Hamburg

Do you have cows on your roads? Well, not really. But sometimes you do see the odd bovine ambling contentedly through dense traffic. But yes, we do have dogs on the roads, and some pigs… and the odd cat or even a tribe of monkeys.

Do they drive “Faws” (Volkswagen) in India? Yes, they do. But it appears that the VWs in India are the older versions. We also have Mercedes and BMWs, and a whole range of other cars. Indians have even begun making their own cars. Do you have autobahns? Yes, our new national highways are sometimes even wider. (And there are no speed guns to slow down drivers — yet.) Do they play football in India? Yes, yes, we do… we are even ranked 120-something in the world! But cricket is our big sport; it is our game, our occupation, our obsession, a religion etc. (And where is Germany ranked in cricket, huh!) Do you have brides burnt in your family? No, and it is not a general phenomenon, though it is a serious problem that the government and civil society are dealing with. Have you been to the port, and the Kiez? This is the first question one is asked, after the formal introduction. The answer is yes and yes, on day one and several times since.

Somehow, one has never been asked about the very popular theatres and museums. Hamburgers are justifiably proud of their port, the second largest in Europe, around which the city has grown; the boat rides down the Elbe river offers great views of the city and the waterways. Kiez, meaning neighbourhood, refers to the Reeperbahn; once a red light district, today it’s not just an adult entertainment zone but a cultural hotspot with a great nightlife.

Along Reeperbahn is the club where the Beatles played before they became famous; the “sinful mile” also has the Herbertstrasse, where women and children under 18 are not allowed. Guess why? Are you liking the local food? Yes, hugely. Some German dishes taste quite Indian… are we long-lost cousins? Of the variety of cheeses, I didn’t like just one; the rest I’d rate from okay to very nice to acquired taste. The many breads offer variety to “cold meals”, of which Germans seem to consume a lot. Their Kartoffel (potato) is something to die for, of course. For a visitor from India, there are dozens of Indian restaurants, and then there is the cuisine of the world, from Mexican and Spanish to Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese, and, of course, Italian, Turkish, Lebanese and Arab. Vegetarian, non-vegetarian or vegan, there are choices in Hamburg. Pick your favourite one. Bon appetit!

Germany is having its own quiet and, as of now, small “Internet revolution”. Nothing like the regime-changing movements in the Arab world that rode on Facebook, Twitter, or the on-now-off-now campaign of Anna Hazare and Co. The Pirate Party, or Piratenpartei, has won about 160 city or municipal council seats nationwide and, more importantly, over the past year, 15 out of 141 seats in the Berlin State Assembly, and four out of 51 in Saarland, to the southwest on the border with France, where they beat the Greens to fifth place. Germany follows the system of proportional representation; five per cent is the cut-off to get a seat. For its 15 seats in Berlin, the PP won 8.9 per cent of the vote, and in Saarland, 7.4 per cent.

The Pirates, who have have had their biggest successes in Germany, first came to notice with a two per cent vote in the German national election of 2009, the biggest of the also-rans, and 0.9 per cent in the European Parliament election. The Pirate Party, inspired by Sweden’s ThePirateBay, which has been described by the Los Angeles Times as “one of the world’s largest facilitators of illegal downloading” and “the most visible member of a burgeoning international anti-copyright or pro-piracy movement”, emerged as a campaign against copyright laws which, in their view, prevented the “sharing of culture and music”, and to push for civil rights on the Internet and transparency in governance.

Typical of the Pirates are Michael Büker, 25, who juggles his time between his girlfriend, politicking, studying physics at the Hamburg University and learning the Serbian-Croat language, and Andreas Gerhod, 50, former photographer who has tried his hand at many things. Both represent the Pirates in the Hamburg-Mitte council, and are learning politics firsthand. In line with their charter, the Pirates have set up a website on which they uploaded previously inaccessible documents of the council so that people can have their say in policymaking. The Pirate Party is often criticised for not having a stand on national issues, but, Büker says, the Pirates are fixing that with an open discussion — you guessed it — on the Internet. The Internet is where they run their campaigns, but realpolitik requires that they get out in the real world as well.

Hamburg will witness an interesting referendum later in September, when people will vote on a new law to promote transparency in governance. The draft law mandates setting up a central information registry to list all official publications (so that ruling dispensations cannot “hide” them under dense layers on the Internet), and a duty to publish all documents. It was drafted by Transparency International together with Chaos Computer Club, a German hacker group, and Mehr Demokratie (More Democracy) by using a Wiki page so people could participate in drafting the law.

The draft law will need 60,000 signatures to be taken up for a referendum. The CCC advocates transparency in governance, freedom of information, human right to communication and universal access to computers. In many high-profile cases, it has sold data from the US government to the erstwhile KGB, published the fingerprints of a German minister that could be used by anyone to protest e-security measures and diverted money to its account to prove that the data system was unsafe (the money was returned the next day).