displays evidence. For

Stemwede, the migration balance, counting the amount of people between 18 and 24 leaving against the ones coming, is and will stay negative. Young people, me, my brother, many of my friends, are part of these 12%.

But it is not that easy. As the name suggests, education motivated, no, almost forced us to go away as for instance our region is at least a one hour drive away from a city, accommodating a university. The question, why young people leave might be easy to answer. More important for a long run is: Why are they not coming back?

Yes - rural exodus is an ancient problem, but nor are German villages. In times in which modernity reached the rural areas, we have to think a step further about what makes rural regions attractive and where their future has to lay in to stop people going away. Namely, culture and cultural education must be considered as well.

A viscous circle

What makes the situation so difficult to explain and even more difficult to solve is the viscous circle in which many rural areas find themselves. The demographic change causes an aging rural population and politicians naturally act reelection-orientated. Looking at the NRW report on cultural finance 2016, 21€ pp. is foreseen for culture in communes with less than 20.000 inhabitants. 150€ pp is spend in cities with 500.000 or more citizens. While the new elected federal government of NRW decided to cut back the culture budget with 13,5 million € in 2013, 80% of the cultural funding is done by the

communes themselves, anyways.

The money is not advertised for a specific purpose, what Gerhart Baum, NRW’s spokesman of the culture council discerns as a problem. He recognizes that due to the freedom communes have regarding their cultural budgets, this part is often the one which is cut back. In Baum's words, the cultural budget is often used as a stone pit. He requests a political rethinking. And he is right as the current culture

policy is not able to fulfill article 72 of our constitution which requires a “creation of equal living conditions“ - for people all over Germany - no matter where they live. If one perceive culture as one aspect of living conditions, one could claim - in a polemic way- that Germany’s culture policy is against the constitution.

The question arises whether the meaning of culture and cultural education for rural areas is underestimated by politicians or not wanted by a disinterested rural population. Both might be true. Cordula Fink-Schürmann, chairwoman of the artist symposium East-Westphalia, criticizes the discrepancy of parties’ promises and what they’re implementing eventually. “Although the German culture council developed certain requests concerning the cultural program of the different parties, most of these parties promises remain lip services“, Fink-Schürmann says. On the other hand it should also be considered that it is more difficult to convince an elderly and tradition-orientated rural society of the importance of culture and cultural education.

What the farmer doesn’t know, he won’t eat

Fink-Schürmann: “I think many elderly just didn’t have the opportunity to grow up with it. Arts and culture convey besides emotionality and expressiveness also a critical reflection of the traditional which enables progress and restructuring.“

Indeed, one problem that accompanies the general absence of culture in rural areas is a resulting narrow-mindedness and a higher degree of intolerance. Generally, a study, conducted on the base of the last national election, found out that rural areas vote traditionally more conservative - like Stemwede who never had a major apart from the CDU. It’s not easy to be different. 24 years old Leila Brinkmann, now studying free arts in Leipzig, also spend her childhood in Stemwede. As the daughter of two self-employed artists she decided to leave when she was 16. “The absence of cultural offers was definitely a reason for me to leave. I wanted to do something with arts so I decided to move to Bielefeld to accomplish a high school degree in arts.“

Leila’s parents came from a city of the Ruhr area to Stemwede. It was not easy for them to get accepted in the society. “It took at least 10 or 12 years until my family was slightly accepted in our village. First, it was really hard as even our neighbors were skeptical and didn’t have a proper idea of what my parents did for a living. Art was simply not a “real work“. After 12 years my parents were invited for the first time to our neighbor’s birthday. But still - there are no real points of contact and that is also a reason why I never really felt included.“ Leila said. There was one experience, she remembers, that made her feel what it means to be “different“: “Once there were lices going around in our school. 100 Many girls were affected and so was I. A girl from my class - the local shoemaker’s daughter - got them as well and the village started to seek the source. Even though I was one of the last girls who accommodated the little creatures, the shoemaker was convinced that I was the perpetrator. It had to be me as I was the only “exotic“ - we were the wild artist family“.

An involuntary union

It is not deniable that those narrow-minded structures are also existent in bigger cities. However, while in Berlin or Leipzig one can find diversity and dive into its preferable scene, in rural areas one ain’t got that much possibilities. Political scientists Hubertus Buchstein and Gudrun Heidrich found out that generally there is a stronger peer pressure in rural communes. This is also due to a more traditional based value system.

Conformity in Stemwede, for instance, finds not only expression through a conservative and constant voting behaviour, but also in high participation in clubs. 57,63% of Stemwede’s population has a membership in a sports club. That seems quite high if we consider almost every second person in Stemwede to be over 50 years old. There is an easy explanation: The typical German “Schützenvereine“ are taken into account when the commune talks about “sport clubs“. Schützenvereine are men-dominated shooting-clubs, mostly inspired by 18th century military-structures.

They wear uniforms, go marching and devote themselves to keep old traditions alive. Once a year they celebrate the so called

“Schützenfest“ where a King is announced after he shot down a paper-eagle, the German symbol. Stemwede, consisting out of 13 small villages, registers 12 Schützenvereine. They play a major role in the villages’ life.

Besides this customs care, the only museum of Stemwede is about the history of the

village while there are many heritage clubs, supporting the Schützenvereine in keeping traditions alive.

For Leila Brinkmann, raised in a creative and open minded environment, this seemed strange: “I found the traditions of our neighbors or of the village’s community often very odd. Also the duties which went along with those traditions.“ For those, not following those

social conventions, it was hard to be accepted.

Still, Leila misses the space and the calmness on the countryside sometimes. But would that be reason enough to move back? Not yet.

„I doubt that it would be possible to combine with my desired profession as a free artist. Maybe when I am more established as an artist… a big atelier and a huge garden would be nice.“

Her parents didn’t regret to choose Stemwede as their home. They say that they’re also a bit proud and they recognize, after all these years, that people become more interested. They built a little network with other artists from the region and consequently made East-Westphalia a bit more attractive.

Some Hope?

In the meantime, politicians agree more and more on that culture is a location factor, rural areas shouldn’t ignore. Dr. Axel Lehmann, county commissioner and head of cultural advisory council in East-Westphalia sees cultural offers as a piece of life quality. He claims

that there is already a lot going on in East-Westphalia to increase the region’s attractiveness through the implementation of culture. For Stemwede, there is the Life

House, a cultural youth club, organizing concerts and other events and - as its main project- an Open Air Festival once a year. Their aim is to strengthen culture in a rural and structurally weak region. But their work is voluntary as it is a charitable organization.

Lehmann admits: “I, however, would wish, a stronger commitment of the federal government regarding the promotion of culture in rural ares, beyond the metropoles of Rhein and Ruhr.“ Of course, as a politician, he also did the math:

"It is - as it where- economically significant as culture creates more than 1000 jobs. Culture also attracts tourists in our region and is of importance in regard of regional marketing plus it provides orders to craftsmen and service providers". So cutting back culture is a naive miscalculation.

A village that recognized that is Heckenback, a 470 inhabitants village in Lower Saxony. As cut off from big metropoles as Stemwede, Heckenbeck’s population grew by 25% during

the last 25 years. In 2014 it was examined in a master thesis called „life quality in rural areas - Heckenbeck as a success story for a sustainable development of villages“ , written by resource-management student Marit Schröder. Schröder found out that Heckenbeck’s recipe lies in an active and differentiated togetherness in which long-time residents and new, mostly young families are open towards each other. In this atmosphere, new ideas

grow. Heckenbeck tempts new inhabitants with an independent school, a little theatre called „Weltbühne“, a meditation house and ecological agriculture. It reacted in a progress-orientated manner to problems, demographic change and rural exodus bring along.

So what is the solution?

2017 there are no cutbacks in NRW for the first time. If that will mean more money for rural areas remains as doubtful as the question whether those areas will be willing to spend more municipal funds for culture. However, villages need to rethink their function if they want to stop the rural exodus of young people: “Future-proof are only those villages and rural communes who find a new function […], be that touristic destinations or a testing ground for “space“-explorers who accept deliberately structurally weak and periphere locations because they search for alternative living concepts“, the Berlin Institute concludes in its study about the future of villages.

Indeed, there is a rising trend of “space“-explorers who move to the countryside to make 180 use of its space and implement something new. Like Leilas parents already did years ago.

But this trend doesn’t show in numbers yet.

Conclusively, the solution to succeed has to be a mixture, consisting of political rethinking and individual idealism. Fink-Schürmann observed that it requires “motivated, educated people, who have the idealism, phantasy and enthusiasm to convey culture. But one 185 cannot only demand that from volunteering, what essentially already bear the costs. The policy has to provide funds and locations to allow these people a livelihood.“ Besides those basic requirements, eventually, my brother, Leila Brinkmann, me - as we are part of the problem we should also be part of the solution. Willingness to change obsolete patterns and mutual acceptance of young and old could be a first step. Maybe then it won’t take 12

years to be invited by the neighbors, theatre will be something accepted and - at least - to be gay is not a defect anymore.