I thought peace would last longer than this.
We stand by as neo-nazis storm our Bundestag here in Germany, and now the Capitol in the US. And somehow, there are some out there who still have the audacity to call the people who break the law like no minority ever could: “Bürgerliche Mitte” (Main stream Middle Class) or even more audacious “The People”.
While we’re stuck inside, out there are people willing and happy to see democracy go under. We sit at home, trying to keep our friends, our families, our communities safe by isolating ourselves and missing out on so many things we love – only to turn around and see others not just brazenly throw our hard work under the bus, but gleeful taunt us as they do it, too. “We are the people,” they say.
Well, so are we.
But if we continue to tolerate conspiracies and warped world-views in our midst, at our dinner tables, and on our social media platforms, this madness combined with our silence is going to leave more than five people dead in the Capitol rotunda soon enough.
The world is a messy place. But thinking One Leader, One Message, One Backward Thinking Slogan will make our world great again will not solve the mess we are in.
The horrors of Nationalism are still scattered across the German, Polish, French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Austrian, Czech, and Estonian countryside. All of these countries had Nazi concentration camps built on their soil. It’s not even been a hundred years, but somehow, these facts seem to have been forgotten.
Democracy isn’t a fundamental human right. It is a political system we have built, one we need to actively preserve and defend. The freedom that democracy grants us is a gift, one that we should NEVER take for granted.
I thought peace would last longer than this.
What are you going to do to make sure it does?