24.9.17

Welcome to Third Reich 2.0

This morning, I woke up at 11am, drank a cup of coffee and then my grandma and I went to the polling station to vote in the federal election. Now it's 9pm, just 10 hours later, and I am depressed.
After the presidential election in November and the Brexit referendum I sure did lose some hope in humanity but somehow, I was able to be optimistic enough to not completely lose hope that our election in Germany wouldn't turn out as bad. Yes, I actually hoped for Germany to still remember that fascism is not a good idea, as we learned from our past. Apparently, a lot of people just took a lot of naps in History lessons.
For the ones who don't know yet: With over 13%, the relatively new right wing party AfD is the third strongest in our parlament now. To give you a remote idea exactly how right wing they are, a quote from their top candidate Alexander Gauland from just a few hours ago: "We will hunt them down and take back our country and our people." In this case, 'them' includes, for example, Angela Merkel. I think that says enough.
As my mum perfectly stated: This is basically just showing us directly, how very right wing this country still is. We now know for sure that about 1 in 5 people actually thinks that way. And we also know that 1 in 4 people couldn't be bothered to go vote to make their chance to get into the parlament smaller. Dear non-voters, this is on you too.
My friend asked me if I'd come to the town hall for a spontaneous demonstration, and as much as I wanted to, I had to realize that I can't do it tonight. I don't have the energy. So tonight I'm going to try to resist the urge to get drunk. Tomorrow, I'll try to somehow get out of bed. Next week, I'll resist the urge to take this as the final reason to move to Exeter (sorry Exeter friends). But when that is done... I'll fight. For the next four years, I'll fight for an openminded, caring Germany. I'll fight for kindness and for freedom and for equality. I'll not punch every Nazi I see because when it comes to physical violence I'm a bloody coward, but I will support anyone who has the courage to do so. I will never shut up against people who are racist, homophobic, misogynistic, transphobic, fascist etc. I will be loud, I will be aggresive, I will be uncomfortable to those who think they won for good now. I'll refuse to live in Third Reich 2.0. We all should. The 87% who voted against them. My fellow Germans - make those 4 years hell for AfD. We will not give up yet.


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