The Police of Munich's biggest challenge: LACK OF CRIMINALS

While other cities in Europe have too many criminals and a lack of police, the opposite seems to be the problem in Munich! Every day I see at least three police cars – they are everywhere – but what do they do in such a peaceful and quiet city as Munich? And why has Solveigs picture of the friendly and guarding policeman so drastically changed that she constantly think they're out to punish her?

Well, if you don't have enough criminals, lets make some new ones! And how do you make new law breakers? Well, you just make laws that are so easy to break that everyone can manage to do it – especially foreigners that have newer heard of these rules!

What does the overcrowded police corps in Munich really do?

1. Hiding behind bushes to see if you cycle on red light!
Even if the streets are so empty and quiet that you can hear your own breath – don't you ever think of cycling across the street when there's no green man!! The police can be hiding everywhere. The proof is the bill some of my friends got a month ago: € 120 (about 1000 NOK)!!! That's three times more than you have to pay if you happen to be on the Underground without a ticket (€ 40). And guess what: If you're taken too many times while breaking the German bicycle law, you can actually lose your drivers (yes: DRIVERS!!) license...

2. Dress themselves in normal clothes, pretending to be important undercover agents – when they're really just out to see if you might cycle without lights on your bike!
Yesterday something went wrong with my bicycle dynamo as I was on my way to a festival. On my way back again, I noticed some student like persons hanging around just 10 meters away from me and the festival area. I'd just put my half broken dynamo towards my back wheel and started cycling, when I saw one of the men putting out a police sign to stop me.
«Scheiße!», I said to myself, because it's just so typical that the police are on you exactly the day your lights are not working properly. He said to me: «You don't have lights on your bike».
«Yes, I do,» I answered smiling and convincing, pointing towards my back light source. Then he asked: «But why isn't it lighting, then?»
«Well, that's because it's a dynamo light, and those normally don't light when the bike stands still!!»
Then he asked me to show that the light was working, so I lifted up my back wheel and made the pedals turn it around – and there was light!
«OK, but you don't have a front light,» he continued. «Eh, yes I do-o!» I answered in an assertive tone and pointed towards that one as well.
«But I didn't see it as you cycled!»
I answered: «Well, It's supposed to work, because it's also connected to the dynamo!». (Now I started to get a bit irritated, because I know that a dynamo light normally doesn't shine so bright after just a few meters with slow cycling...)

What a surprise that the police man wasn't totally convinced yet, after my «it's also connected to the dynamo»-sentence! I continued to state that, yes, I actually do have a front light, and if he didn't see it, maybe he would help me get the dynamo work better (?), and by the way this is a rented bike, so the lights really should work, I hope... And I pointed towards the «Rent a bike»-sign and tried to look as helpless as I could!
(And of course I wrongly said «VERmietet» (rented out) instead of «gemietet» (rented) – not really on purpose, but then he got the point that I was just a poor, innocent foreigner that didn't deserved to be punish for a bad working dynamo which didn't even belong to me!

Finally he said in a very polite way: «All right, alles in Ordnung, schönen Abend noch,» and he let me go!
The rest of my trip home the lights went off by every crossing, so maybe the policeman really had a point when he claimed that I actually didn't have lights at that time...?

3. Standing in the «only bikes and pedestrians are allowed»-streets, telling the bicycles to slow down
That happened just a while ago: I was cycling home today, and there they were, shouting to us (who were already cycling quite slow) that we needed to slow down. Because we were only allowed to cycle 5 km/h there. HOW ON EARTH would I know how fast or slow 5 km/h is??? Haven't they got any better to do on a Saturday evening! Go and catch some real criminals, bitte!! And if you can not find them here, I'm sure the police in Norway would welcome you, because we actually NEED more police men!

(And did I mention that speed limits for bikes also can appear down hills here?) (And another important thing: You aren't allowed to cycle in the normal walking streets – and also not on the pavements (!!!) – so be aware – GROßBRUDER (Big Brother) is watching you – and every fault makes you pay!)

4. Watching the zebra crossings to see if you WALK on red man!
If you though you were safer of without a bike – sorry mate, you aren't allowed to cross the empty street even if you're walking! That also costs money...

5. And I could go on like this forever! Today I was taking a picture of a traditional Bavarian costume (Dirndl und Lederhosn) through a display in a closed shop, when a girl just about my age shouted to me that I really shouldn't do it, because the laws here forbid it! Well, she sounded very serious, so I quickly looked around (to see if the police had seen me), went away from the shop window and put my camera back in my handbag... Do I sound paranoid or not?

And you know what the police is doing when they're not after the cyclists or the pedestrians? Yes, they're writing PARKING FINES!!

So, now you might understand why those police cars circling around my house every day doesn't make me too happy! They're actually making me criminal!!


Sehr geehrter Polizei of Munich:
If you just happened to search the Internet for illegal articles about the police in Munich, and for some reason coincidentally found this little harmless, unimportant blog right now: Please do also concern my right to freedom of speech, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
Peace'n'love
(I guess I don't need to sign with my name - you know who I am and where I live anyway)

Solveig reads «The God Delusion»: 1. A deeply religious non-believer

In this chapter Dawkins makes two things clear:
The first point is that Einstein was not a Christian. Although he sometimes sounded very religious in his matter of speaking, especially when he wrote about the wonders of nature, he didn't believe in a personal God. “What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism. (...) I am a deeply religious nonbeliever,” he wrote. Dawkins defines this kind of “religion” an Einsteinian religion and clearly distinguishes it from the Christian belief in a supernatural God. Although Einstein uses the word “God” a lot, it's more in a metaphoric way as a poetic synonym for the laws of the universe.

Then we come to the following point: It's not any kind of God-belief that Dawkins wants to criticize in this book. “I am calling only supernatural gods delusional”, he writes. It's not the Einsteinian “God” he's after, but the God of the Old Testament (Yahweh, that can be found in both Judaism, Christianity and Islam) that is the subject of this book.

Good to know, because that's actually the God I claim to exist, and I really don't believe in non-supernatural, man-made gods, nor do I believe in God as a non-personal spiritual force hovering around somewhere. I believe in an intelligence, in a creative God with identity, and I'm very aware of that this might sound very human-like to you readers (you probably picture yourself an old man with long, white beard sitting on his throne in his sky palace with a judging scepter in his hand pointing towards us). But this intelligent, creative, personal God that I believe in, is also a God beyond our imagination, but unfortunately I can only describe him by human categories, because I myself am a human and not a god! So please don't mistake me for believing in this God-picture you probably have seen on a painting somewhere (if God has a human shape, I would guess he looks more like the God character in the Jim Carrey-movie “Bruce Almighty”!!).

One thing that irritates Dawkins, is that religion seems to be protected by too much respect, so that it's difficult to have an open debate on existential questions and express opinions about who created the universe on the same level as we debate politics and have meanings about wether Macintosh is better than PC (also a very touchy debate, for that sake!).

Well, first, I don't recognize myself and my surroundings in Dawkins description of this respect for holy things, probably because I come from a more secularized land than him? But anyway, I would say that we probably shouldn't debate existential questions in quite the same way as we debate politics (because I'm really not very found of populistic debate techniques and sarcastic tones in public discussions – and somehow this book has a slightly touch of that as well). But I totally agree with Dawkins that Christianity should be challenged and spoken about in a rational way – because although this God of mine is supernatural and really difficult to put into a box, He's also created us with a brain and the ability of thinking – and also the ability of finding out wether he exists or not and to interact with him and concretely be able to perceive him in our lives. So as much as I am willing to discuss the fact that I have a life in Germany parallel to the one back home in Norway (although you can not see it and really just have to take my word on it) – then I am also willing to discuss the invisible reality, because that's not a fact that I can separate from my normal life. It's actually easier to separate my life in Norway with the one in Germany, because those are going on in two different places and not even at the same time, but my life with God happens right now and has certainly a lot to do with my real life here and now!

So, that was chapter one – and the next chapter (with more exclusive comments from Fräulein Claussen) is just around the corner!