The German government has ordered every resident of the country to attend a daily one-hour session with a newly arrived migrant, who will describe life in Germany in glowing terms until the residents admit their own image of the country has been badly distorted.
The programme, run by a newly created Federal Office for Perspective Correction in Berlin, assigns each citizen a partner from among recent arrivals. Sessions are held in train stations, supermarkets and town halls, and attendance is recorded on a ruled ledger kept at each location. Officials said the first week saw 3,800 hours of cafeteria conversation across the Ruhr alone, with partners routinely describing the country as a paradise and citizens routinely interrupting to explain why it is not.
Officials at the office said the scheme was necessary after a survey found that German residents rated their national mood as miserable, describing everything as being cut, broken and divided. A spokesperson for the office, Dr Ilse Brandtner, said: »We are not disputing that the trains are late. We are disputing that the trains are the whole country.«
Municipalities have been instructed to convert two tram depots in Leipzig into reception lounges, where partners are served coffee while citizens are required to sit quietly and listen. Local councillors reported that waiting lists for the lounges now extend into the following spring, and that a number of residents have begun volunteering to be assigned to people they dislike.
The office has already announced that from January, anyone who complains about the country in public will be required to spend a second hour with their partner, this time in silence, until they can name three things that work.