Establishing publicity is not so easy right now. At the Forum Bellevue, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was unable to invite any large group of guests to the castle besides the panelists. Nevertheless, he wanted to “not play a ghost game”. The event on the topic “How is our democracy doing in the Corona test case?” Was therefore broadcast online.
The importance of digital space was only really experienced through the lockdown, said the Federal President. “That is why we should now fight all the more decisively so that it is not poisoned by hatred and degradation.” Democracy needs a digital public in which respect, tolerance and reason set the tone.
Herta Müller is not worried about democracy in the face of the crisis. She remembered her first 30 years in a dictatorship. In Romania, people didn’t even know about Chernobyl. “We obey fear, not the state,” she describes the experience of the past few weeks. “We want to live. That is what makes people so understanding. ”After all, it is not the virologists who prohibit something, but the virus itself.
This time was full of surprises for the philosopher and democratic theorist Andreas Forst. This included the collectively responsible justification of the measures as an act of freedom, which prevented the image of a hygiene dictatorship. Where democratic processes are otherwise full of conflicts, everything suddenly changed to justification: the containment of the virus. Of course, scissors also opened up due to the crisis, for example those between resilient and polarized democracies.
Suddenly Romanians are suspected
According to Harvard professor Daniel Ziblatt, Germany and South Korea coped better with the situation than more unstable countries such as Brazil or the USA. In America, the politicization of wearing a mask poses additional unnecessary dangers if, for example, the waiver is used as a statement for the president.
However, Andreas Forst also recognized certain previous illnesses with us, for example, where outbreaks are described in terms of the Muslim sugar festival in such a way that they can also have an exclusionary effect. Herta Müller agreed. Romanian workers are viewed “as if they had the virus because they are Romanians, not because they are exploited.”
The desire to get to know others is unbroken
For Elke Büdenbender, clear efforts for more educational justice are an important prerequisite for the future of democracy. According to the author Elisabeth von Thadden, she will not be able to do this without reducing the current fear of contact in favor of the desire to get to know other people. “The frozen nature of social conditions does not match democracy.”
The Federal President wishes that the importance of “critical, reliable and diverse media for a lively public and trust in politics” should not be forgotten even after the crisis. There may never be a vaccination against the viruses of anti-democracy. But vigilance helps.
