Guest Post by Ahmad Mansour – One wrong word and you’re a racist

Police officers are systematically thrown with firecrackers, rescue workers are hindered and attacked during their operations, ambulances, police officers and fire brigade personnel are deliberately lured into ambushes and attacked. Young people, mostly with a migration background, are covered by families and in their Apartments hidden from the police.

The preliminary summary of New Year’s Eve 2022/2023 in Berlin (as of January 17): 56 attacks on police officers and 69 on firefighters, 47 police officers and 15 firefighters were injured and 26 police vehicles were damaged. Many of the emergency services were traumatized and will carry the images of that night with them for many years to come. So far the facts.

New Year’s Eve riots in Berlin are not a singular event

It is only too understandable that such events move the public and cause absolute excitement. After all, it’s not happening for the first time: the riots in Frankfurt and Stuttgart in the summer of 2020, the anti-Semitic outbursts in May 2021, the outdoor pool violence last summer.

A look at Europe makes the phenomenon even more visible: violence in Sweden, riots by Moroccan football fans in France and Belgium and the Kurdish riots after the right-wing extremist terror in Paris.

Respectful debate culture? None!

In a democracy and according to our journalistic standards, it should be a matter of course that people want to report and discuss it, want to name causes and are allowed to name them. However, the debates in Germany seem to follow completely different laws and dynamics. Some want to refuse the debate, they want to completely ignore the origin, the socialization, the educational methods, the cultural character of the perpetrators.

The others try to put the events into perspective by referring to other events, according to the motto: “Something like this is everywhere and has always been!” Others try to create alternative realities using numbers and statistics.

And if none of this works, they try to defame and silence voices that do not follow the imposed rules of political correctness by labeling those who think differently as right-wing extremists, Nazis or racists. exchange arguments? Respectful debate culture? None!

You can find Merz’s “Pascha” statement tasteless – but to insult voters as racists is going too far

It is understandable that many politicians from the red-red-green environment are dissatisfied with the results of the Berlin elections after last Sunday. It is also understandable that they would have wished for different results. I too would have liked the FDP to stay in the House of Representatives and become a possible coalition partner, but in a democracy you have to respect the voters’ decision.

You have to ask yourself: why weren’t we able to convince people? Where have we not reached the people with our communication, with our politics? One can also criticize how persistently the CDU insisted that the first names of the perpetrators responsible for the New Year’s Eve riots be published. One can also find Friedrich Merz’s sweeping statement about the “little pashas” distasteful.

All of this is part of an open debate. However, the fact that prominent politicians and even voters are increasingly being insulted as racists because they voted differently than those who called them would have wished is a new quality in narcissistic politics, carried out by perpetrators of conviction who have lost all ability to understand their actions and to reflect on their statements.

The identity-political left has no real interest in refugees

How could this happen? In Germany, debates are increasingly viewed and conducted with religious zeal. There are good and bad arguments, cosmopolitan, moral and racist, bad positions. Debating seems to be about proselytizing, freeing people from their evil feelings and attitudes. Those who participate belong to the morally superior group. Anyone who refuses to participate must be delegitimized.

For these politicians, people with a migration background, refugees and Muslims are nothing more than marginalized minorities in our society, who are to be regarded exclusively as victims of a racist majority society. This identity-political left has no real interest in refugees, Muslims or people with a migration background.

Enrichment and challenge for society

They do not perceive them as equal citizens in this country, but only as representatives of certain groups. They don’t realize that these people are heterogeneous. They can be an asset, but also a challenge.

For them, they are more like cuddly toys that should be paternalistically protected from themselves and the right-wing extremists. The fact that some of them misbehave and their socialization, religion, educational methods play a role is just as unacceptable as the idea that police officers could also become victims of violence.

Such attitudes and perspectives narrow the debates. What can be said is kept to a minimum, a gaping gap arises between the perceived reality of people in their everyday lives and the reports about it.

Fear of expressing yourself freely

People have long had the feeling that their issues, feelings and fears have hardly any place in public discourse. Worse still, they feel they are not allowed to talk about it, that they risk being labeled as far-right if they speak their minds.

Therefore, such discourses push people to the fringes of society and the political spectrum. This is precisely what is dangerous for a democracy.

Democratic parties must therefore have an interest in opening discourses and enabling perspectives that do not meet with unreserved approval. Taboos are not helpful here, just as little as accusing voters of parties other than their own of racism across the board.