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Nuremberg Christ Child: Benigna Munsi reacts to the hate speech of the AfD

2019-11-03T16:58:52.684Z


Ignore or counter? The whirlwind of the Nuremberg Christ Child shows the dilemma of the policy to respond adequately to crude AFD postings. The attacked student remains calm.



It's a bizarre date on Sunday afternoon in the Nuremberg town hall. Outside the tourists stroll through the streets of the old town, they climb up to the castle or eat a sausage. Inside a meeting room sits a petite girl with black curls, horn-rimmed glasses and a cheerful laugh in front of the cameras and microphones. She is flanked by her parents and the mayor.

With the short-term press conference, one is forced to respond to a "few stupid reactions" on the Internet, said the SPD politician Ulrich Maly. An Internet entry of an AfD local chapter, which he did not want to speak again.

On the other hand, the time is over when you let such comments happen. The racist connotation is new. "You could howl about so much enmity," says Maly. His message: "The Nuremberg Christ Child is the Nuremberg Christ Child and that is neither a question of citizenship nor an ethnic question."

Then the 17-year-old student Benigna Munsi speaks a few words. "I'm fine," she says. She receives many head-up messages from friends. What else is written in the social media, try to ignore it. "I did not think that was so relevant."

Attack according to proven AfD patterns

Munsi was chosen last week from several applicants between 16 and 19 years as a new Nuremberg Christ Child. At the end of November, she will open the famous Nuremberg Christmas Market from the Frauenkirche's balcony with a short speech. Afterwards, during the Advent season, she will hold more than 150 appointments, above all to delight the elderly and the sick in various facilities.

The charitable office is an institution in the Franconian city and has existed for almost 50 years. Especially suitable young people are selected, they must recite the text of their lecture and a poem and answer questions of the jury. Benigna convinced the jurors with their cheerfulness and openness.

Munsi attends a Nuremberg grammar school. She plays the oboe, sings in the Children and Youth Choir of the parish of St. Bonifaz and has long been a ministrant. After school, she wanted to study acting, she wrote in her application.

The curriculum vitae, however, did not interest the AfD district association Munich-Land. The spread on Facebook a photo of Munsi and the following schwurbelig-racist text: "Nuremberg has a new Christ Child One day it will go like the Indians."

The attack followed proven AfD patterns: with reference to Christian symbols or festivals, with the effort of Kita menus or family names suggests that the Germans and their customs threaten extinction.

Mostly, then at some point follows a half-baked apology.

In the meantime the entry has been deleted. On the AfD side, it says that the editor had initially criticized the election, "because he out of the habit of the Christ child had imagined otherwise." And further: "This post does not correspond to the values ​​of the AfD." The editor did not want to insult anyone "and resigned immediately".

The full force of the Candystorm

But at the same time the candystorm exploded on the internet, the opposite of the infamous shitstorm. She also first had to get to know the term, the pupil told the press conference. Politicians expressed their solidarity in the network. "We must not allow this hate," wrote Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder on Twitter. His interior minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) said: "Here we meet the sardonic face of racism, which the AfD always wants to deny as their mental attitude."

These are certainly justified statements that, however, as well as the media coverage of the original discriminate remind and threaten to overwhelm the normal life of a normal student.

Munsi's father, originally from India, tells of his successful history of integration. He studied electrical engineering in Germany, got to know his wife there and founded a family with her. "I was received with open arms," ​​says Father Munsi. He now works at the BAMF and has accepted German citizenship. He relied on the "strength of democracy," Munsi said.

His daughter is looking forward to the normal at school after the autumn holidays, to the reunion with her friends. In a few days she will try out her ornate for the opening of the Christmas market for the first time. For them, a dream comes true: "I always wanted to become a Christ child, since I did not believe in Christ anymore."

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2019-11-03

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