Conversation with Uwe Michael Neumann on Germany Looking Forward: Member, CIVIQ High IQ Society (7)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interviewer: Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Numbering: Issue 28.A, Idea: Outliers & Outsiders (23)

Place of Publication: Langley, British Columbia, Canada

Title: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Web Domain: http://www.in-sightjournal.com

Individual Publication Date: November 1, 2021

Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2022

Name of Publisher: In-Sight Publishing

Frequency: Three Times Per Year

Words: 951

ISSN 2369-6885

Abstract

Uwe Michael Neumann developed a love of photography when he got his first camera, a Polaroid, at the age of eight years old. From 1982 to 1988, Neumann diverted from photography, studying law at Cologne State University. But his love of photography, driven by curiosity and the desire to see new things and discover and show their beauty, always called him back. He conducted his first photo tour in Provence, France in 1992. In 1998 he visited New York where he further developed his photographic style; experimenting with verticals and keystone/perspectives. Launching into the field of international cooperation he combined his daily work with his photography in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Finland, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Sweden and Ukraine. In November 2014, Neumann attended the wedding of a daughter of the Sultan of Foumban, Princess Janina, in Foumban, north-west of Cameroon. There he met and became friends with the famous French photographer and producer, Alain Denis who inspired him to become a professional photographer, instructing him in portrait and landscape photography. After his life-changing visit to Cameroon in 2014 Neumann returned there in February 2015 taking photographs of Central Africa’s unique nature and everyday life, which differed greatly from Europe, and even tourist destinations in Africa like Kenya and the Republic of South Africa. During his stay in Central Africa, he lived in Yaoundé, Cameroon and travelled frequently to Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic, Gabon, Chad and Congo Brazzaville, among the poorest countries in the world. He also visited and photographed Algeria, Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo), Benin, Kenya, Egypt, Mauretania and the Republic of South Africa. Neumann focused on often-overlooked treasures in nature, the environment, and beauty in places seemingly dominated by poverty. In October 2017, Neumann returned to Berlin and worked on over 90,000 photos from Africa, launching his first exhibition in May in ‘Animus Kunstgalerie’, Berlin. In October 2018 his exhibition ‘Inner Africa’ in GH 36 gallery in Berlin was focused on Central Africa displaying not only a huge variety of photographs, but also traditional masks from different regions. In 2019 and 2020, other exhibitions at Bülow90, Berlin and Nils Hanke, Berlin followed. In Ghent, Belgium, he was a speaker at the European Mensa Meeting 2019 on Africa and presented some of his works.  He was also invited to present his works in the online exhibition e-mERGING a r t i S T S. and again at GH36 in the exhibition No Time. One of his photos was on the title page of the Norwegian magazine Dyade in 2019. His photos have also been featured several times in the online Magazine Foto Minimal & Art. In December 2021 his works were part of an exhibition at Basel Art Center in Basel, Switzerland. He discusses: Germans, the French, the English, the First World War, Europe, Bismarck, the Central African Republic, and Russia.

Keywords: Bismarck, Central African Republic, English, Europe, First World War, French, Germany, Russia, the future, Uwe Michael Neumann.

Conversation with Uwe Michael Neumann on Germany Looking Forward: Member, CIVIQ High IQ Society (7)

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, if Germans are not looking forward as much as they were in the 60s when you were coming up or were in the wave of that as a generation, it’s a cohort. How are Germans looking at geostrategic and raw material issues now? Because in turn, these are regional geopolitical issues as well.

Uwe Michael Neumann[1],[2]*: I think maybe this arrogant, but I think most people don’t understand and don’t see the point at all, geostrategic. I mean, Germans, let’s say, we lack experience with the outside world in a way. Of course, we are travelling a lot, but I suppose or what I think is that the French and the English know more about the world and they understand it better because they have conquered the world. So, there is a different perspective and we were always confined to our middle European spot. And you can see that sometimes historians talk about, what would have happened if this or that battle in the the World Wars would have gone out another way and would have ended in another way. I say that it’s bullshit because, of course, it ended that way, but even if there was never a point because the geostrategic situation was to Germany’s disadvantage.

But people don’t understand that. They’ve seen all the detail. The problem is that I think, yes, even today, people don’t understand the connection. They have just a simple way of explaining things. That is, everything is getting worse, especially in Africa. There are the big corporations that are exploiting the world and making themselves richer and richer. And we cannot do anything about that and we are a small country. So, that’s basically, I think many people think like that. It’s a little bit simplified. And there is not this, let’s say this connected view of things that belong together.

We’re not a global power. We are not capable of ruling the world for sure. But we are also not the smallest country on Earth, so we have an impact. So, we can do something. But, the problem and I would say the geostrategic thinking is weak. There were only some figures like Bismarck in Germany. He was a genius and understood it. And I think it would be important for people to understand how things work together and let’s say, on migration. We don’t have a real discussion about migration. Just some people say that you have to do it like this. But it’s not discussed. The government decides what to do. And when you criticize that, yes, sometimes you regard it as rightwing, but it’s not always good.

What I want to say is that it would be helpful if more people will understand the situation outside Europe or even outside Germany. Many Germans never have been to Eastern Europe, to countries like Albania or Romania or Montenegro or so. And there are people who work for 400 euros a month or much less. So, Germans don’t understand what’s going on there. They know that people are poorer, but they don’t understand how things work together. And I think it would be helpful if people would understand more about the reality in Europe and also in our neighboring continent, basically Africa, because we are interconnected, of course. So, people are afraid of migration. But on the other side, they think it’s because poor people are coming to us, but it’s not the poor people, if you are close to starvation, you don’t travel 5000 kilometers.

The poor people cannot afford to go to Europe. They stay in Africa. I’ve seen that, I’ve seen camps of people from Central African Republic who are moving to the airport at Bangui in Central African Republic, the capital, and they were fleeing from other parts of the country because there’s a civil war. These people cannot go to Europe. And these are things I think the media does not portray correctly. And it’s always about catastrophe. But what is actually going on there? Also in Africa people in general are living better than ever.  And this leads also to the thing about their geostrategic thinking and so on. Knowledge, it doesn’t exist and people don’t think about raw materials like important things about interest. Of course, the leaders, they will know about that. But I think in the general population, the majority they don’t understand that.

Also like if we look at Russia, people don’t understand that Russia is basically a country with problems because Russia is immensely big, but their population lives mainly on the south western brink of Russia. So, that makes it also difficult to rule the country and so to govern the country. But people just see this big landmass, they don’t see the details and they don’t see the strategic implications behind that. So, my idea and what I like to do is to talk about reality basically, and to understand, to help people understand more of the interconnections between raw materials, population and so on. Developments, yes, it’s maybe a little bit vague, but maybe you get the point, and that is my idea to bring reality forward to explain to people.

Jacobsen: It’s all very interesting. It’s such a wide range of things from nature photography to law to mathematics to geostrategic thinking about raw materials. It’s a very wide range of interests for you.

Neumann: Yes, it is.

Jacobsen: I just want to thank you for your time today. It’s been lovely.

Neumann: Okay, yes, thank you. Actually, I love to talk about these things. Thank you for listening to me. And yes, I really enjoy that and to exchange about that.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Member, CIVIQ High IQ Society.

[2] Individual Publication Date: November 1, 2021: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/neumann-7; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2022: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.

Appendix II: Citation Style Listing

American Medical Association (AMA): Jacobsen S. Conversation with Uwe Michael Neumann on Germany Looking Forward: Member, CIVIQ High IQ Society (7) [Online]. November 2021; 28(A). Available from: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/neumann-7.

American Psychological Association (APA, 6th Edition, 2010): Jacobsen, S.D. (2021, November 1). Conversation with Uwe Michael Neumann on Germany Looking Forward: Member, CIVIQ High IQ Society (7). Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/neumann-7.

Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. Conversation with Uwe Michael Neumann on Germany Looking Forward: Member, CIVIQ High IQ Society (7). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 28.A, November. 2021. <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/neumann-7>.

Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2021. “Conversation with Uwe Michael Neumann on Germany Looking Forward: Member, CIVIQ High IQ Society (7).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 28.A. http://www.in-sightjournal.com/neumann-7.

Chicago/Turabian, Humanities (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott “Conversation with Uwe Michael Neumann on Germany Looking Forward: Member, CIVIQ High IQ Society (7).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 28.A (November 2021). http://www.in-sightjournal.com/neumann-7.

Harvard: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘Conversation with Uwe Michael Neumann on Germany Looking Forward: Member, CIVIQ High IQ Society (7)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 28.A. Available from: <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/neumann-7>.

Harvard, Australian: Jacobsen, S. 2021, ‘Conversation with Uwe Michael Neumann on Germany Looking Forward: Member, CIVIQ High IQ Society (7)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 28.A., http://www.in-sightjournal.com/neumann-7.

Modern Language Association (MLA, 7th Edition, 2009): Scott D. Jacobsen. “Conversation with Uwe Michael Neumann on Germany Looking Forward: Member, CIVIQ High IQ Society (7).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 28.A (2022): November. 2021. Web. <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/neumann-7>.

Vancouver/ICMJE: Jacobsen S. Conversation with Uwe Michael Neumann on Germany Looking Forward: Member, CIVIQ High IQ Society (7) [Internet]. (2021, November 28(A). Available from: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/neumann-7.

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