Jesus fecking Christ. And Berlin’s r0 was >1 last week. This is insane.
I spoke to a friend who attended that protest today in Berlin. While I am vocal in my opposing stance towards the protests in such a manner in Germany right now I do hope that something constructive and lasting comes from them.
What I learned in that conversation was not reassuring, though.
When I asked what concrete demands (adjustment of laws, harder punishment for disregarding existing laws concering discrimination, better funding of programms and initiatives by the state, changes in education plans, etc.) were commonly made, she said that it did not really became that concrete. It was a largely silent show of support (the organizers actually dubbed these protests as "silent demos") against racism in the US and in Germany.
Then I asked if the photos and videos of the protests were misleading as I saw that nearly all signs were in English. That question really took her by surprise and she replied: "Of course they were in English, silly. You don´t believe that the idiot Trump speaks German, right? The demo was to show that Berlin, Germany and the world stands with the protesters in the US and against racism."
What a nice sentiment that is. A sentiment that nobody in the relevant positions in the US will care about. I can name at least a dozen of instances off the top of my head of people marching on German streets against American actions (the most vividly for me were the huge protests in the wake of the second Iraq war) and for the US it was just an annoying buzzing sound.
I do believe that people attended the protests try to use the current momentum of awareness for racism to incite meaningful change in Germany, but it gets drowned out by the outrage over the murder of George Floyd and the civil war like happenings in the US.
My biggest fear in this regard is actually that these protests might backfire terribly for their cause.
If infection numbers would spike in two weeks and in the worst case scenario even go past the very clear communicated treshold by the government which will result in a second lockdown of the country, people will blame the protests for that which could actually setback the movement as it would connect it to death and economical damage.