Media criticism | Anticipatory obedience

Is communism coming now? An activist stands on Prague Street with a flag of the former Soviet Union and promotes communism. Photo: dpa-Zentralbild/Robert Michael Ha, now I'm excited: the Left won the Berlin House of Representatives elections. Elif Eralp will probably rule the city. She focused her election campaign on the issue of housing and affordable rents; a topic that obviously affects a lot of Berliners - so much so that they gave their vote to the left. Is this now a nationwide move towards socialism?

After the elections in Saxony-Anhalt, when the right-wing extremist AfD received a majority of votes in a state election for the first time, one heard all over the country a strange chorus of media from the so-called center, political influencers and CDU backbenchers who said in unison that "the people" had now said very clearly that it was enough with migration and diversity, that deportations had to be carried out with all severity, and that the firewall was now history and you We finally have to listen to “the people” and “pick them up” politically. This meant picking them up in the right-wing corner, where the majority of Germans apparently now stand since this groundbreaking election in Saxony-Anhalt. Where – listen and be amazed! – as many people voted for the AfD as there are people living in Duisburg. For those unfamiliar with the area: This is a smaller town in North Rhine-Westphalia, in the middle of a number of small and large cities on the Rhine and Ruhr. No matter how or who the people in Duisburg vote for: no one would think of describing this as groundbreaking for the whole of Germany.

Sheila Mysorekar is chairwoman of the New German Organizations, a network of post-migrant organizations. She writes the monthly column “Black on White” for “nd”. In it she criticizes the media on current debates in an immigration society.

Now Duisburg is a city and not a federal state, and federal states are of course more politically relevant. But it was still striking that the focus was not on how the conditions in Saxony-Anhalt could be prevented in other federal states, but on the contrary - people were apparently already proactively preparing for the fact that the AfD would soon be in charge everywhere.

This realization was particularly bitter when one considers the public broadcasters, which have the mandate to report in accordance with the Basic Law. This means labeling right-wing extremists as such and not giving them widespread airtime, regardless of whether they have organized themselves into parties and wear suits or whether they set fire to refugee homes at night.

But of course, victorious Nazis sat grinning in all the broadcasts - even before the AfD joined the federal government. The Frankfurter Rundschau describes this as “anticipatory obedience” on the part of ARD and ZDF. The AfD's leading candidate from Saxony-Anhalt even appeared on children's television KiKa, as the "Jüdische Allgemeine" noted with horror.

But what about Berlin now? This is also a federal state. There are 2.49 million eligible voters living in Berlin, 25.7% of whom voted for the Left; That's over 600,000 people, around ten times as many people as the AfD has members. Is the choir starting now? We have to listen to people! You care about affordable rents and social justice! We absolutely have to bring these issues forward! If you want affordable rents and social justice, then this must be implemented in all federal states! Everywhere! We have to pick people up! Invite leftists to every talk show!

Strangely enough, that's not the case. On the contrary: Well-known journalists like Ulf Poschardt from “Welt” see the end as near because a “left-wing radical migrant integration poisoner” could soon rule. On the evening of the election - when the results were announced in Berlin, Poschardt completely let himself go on Platform And he is someone who shapes opinion in this country and has a significant influence on narratives. Like all the people who think Berlin is uninhabitable, but are of the opinion that refugees could now really return to Syria. The “taz” summarized the unspeakable level of reactions to the Berlin election under the title: “Welcome to the Islamic-socialist hellish dictatorship!”

But there is also a different way of looking at political events. "Zeit" editor Bernd Ulrich comments: "One can also interpret the elections of the last two weeks in such a way that the advance of the AfD is not unstoppable when strong personalities stand up against it, such as Manuela Schwesig and the left-wing mayoral candidate Elif Eralp in Berlin." And Ulrich wrote on election evening on social media: "I have a question: Could it not be that there is no right-wing majority in Germany, which is not realized only because of the firewall, but a left-wing one Majority that comes into government little by little?" Aha, that's right. That's how you can see the matter.

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