The vigilance of many young people against right-wing extremists is fundamentally encouraging. “Fend off the beginnings!” is an important lesson from German history. Don’t look away, but demonstrate: That’s praiseworthy.
But one has to ask whether this applies to all forms of protest against the founding of a new AfD youth organization in Giessen. 36 injured people are not evidence of a completely peaceful approach. Stones, bottles and pyrotechnics flew from the ranks of the demonstrators.
In Giessen there were cries of “Nazis out!” against representatives of the conservative media. How does this affect people who don’t read the “taz” but rather the “Bild“, “Welt” or “FAZ“?
Christoph von Marschall, diplomatic correspondent for the editor-in-chief.
It is rather unlikely that the action alliance will win the dispute over the interpretation of the pictures from the weekend. Who do the organizers convince – beyond their circle of sympathizers – by claiming that the violence came from the police?
Germany on the way to dictatorship? Not at all!
Some demonstrators who reject the AfD for good reasons are apparently indulging in self-absolution: the Federal Republic is on the way to a new Nazi dictatorship and therefore resistance is becoming a duty.
Not at all! Today’s Germany is a democratic constitutional state. However, this constitutional state is in a dilemma: As long as a party is not banned for being unconstitutional, its supporters have the basic right to freedom of assembly. And they have the right to protection from the police. Even if there are clear indications that this party is at least partially anti-constitutional.
It would be desirable that opponents of the AfD would not only look at the images of protests like those in Giessen through the lens of like-minded people. But ask how they affect citizens who are not part of their echo chamber on social media. For example, CDU voters in the Swabian Alb, farmers in Lower Saxony, the propertied middle class in Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia.
© IMAGO/5VISION.NEWS/IMAGO/5VISION.NEWS
Who benefits if leftists use the Nazi club in an inflationary way? In Giessen there were cries of “Nazis out!” against representatives of the conservative media. How does this affect people who don’t read the “taz”, but rather the “Bild”, “Welt” or FAZ?
You can then get the idea that the images from Gießen do not harm the AfD in the eyes of non-left voters, but rather delegitimize the protesters. And the AfD can also use it in its PR narrative that it is the victim – the victim of a radical left-wing counter-movement and a social atmosphere in which violence is not taken quite as seriously and is even tolerated as long as it comes from the left and not the right.
© IMAGO/ZUMA Press Wire/IMAGO/Matias Basualdo
If you look around the world, empirical evidence provides clues as to who wins these types of culture wars and disputes over interpretation: if in doubt, not the progressives. Brexit was also the result of a protest by small English towns and rural communities against the financial metropolis of London.
Brexit, Trump, Meloni, Wilders
Donald Trump’s election victories in 2016 and 2024 were, among other motives, a reaction to a Democratic Party that was perceived as too “woke”. German leftists can label Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as a “neo-fascist” as often as they want: In Italy, Meloni, her party and her coalition partners continue to lead unchallenged in the polls three years after her election victory.
Be it the Netherlands after the attempt to tolerate Geert Wilders or Finland and Sweden, where the conservatives do not practice a firewall but govern with the support of right-wing populists: democracy and the rule of law have not disappeared.
Who can guarantee that developments with the AfD in Germany will be similarly mild? Nobody can do that. The concerns are justified. Vigilance against the right is essential, especially in Germany.
But when it comes to forms of protest, care must be taken to ensure that they do not have a counterproductive effect. If the protest runs the risk of benefiting the AfD more than harming it, it is high time for a critical self-examination of the protest movement.