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Transporter with the inscription "Peace Vehicle": "Yes-then-they-should-just-die-go" - stubbornness
Photo: Thomas Frey / dpa
While the clean-up work in the regions affected by the flood is still in full swing and there are discussions about whether politicians are using the disaster for their political purposes, two other groups have long since found a way to use the situation for themselves: the so-called lateral thinkers and right-wing extremists.
Apparently, some of their supporters are now driving to the crisis areas to suggest decency through alleged aid actions - while at the same time they claim that the infrastructural support from the authorities is so bad that they now have to take care of it themselves.
I write “supposed” relief actions because this “support” is anything but helpful.
They actively disturb the police and emergency services in the performance of their work.
Taking on the role of victim
For example, members of the scene drive around in vans that have been carefully repainted to resemble police vehicles, deliberately spreading false information through loudspeakers. The police felt compelled to warn online about these fake vehicles: »#FakeNews vehicles with loudspeakers that resemble police emergency vehicles are on the way in the #disaster area. The false report is spread over the loudspeakers that police and rescue workers are reducing the number of emergency services. We are there all the time! "
Especially in crisis and catastrophe situations, especially in moments of existential threat, where people are insecure, overwhelmed and, in this case, are justifiably angry at the failure of the authorities, populists, extremists and conspiracy narrators try to find the need and desperation for the spread of their ideologies to abuse.
Now, where there is no longer any great demonstration against the measures to contain the pandemic, the flood disaster has opened up a new field in which to cultivate distrust of democracy.
It becomes particularly manipulative when the act of helping is exploited, because three popular techniques of conspiracy ideologues and right-wing populists come into play like textbooks:
Self-
derogation By claiming that you take care of the population, that you lend a hand, you want to appear socially compatible.
The strategy of self-sacrifice has become the favorite approach of the New Right, above all the AfD, which at the time tried to fool the voters into a Gaulish bourgeoisie that was not too terrifying for voters, which became a prominent favorite from the 2017 federal election.
Mimicry
By adopting and imitating official aesthetics, official acts or other social forms, these should be thwarted and subverted.
See the perfidious peace vehicle.
Self-victimization
Insofar as those affected who are supposed to be helped do not show enough gratitude, or the support from the authorities does not come as expected, one presents oneself as a victim.
In particular, the sabotage of the police also nullifies the objection that in an emergency situation it shouldn't matter who the help comes from.
If a doctor helps you with a heart attack, they probably don't ask before treatment whether he believes in lizard people or Björn Höcke.
But the fact that the help staged for self-exaggeration also prevents that of the real helpers makes them worthless.
Those who really care to improve the situation on site do not incite the population against the rescue workers.
Mimicry was not only an issue in the case of the action with the wrong police cars. In Ahrweiler, supporters of the scene tried to offer an official childcare offer. After the district administration of Ahrweiler - which has just set up an official care offer with certified educators and supervisors - distanced itself from this offer on Facebook and insisted on a closure, it was insulted on social media. What leads us to take on the role of victim: The lament about the fact that this selfless help is simply turned down and the lack of understanding about the ingratitude in the world was great.
Even in the corresponding Telegram groups, criticism of the official crisis team, which specifically asks not to hinder the rescue workers in their work, reacts with "yes-then-they-should-just-die-go" -buckiness and self-victimization.
Sure, they, who are not allowed to drive around in the wrong police cars and exploit the plight of the citizens there for political purposes - they are of course the real victims of this flood disaster.