NewsUnder "lateral thinkers": This is how the protest against...

Under "lateral thinkers": This is how the protest against the Corona measures works

Our author has been accompanying the Corona protests for almost two years. The “lateral thinkers” are a mixed bag and trust neither politics nor the media.

Kassel – I was insulted for the first time by “lateral thinkers” on a sunny Saturday afternoon in April 2020 on Bebelplatz in Kassel. I asked a participant what she thinks about demonstrating with AfD people. One of them was used as a folder. Then she shouted loudly across Bebelplatz: “The gentleman from the HNA wants to know if someone from the AfD is here.” 80 people booed me.

Almost two years later, hundreds of critics of the Corona measures were walking through Kassel, even in the rain and cold. Numbers of participants are being registered throughout the Republic, which any trade union would be happy about. How could it possibly come this far?

Corona: Nationwide protest is determined by violence and hate messages

Like the virus, the corona protest has also undergone some mutations in the pandemic. On March 20, 2021, 20,000 people marched through Kassel* despite the ban. In the summer numerous demos became a flop. In the meantime, the numerous “walkers” are not only demonstrating more generally for “freedom” and “love”, but also quite specifically against an imminent obligation to vaccinate.

You still meet AfD politicians and also neo-Nazis. The security authorities rightly warn of radicalization. At the same time, however, a pluralization of the protest can also be observed. Students who feel marginalized by 2G rules are also taking to the streets, yoga teachers who used to demonstrate with Antifa against the globalization of capital, and apolitical mothers and fathers who are concerned about their children because of school closures. They accept taking to the streets with people they really don’t want to have anything to do with.

The public image of the nationwide protest is determined by violence and hate messages, which unfortunately are far too common. But you can also experience the “walks” like the former ARD journalist Rolf-Dieter Krause, who just tweeted after a visit to Templin in the Uckermark: “No stupid sayings, no riots, a diverse civil society. Police: relaxed. radicalization? Not to be seen.”

Corona demos: Many participants do not know anyone who is seriously ill with Corona

In Kassel, a participant finally greeted me with the sentence: “Well, Mr. Lohr, how much money do you get so that you can spread lies again today?” Once it was suggested that I should be tried by a military court. Many no longer want to talk to journalists. Our editors and all other “mainstream media” would only rush. At best, YouTube links and Servus TV are accepted as reputable sources. One woman demanded that we finally do an interview with Sucharit Bhakdi, the controversial medical doctor, to say the least, who recently claimed, “They are killing our children.” He meant the vaccinations.

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What unites the very different participants is their aversion to “those up there”. One cannot imagine that the Corona measures are intended to save human lives. There is always talk of mysterious conspiracies. The fact that crude and anti-Semitic conspiracy stories are repeatedly shared in the Telegram groups is accepted.

Many of the participants do not know anyone who is seriously ill with Corona. But they read about alleged vaccine damage in their social media bubble every day. Friends and relatives have turned their backs on them. How are you supposed to find your way out of this parallel world?

Even people you would consider reasonable in real life are now okay with popping into politicians’ homes. Most recently, the announcement made the rounds of going for a walk in front of Mayor Christian Geselle*’s house.

Corona: Not only protest, but also the rest of society has become radicalized

But not only the protest has become radicalized, but also the rest of society. A vaccination requirement is still being discussed, which has long been ruled out, of which nobody knows how it should be implemented, and whose usefulness even virologists like Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit have questioned since Omikron. And at the protest against the “lateral thinkers” in mid-January, demonstrators held up signs that said: “Get vaccinated, don’t be an asshole!” Those who do not get vaccinated are acting unreasonably – towards themselves and others. But that doesn’t make him an asshole.

No “lateral thinker” will be convinced in this way. But the question is whether they can still be persuaded with arguments that vaccination is not the stuff of the devil and that Germany is not a dictatorship. The author Sascha Lobo sees them in the “sunken costs trap”: The “lateral thinkers” put so much energy into their opposition and used the Internet to train themselves to become hobby virologists who can cite the most outlandish studies. If they would get vaccinated now, it would all have been for nothing. So they will continue to take to the streets – with or without registration.

On Monday, at a “Querdenker” event, I feared for the first time that I might end up in the hospital. One participant berated me quite aggressively because I was provocative and spreading lies. As a journalist, I would have no business here. We then talked to each other for quite a long time. In the end he apologized for being so aggressive. But he was just sort of done. We all are. (Matthias Lohr) *hna.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.

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