Lessons from a beetle on populism

I just discovered the golden tortoise beetle and I am fascinated.

It keeps reminding me of ourselves.

A few weeks ago, some farmers blocked the disembarkation of the German vice-chancellor in a remote port, where he arrived after spending Christmas on an island of six square kilometers and 90 inhabitants near Denmark.

Robert Habeck, a thoughtful politician and father of four, had to turn around towards Hallig Hooge and was only able to return to the mainland in the early hours of the morning.

That was the starting signal for the farmers' protests against the Government's cuts, which are also happening in other European countries.

The tractors took over avenues and squares and led lines of angry drivers.

Added to this was the train drivers' strike.

The water, ice and snow, which make it difficult to get around by bicycle, made the most advisable option to stay home and have a drink.

The lime blossom has also been good for following current events.

In some of these protests against the German Government, gallows and banners with slogans such as “The king always falls in the end” or “Democracy drowns us” have appeared, and speeches that, if you squint a little, remind others of overacting and full of fuss, mustache like an exclamation point, in black and white.

For example, we heard talk of “remigration” (just like in German), a gloved way of saying deportation.

It takes a lot of lime to swallow all the times that this word has been mentioned since a few days ago it became known that in November far-right politicians, neo-Nazis and a couple of millionaires met secretly in a villa in Potsdam, the same one in the series

Babylon Berlin

and not far from the mansion where the Nazis planned the Jewish extermination, to plan the expulsion in case of electoral victory of foreigners, non-German Germans and people in need of reeducation to an imprecise point in Africa.

2024 will be an election year for more than half of the world's population, but certainly for the Germans, where the skeletons in the closet do not stop making noise.

Saxony and Thuringia vote in September.

Alternative for Germany jumped to second position in both States in 2019.

Since the news about the confidential snack, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets to show their rejection behind slogans such as "Better multicolored than poop brown", in reference to the Nazi uniform, and to defend democracy against the tsunami that it prefers the scorched earth to the intellectual effort to improve what is cultivated.

There is a thread of black bile that unites these protests and also the pro/anti-Israel, anti/pro-Russia protests, even the pandemic ones.

There is a disappointment with the political culture that links to the polarization that tensions Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary or the (un)United States.

Either because certain groups consider that effective solutions to their problems are not being taken, or because social networks exaggerate the controversy, the debate becomes inflamed, distances itself from the facts and becomes ideologized.

Everyone wants to be right and absolutely right.

Giving up is undervalued and equals sacrifice, never liberation or truth.

We are not even able to agree on words.

Coup d'état, Nazi, Soviet, genocide, dictatorship, war, revolution... are used without measure or agreement, to the point of causing deafness or cognitive dissonance.

For example, I am lost in what liberalism already means: Hillary Clinton has little in common with the German minister Christian Lindner, both declared liberals.

It is words that establish what is right and wrong, what can be said without being isolating, that make the fabric of what is possible to do with politics.

Is talking about imported anti-Semitism the same as Islamophobia?

Is talking about assimilation of immigrants equal to racism?

Does dads and moms mean discrimination?

Is it possible to talk about this without despising those who think differently?

The path between a radioactive way of expressing oneself and a violent action, such as throwing something at a politician, preventing him from disembarking, pushing him or directly shooting him, is very short and not everyone is clear about the red lines.

Crossing them is a disgrace.

We have challenges that can only be faced together.

Polar waves, fires, volcanoes, droughts, viruses do not understand borders.

Neither does artificial intelligence point out ways.

This respectful coexistence must begin with politicians and the media.

I would also say because of social networks, but I have less faith.

The owner of X described his platform as

“low-cost freedom”

in a recent interview.

Is that the freedom we aspire to, one of every man for himself, the last fool who doesn't get a seat?

This is where the tortoise beetle larva comes to mind.

Although it has the potential to sport a golden shell, it spends part of its life literally covering itself in its feces, in the hope that this brownish shield will protect it from its enemies.

Begoña Quesada

is a writer.

Her latest book is

Lines of Flight

(Edhasa)

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