No time for symbols
The anti-right wing demonstrations draw hundreds of thousands onto the streets. Unfortunately, their commitment begins and ends with self-assertion. A confrontation is sorely needed.
By Bent-Erik Scholz
By Bent-Erik Scholz
Almost exactly ten years ago, every self-respecting Internet user poured a bucket of ice water over their heads. The "Ice Bucket Challenge" was intended as a campaign to draw attention to the disease ALS and to collect donations. However, celebrities and private individuals alike increasingly turned the attempt at awareness into a spectacle: the disease in question soon emerged should, only as a side note, was donated, if at all, for the sake of completeness.
The activism of advocating for the needs of people with severe degenerative nerve disease became a fashion trend in which the driving factor increasingly became the attempt to outdo one another in the visual power of the actions. A Canadian ice hockey player had glacier water poured over his head from a helicopter. In contrast, an Austrian ski racer who received his ice shower from the bucket of an excavator seemed almost modest.
Tanja Banner wrote in the Frankfurter Rundschau at the time: "Meanwhile, the ice bucket wave continues to slosh around without any major reference being made to this serious background. With the current flood of ice water on social networks, you get the impression that people are just throwing water to get people talking."
Today it seems like the demo selfie is the new bucket over the head. In cities large and small across the nation, people are taking to the streets, peacefully and in unison, opposing right-wing extremism in general, and the AfD in particular. The reason for this is the reporting about the secret meeting, which - allegedly - was the straw that broke the camel's back for many and dissuaded the "silent middle" from continuing to remain silent in order to now set an example.
Here one could already assume a certain lack of information: What the AfD is planning has been known for years. They represent their ideology openly. It has been known for years that their claim to be a bourgeois-conservative party is unbelievable in view of those with whom individual members surround themselves, such as Martin Sellner.
What is the purpose of this protest? What do local people say when you ask them why they take to the streets? They often respond with slogans, in oft-heard phrases, and talk about the "threat to democracy" without being able to specify this further. This is a symptom of many protest movements, but it becomes all the more annoying when it comes to something so important AfD is too big to be fought with diffuse opposition.
The phrase that they want to prevent a "new 1933" is circulating everywhere at the demonstrations. That would be praiseworthy if this formulation were not used in a context of posters with slogans such as "Nazis secretly eat kebabs," "The AfD is brown, poop too" or "Open the windows, it smells like poop, get the Nazi boy out". Children hold up cardboard painted with sayings like "Lilifee instead of AfD" - the demonstration as a family event. It is doubtful that they understand where their parents have taken them and for what purpose. As in lateral thinking demonstrations, they accompany the protesters their children showed up, this was a real scandal in 2021.
Calling like-minded people among like-minded people in the most flattened form, superficially defining a common opponent and presenting yourself as a heroic fighter in comparison to this opponent feels good. However, the message that resonates in these protests unfortunately does not go beyond "We are the good guys." And to save democracy, it will not be enough to constantly "set signals."
This game repeats itself every few years: the "protest against the right," which was originally intended as such, becomes a pop culture moment, thereby gaining popularity, but losing its sincerity and consequently its resonance. This is also the case with "We are more." " 2018: A free concert for 65,000 visitors took place in Chemnitz, with bands like Kraftklub and Die Toten Hosen on stage. There has not been a comparable campaign since then. Would there have been a lack of reasons to once again "send a signal" against the right? In the 2021 federal election, 21.6% of the second votes from Chemnitz went to the AfD, making it the second strongest force in the constituency. As in 2017.
The way the protest develops, it only benefits those who take part and can feast on the affirmation they give themselves. Suddenly government politicians appear among the demonstrators, who had recently announced completely different things. Ricarda Lang photographs herself in the middle of the demonstration in front of the Reichstag, surrounded by her bodyguards. As recently as September 2023, she called for more speed with "repatriations" - and "repatriation" is a synonym for "remigration" is a synonym for "deportation".
The CDU also took part in a joint post by all parties in parliament, apart from the Left and AfD, in which the hashtag #NieWiederIstNow appears. Two Union members also took part in the so-called secret meeting in Potsdam. The Chancellor also positioned himself on the side of the demonstrators. In October, the same Olaf Scholz wanted to "finally deport people on a large scale".
It helps to ask the question what the participants in the demos hope for as an effect of their protest: Do they honestly believe that their actions will dissuade AfD voters from continuing to vote for the party? Do you think it's a realistic line of thought that someone who posted the hashtag #nurnochafd on Twitter yesterday is now thinking: "Oh, look, there are hundreds of thousands of people in Berlin who see me as a stupid Nazi asshole made of shit describe. I think they have a point."
What the current wave of protests is failing at is explaining to AfD voters that the AfD is bad for them too. The fact that the protest does not succeed in this is due to its superficiality, of generally speaking "against the right" without concretely understanding what that means. But you have to know your enemy in order to be able to work successfully against him. It is part of it to understand what AfD politics means in practice, and not just 1933 2.0:
The AfD stands for a policy of isolation that will also have an impact on wallets if tariffs rise and both imports and exports become more expensive, which will cause enormous damage to the economy. She stands for the elimination of subsidies, which she sees as a commitment to "fair competition", but will probably lead to a strengthening of monopolies.
It also represents a reduction in support for farmers, who are facing major problems in view of already rising costs. She advocates reforms in social welfare, supposedly to make work more worthwhile, but primarily to the detriment of those in need of help. The AfD stands for a downright Darwinian politics in which the fittest survives.
Unfortunately, that doesn't fit on a demo poster, and a study of the basic program is needed. It takes work and takes time that you might not want to take when the pressure of commitment is heavy and political FOMO is taking hold. Joining the crowd of like-minded people and bypassing dialogue by generally assuming the other person is stupid and/or evil is quicker, and who cares about the progressive division in society (which makes the AfD not weaker, but rather stronger if you are on the right side of the divide?
What makes you so sure that you are on the right side? Your own arguments? Or the encouragement of people who already have the same opinion? Do you think you know better because you have become more informed? Or because you are entering an environment in which you don't have to expect any counter-talk? Whenever there are demonstrations and movements of this size and - unfortunately - this banality in terms of content, I can't help but think: Look, this is where the filter bubble meets.
Recently, a Berlin journalist called "on a whim" in the Bötzowviertel in Prenzlauer Berg to regularly form chains of lights against the right. For half an hour last Sunday, around seventy people stood on the street with candles and small lights in their hands In the constituency in which the Bötzowviertel is located, the Greens received 36.7% of the second votes in the last federal election, the SPD and the Left were the second and third strongest forces, and the AfD received 4.1%. According to a report in the RBB the participants in the fairy lights described the demo as a "success".
One of the participants in the Potsdam secret meeting was the entrepreneur Hans-Christian Limmer, a co-founder of Backwerk Management GmbH. He is an example of the AfD's ability to connect with the economy, where its crude, national-liberal content definitely finds open ears.
Recently I was at Friedrichstrasse train station, not far from a protest march at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin-Mitte. There were many people in the station building who wanted to join the demonstration, new groups kept coming down the escalators from the S-Bahn track and heading towards Unter den Linden. At the Kindertransport monument I saw two people with cardboard signs under their arms who wanted to treat themselves to a refreshment shortly before they were about to chant "All of Berlin hates the AfD." Both of them were holding pastry paper cups in their hands.
02/07/24
*Bent-Erik Scholz works as a freelancer for RBB
The activism of advocating for the needs of people with severe degenerative nerve disease became a fashion trend in which the driving factor increasingly became the attempt to outdo one another in the visual power of the actions. A Canadian ice hockey player had glacier water poured over his head from a helicopter. In contrast, an Austrian ski racer who received his ice shower from the bucket of an excavator seemed almost modest.
Tanja Banner wrote in the Frankfurter Rundschau at the time: "Meanwhile, the ice bucket wave continues to slosh around without any major reference being made to this serious background. With the current flood of ice water on social networks, you get the impression that people are just throwing water to get people talking."
Today it seems like the demo selfie is the new bucket over the head. In cities large and small across the nation, people are taking to the streets, peacefully and in unison, opposing right-wing extremism in general, and the AfD in particular. The reason for this is the reporting about the secret meeting, which - allegedly - was the straw that broke the camel's back for many and dissuaded the "silent middle" from continuing to remain silent in order to now set an example.
Here one could already assume a certain lack of information: What the AfD is planning has been known for years. They represent their ideology openly. It has been known for years that their claim to be a bourgeois-conservative party is unbelievable in view of those with whom individual members surround themselves, such as Martin Sellner.
What is the purpose of this protest? What do local people say when you ask them why they take to the streets? They often respond with slogans, in oft-heard phrases, and talk about the "threat to democracy" without being able to specify this further. This is a symptom of many protest movements, but it becomes all the more annoying when it comes to something so important AfD is too big to be fought with diffuse opposition.
The phrase that they want to prevent a "new 1933" is circulating everywhere at the demonstrations. That would be praiseworthy if this formulation were not used in a context of posters with slogans such as "Nazis secretly eat kebabs," "The AfD is brown, poop too" or "Open the windows, it smells like poop, get the Nazi boy out". Children hold up cardboard painted with sayings like "Lilifee instead of AfD" - the demonstration as a family event. It is doubtful that they understand where their parents have taken them and for what purpose. As in lateral thinking demonstrations, they accompany the protesters their children showed up, this was a real scandal in 2021.
Calling like-minded people among like-minded people in the most flattened form, superficially defining a common opponent and presenting yourself as a heroic fighter in comparison to this opponent feels good. However, the message that resonates in these protests unfortunately does not go beyond "We are the good guys." And to save democracy, it will not be enough to constantly "set signals."
This game repeats itself every few years: the "protest against the right," which was originally intended as such, becomes a pop culture moment, thereby gaining popularity, but losing its sincerity and consequently its resonance. This is also the case with "We are more." " 2018: A free concert for 65,000 visitors took place in Chemnitz, with bands like Kraftklub and Die Toten Hosen on stage. There has not been a comparable campaign since then. Would there have been a lack of reasons to once again "send a signal" against the right? In the 2021 federal election, 21.6% of the second votes from Chemnitz went to the AfD, making it the second strongest force in the constituency. As in 2017.
The way the protest develops, it only benefits those who take part and can feast on the affirmation they give themselves. Suddenly government politicians appear among the demonstrators, who had recently announced completely different things. Ricarda Lang photographs herself in the middle of the demonstration in front of the Reichstag, surrounded by her bodyguards. As recently as September 2023, she called for more speed with "repatriations" - and "repatriation" is a synonym for "remigration" is a synonym for "deportation".
The CDU also took part in a joint post by all parties in parliament, apart from the Left and AfD, in which the hashtag #NieWiederIstNow appears. Two Union members also took part in the so-called secret meeting in Potsdam. The Chancellor also positioned himself on the side of the demonstrators. In October, the same Olaf Scholz wanted to "finally deport people on a large scale".
It helps to ask the question what the participants in the demos hope for as an effect of their protest: Do they honestly believe that their actions will dissuade AfD voters from continuing to vote for the party? Do you think it's a realistic line of thought that someone who posted the hashtag #nurnochafd on Twitter yesterday is now thinking: "Oh, look, there are hundreds of thousands of people in Berlin who see me as a stupid Nazi asshole made of shit describe. I think they have a point."
What the current wave of protests is failing at is explaining to AfD voters that the AfD is bad for them too. The fact that the protest does not succeed in this is due to its superficiality, of generally speaking "against the right" without concretely understanding what that means. But you have to know your enemy in order to be able to work successfully against him. It is part of it to understand what AfD politics means in practice, and not just 1933 2.0:
The AfD stands for a policy of isolation that will also have an impact on wallets if tariffs rise and both imports and exports become more expensive, which will cause enormous damage to the economy. She stands for the elimination of subsidies, which she sees as a commitment to "fair competition", but will probably lead to a strengthening of monopolies.
It also represents a reduction in support for farmers, who are facing major problems in view of already rising costs. She advocates reforms in social welfare, supposedly to make work more worthwhile, but primarily to the detriment of those in need of help. The AfD stands for a downright Darwinian politics in which the fittest survives.
Unfortunately, that doesn't fit on a demo poster, and a study of the basic program is needed. It takes work and takes time that you might not want to take when the pressure of commitment is heavy and political FOMO is taking hold. Joining the crowd of like-minded people and bypassing dialogue by generally assuming the other person is stupid and/or evil is quicker, and who cares about the progressive division in society (which makes the AfD not weaker, but rather stronger if you are on the right side of the divide?
What makes you so sure that you are on the right side? Your own arguments? Or the encouragement of people who already have the same opinion? Do you think you know better because you have become more informed? Or because you are entering an environment in which you don't have to expect any counter-talk? Whenever there are demonstrations and movements of this size and - unfortunately - this banality in terms of content, I can't help but think: Look, this is where the filter bubble meets.
Recently, a Berlin journalist called "on a whim" in the Bötzowviertel in Prenzlauer Berg to regularly form chains of lights against the right. For half an hour last Sunday, around seventy people stood on the street with candles and small lights in their hands In the constituency in which the Bötzowviertel is located, the Greens received 36.7% of the second votes in the last federal election, the SPD and the Left were the second and third strongest forces, and the AfD received 4.1%. According to a report in the RBB the participants in the fairy lights described the demo as a "success".
One of the participants in the Potsdam secret meeting was the entrepreneur Hans-Christian Limmer, a co-founder of Backwerk Management GmbH. He is an example of the AfD's ability to connect with the economy, where its crude, national-liberal content definitely finds open ears.
Recently I was at Friedrichstrasse train station, not far from a protest march at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin-Mitte. There were many people in the station building who wanted to join the demonstration, new groups kept coming down the escalators from the S-Bahn track and heading towards Unter den Linden. At the Kindertransport monument I saw two people with cardboard signs under their arms who wanted to treat themselves to a refreshment shortly before they were about to chant "All of Berlin hates the AfD." Both of them were holding pastry paper cups in their hands.
02/07/24
*Bent-Erik Scholz works as a freelancer for RBB
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