The democratic imposition

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Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) after her summer press conference on August 28, 2020

We know the Chancellor. Nobody expects a rhetorical fireworks display from Angela Merkel's appearances, nobody expects rousing enthusiasm, nobody passion for or against a cause. When Merkel appears, everyone knows what is coming: a sober inventory. Sometimes sentences from a 360 degree prepared power politician stumbled but were largely ready for printing. She has a well-balanced answer to every imaginable question. Gladly also a meaningless one. This precision, this professionalism, this apparently unshakable calmness is impressive. But for some it is also: an imposition. 

We are still alive and still, and as it seems slowly, the pandemic goes on forever. Corona is annoying. "The virus," said Angela Merkel at the beginning of her traditional summer press conference, "is a democratic imposition".  

Last May she had already expressed herself very similarly, it was the day of the Basic Law, and the Chancellor called Corona an "imposition for our democracy". That sounds similar, but it's not necessarily the same. 

Little understanding of each other

The unreasonable demand  for  democracy meant the restriction of our basic rights through health protection measures, the state ban on events and meetings, for example. The current variation on the  democratic imposition  may have been unintentional, but in fact it describes surprisingly well the changes in the challenges that the virus is confronting our society.  

The expected restrictions on public life have largely remained, some have been relaxed in the meantime, some were no longer so noticeable to us due to the warm weather and the general holiday mood, many will return in autumn when the risk of infection increases again. They are no longer new and unknown.

The new challenge now arises: the democratic imposition. We experience it using the example of the demonstration by opponents of the Corona measures in Berlin, which was initially banned by the police, but has now been approved by the court in the first instance. 

For the Berlin Senator for the Interior, Andreas Geisel (SPD), this demonstration is an imposition, and with this view he probably represents the majority. Surveys show that most people think it is right to wear masks, keep their distance and avoid major events. They don't like it, but they understand that it is unfortunately necessary if you want to contain the spread of the virus.

Anyone who thinks this way has little understanding for people who consider the virus to be harmless or nonexistent, and even less for those who cling to conspiracy theories according to which a secretly operating power elite from politics and business is using Corona as a pretext to enslave the masses. Anyone who wants to fight the virus has no sympathy for people who take to the streets side by side with right-wing extremists, who are less concerned with health than with the abolition of democracy. Such people are a nuisance. An imposition. 

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For the others, the minority of mask opponents and corona deniers, it is not only the restrictions on freedom that are unbearable - it is precisely the people who willingly submit to these restrictions. Those who perceive contradictions in the communication of the government and the medical authorities as glitches or provisionalities in the scientific process and not as clear indications of a corona legend fabricated by interested parties for the oppression of the people. They have no sympathy for the defenseless government loyalists, who allow anything to be done with them, who even allow themselves to be forbidden to breathe freely. The biggest impertinence for her, however, is Angela Merkel, who does all of this to her citizens and remains provocatively calm. 

Let them demonstrate

Now the Berlin Administrative Court has overturned the police ban on demonstrations - the rally may take place if the organizers pay attention and announce that a minimum distance must be observed. Even if the state of Berlin will now try in the next instance to prevent the meeting: It would be better if the opponents of the corona measures were allowed to demonstrate, even if their reasons are nonsensical, false and, in the case of the right-wing extremists, despicable.  

That is the democratic imposition that we all have to face, Merkel supporters and their opponents, corona deniers and mask supporters: We have to endure that the others express their different views publicly.  

And guess what? We make it.