By Gunnar Schupelius
The City Councilor for Health speaks of “drug users” and considers any other wording to be discriminatory. The zeal with which the political class wants to clean up the language is hard to bear, says Gunnar Schupelius.
On July 21, many German cities and communities commemorated those who died as a result of their drug use. This date has established itself as a day of remembrance since 1998.
The Spandau city councilor for health, Oliver Gellert (Greens), commented on this in a press statement: The district office commemorates the “deceased drug users”.
I didn’t know this formulation and it seemed a bit stilted to me. Deceased drug users? Why doesn’t he speak of “drug deaths”?
Councilor Gellert answered me readily and in great detail: “I use this formulation because I believe it is destigmatizing and not prejudiced and puts the human being in the foreground without evaluating possible addiction”.
Conversely, that would mean that anyone who speaks of “drug addicts” or “drug deaths” discriminates against and prejudices these people.
But I think that’s an assumption. “Drug addicts” and “drug deaths” are common terms that I have never associated with a deprecation. On the contrary, addiction to drugs and the deaths caused by use have always filled me with sympathy, never with arrogance.
But Gellert sticks to it: Anyone who dies from the consumption of drugs is discriminated against from the outset: “In my view, we should therefore name people who use illegal drugs the same way we name people who use alcohol and tobacco products, namely as consumers in case of doubt *consumers or users or users.”
Now he has also “gendered” his language. He used gender-neutral spelling. “Drug users” would therefore be the pinnacle of the correct formulation. But she is unworldly, do we want to talk to each other like that?
No, all representative surveys on the subject show again and again that up to 85 percent of those questioned reject “gender” in the language. They find it annoying and unreasonable and also completely superfluous.
The drug commemoration day goes back to the death of Ingo Marten, who died on July 21, 1994 in Gladbeck due to the consumption of drugs. His mother pushed through a small memorial for drug-related deaths. It says: “We mourn the deceased drug addicts”.
At the time, nobody took offense at this formulation. It was used by those closest to the deceased and least desirous of belittling anyone with its formulation.
But now the city council considers such a formulation to be discriminatory. I can’t keep up with that. The language cleansing has become independent. Everywhere formulations are exposed as problematic and eliminated and replaced by invented words.
The zeal and sense of mission behind it and this constant know-it-all attitude are hard to bear.
Is Gunnar Schupelius right? Call: 030/2591 73153 or email: [email protected]
