DThis has never happened before in Germany: protests for days and weeks against a party, against extremists, against an entire political direction. Not for peace, not against nuclear power, not against climate change, but against the demise of democracy.
One can call this exaggerated because there should be greater confidence in the stability and strength of parliaments, governments and the judiciary. In other European countries, the “gravediggers” have long been in power without democracy being buried straight away. But if there is now speculation even in America about whether a dictatorship is imminent, it will also have to be said in Europe that rallies in defense of a tried and tested democratic culture are justified.
The aim of the demonstrations is clear and yet not entirely clear. People are protesting against the AfD, which considers our liberal democracy to be the playground of political wimps. What is being accused is a world of racist traditions that have left behind incomprehensible catastrophes.
The condition can be no matter how good it is
The Parliamentary Council wanted to prevent this once and for all 75 years ago – while in the East communism led to the next catastrophe. Today we have to say: no democracy is immune to one or the other, no matter how good its constitution is.
However, most Germans trusted it for a long time. With the thought in mind: things will be fine. The rise of the AfD cannot be explained in any other way. The party has done a good job of making its voters believe that it stands firmly on the ground of the Basic Law, even more firmly than its critics.
The fact is that she interprets the Basic Law in such a way that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution comes to the conclusion that she wants to destroy 75 years of the Federal Republic. The communists used to say that this reflected the repression of the bourgeois system; Today the AfD says that this is censorship by a red-green establishment.
CDU and CSU in the same pot as the AfD
The demonstrations all over the country also reflect the fear of a left-wing bourgeoisie that their sovereignty over the “civil society” that they exclusively claim could be lost. This is what the attempts to exclude the CDU and CSU and throw them into the AfD pot represent.
This is particularly absurd because it is directed against the people's parties, which are still somewhat functional from the time when the Federal Republic was founded and whose philosophy – “cohesion” across interests and milieus – is the basis of the hundreds of thousands who are now taking to the streets , but longing back. It is not only the aversion to the AfD that gives rise to this longing, but also a government coalition whose three parties have fallen back into the counter-model, into the almost self-destructive zeal of their respective client interests.
The “movement” that is now gathering on the streets expresses the unease in a new time in which the old certainties of the Federal Republic's success story no longer exist. “Against the right” can paradoxically be interpreted as a conservative rebellion against the downfall of a familiar party system, which is expressed in the fact that several trademarks of the old Federal Republic are threatening to fail at the five percent threshold in individual federal states.
It is better to “show a stance” than to eliminate grievances
Parties like the AfD – it will not be the last of its kind – are pushing into institutions whose integrity and ability to work have been taken for granted for too long and which are therefore in danger of becoming homeless. However, it is not respect and a sense of order that drives the AfD into local councils, district councils or district offices, but rather their function as a hinge for the way we live. The march through the institutions has never had only the institutions in mind.
Conversely, these institutions are dealing with a society in which it has become common practice to leave democratic heroism and political drudgery to others. Politics as a profession is praised, especially compared to the AfD: finding compromises, being ready for consensus, cultivating a community spirit. But reality is characterized by prejudice, loss of trust and disinterest. This not only reflects disappointment on the part of those “left behind”, but also complacency on the part of those represented.
This has led, among other things, to the fact that the meaning of politics is no longer sought in overcoming grievances, but rather only in a powerful commitment (“Take a stand!”). The AfD therefore emerges from the wave of protests unscathed. As long as “movement” does not consist of dealing with concrete questions that led to the rise of the AfD and the decline of the familiar, so many inner cities will still be walked through. The movement then stands still.