RuhrPride #CSD #Essen banning antifascist and leftist symbols, for a Pride demo, right after what happened in Mönchengladbach, in the year where Junge & Stark normalized Nazi rallies in Essen, in the year where CSDs are attacked like nothing before. Germans keep inventing new ways to disappoint.
Lots of people are taking the statement of "neutrality" at face value but this isn't an attempt at neutrality, it's an attempt at denial, a desperate heads in the sand. They believe that if the antifa stay silent & invisible, the Nazis either will let this pass or will be safely contained by the police. It's the same as the "provocation" discourse, like, "the Nazis want you to fight back, don't give them an excuse". Just roll over and whimper, I suppose. Look at what you made daddy do.
In general Germans, being majority white, both trust the police too much whenever violence turns up, and trust themselves too little to become able to handle it. I don't have to say how self-defeating this approach is. Essen Neonazis are routinely posting Instagram stories posing in their shooting galleries, meanwhile our side wants to pretend neoliberal normality will go on forever. The safety that people think they have here is a sham, but there's no way to make them understand this at more than an intellectual level. They don't feel threatened for their lives. They should.
