Are we living once more in a Weimar Republic that no longer knows a center? The toxic climate of public opinion suggests just that. The language of irreconcilability allows some to speak of “covid idiots,” while others see our politics as heading toward dictatorship. And even government pronouncements are sounding more authoritarian, as with the call for a “tightening of the reins” that Bavarian Prime Minister Söder repeated after the chancellor.
Panic and hysteria are the reliable companions to nearly every major political theme today. But of course, corona is central. The most important political effect of the pandemic could well be the growing readiness to endure whatever may come. By contrast, the “corona rebels” wanted to set an example over the weekend. Their protest drew motivation from the impression that with the slogan “because of corona,” one can at any time call a state of emergency, in which freedom and democracy then no longer play a role.
The registered demonstration was prohibited by the Berlin Senate, whereby the woeful Interior Senator Geisel, besides the understandable argument that the hygiene rules would likely be violated, also put forward the argument that one does not want to extend a platform to the right. One need not be a lawyer to know that the right to demonstrate does not recognize such qualifications. Geisel could have merely pointed to the absurdity of a demonstration against corona measures within the framework of corona measures such as the compulsory wearing of masks and social distancing. He instead confused his political opinion with principles of the rule of law.
And then everything unfolded as expected: First, the courts overturned the Senate’s demonstration ban—a sign that the separation of powers is functioning. Subsequently, the demonstration was disbanded by the police because the people who are opposed to the wearing of masks and to social distancing did not wear masks and—not unusual at demonstrations—stood close together. And finally, some crackpots behaved just as crackpots will: “Reichsbürger” and youth close to the AfD, but also apparently some left-wings extremists, rioted before the Reichstag.
What does this teach us? Citizen criticism of government policies has basic representational problems. For one thing, it is being pushed from the outset by opinion leaders from media and politics into the right-wing corner, whether as right-wing populist or as stuck in the past. For another, it unavoidably attracts real idiots who give the essentially citizen criticism an unsavory brown edge. Consequently, it is not surprising that more and more politicians and media professionals consider it their shared responsibility to straighten out the confused minds. And frequently, one can get the impression as though journalists were the real politicians, while these in turn act as though they were journalists.
Even if the demonstrating critics of the corona measures had been predominantly right-wing, it should be clear: even the “fight against the right” is not above the law. Rule of law is not a matter of feeling and propensity to be a do-gooder. It is, moreover, precisely when the public service media no longer adequately perform their function critical of the government, observing “position journalism” instead of the ideal of objectivity so widely viewed nowadays as antiquated, that the independence of the judiciary moves to the center of democracy. Hegel’s 250th birthday would have been a fine opportunity for once again leafing through his philosophy of right. There the constitutional state is advanced as an antidote to the emotionalization of politics. Hegel already recognized the German disease: that abstract conscience self-assuredly sets itself above law and order since it only wants the good. In questions like Europe, migration, climate, equality, freedom to demonstrate, a parallel right is presently threatening to establish itself and undermine the German constitution.
What still remains of this Berlin weekend? An indefensible Interior Senator Geisel and his double standard. And among critics of the government, the impression is growing that politics allows the left to do what it forbids the right. Hence, the left demonstration “Black Lives Matter” was tolerated, the right demonstration by “corona rebels” was not. Hence, the right-wing flags at the gates of the Reichstag were deemed an attack against democracy, while banners placed before the Reichstag by Greenpeace were benevolently tolerated. In the process, the reason of the center is falling by the wayside. On his 250th birthday, one actually longs for a new Hegel who will show us the reason of the real amid the chaos of the present.
Translated by Daniel Steven Fisher, www.dsftranslations.com.
