Germany: Roadblocks by "Last Generation"

Nothing works anymore: Since the beginning of the week, the so-called climate protectors of the "last generation" have been blocking important traffic junctions in Berlin again, causing kilometer-long traffic jams and heated tempers among drivers. Their displeasure is justified. The state is unable to prevent these disruptive actions, which are aimed directly at the infrastructure and disguised as protest. It may take a while for the police to arrive at the scene. And when she is there, the first thing that usually happens is lukewarm speeches and attempts to de-escalate dialogue.

Consequentially, annoyed motorists are increasingly tackling things themselves. In the videos of these “civil society evictions”, which the “last generation” likes to exploit for propaganda purposes and post them on Twitter, one encounters the ordinary citizen who would like to be spared the autocratic circus of climate apocalypticists. These evictions then turn out to be correspondingly ruthless.

On the internet, the videos of recalcitrant drivers are mostly celebrated and commented on benevolently. "That's right," one often reads. Or: "I would take even more ruthless action against these troublemakers."

The anger is growing
Outside of the usual media and apart from green politicians like Friedrichhain's mayor Clara Hermann, nobody really likes to show solidarity with the "last generation" and their infrastructural sabotage, which raises the question of what purpose the disrupters are pursuing with their form of protest. In any case, this is not the way to promote understanding or sympathy.

And the state? Warns its citizens against vigilantism. Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU), referring to the escalating situation, threatened that taking the law into one's own hands "could also be punishable". The police have already investigated several in different occasions against motorists who bravely intervened in blockades and dragged the troublemakers off the road.

But what if the state is no longer able to recapture the genie that it let out of the bottle itself with exaggerated climate fears? And how do working and tax-paying citizens feel when they are so restricted in their basic right to freedom of mobility and then also lectured by politicians or harassed by the police? The answer to these questions is manifested in the increasing aggression that the disrupters are facing again this week. And it bears witness to a state that is increasingly losing control.

Source: Junge Freiheit