The big farmers' protest also reveals the deep divide between city dwellers and rural residents. The centrist parties are now asked to hold together the worlds that are falling apart, comments Georg Anastasiadis.
Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir, one of the more thoughtful people in the Green Party, sees the farmers' protests as a harbinger of American conditions in Germany. “People in rural areas have the feeling of being left behind. They worry that they will be left out in a politics that is increasingly dominated by city dwellers,” warns Özdemir. His fear of a deepening urban-rural divide is well-founded – but so is the rural population's concern that they will remain unheard by the woke elites who set the tone in Berlin. This goes across all worlds of life: for city dwellers, the wolf is a kind of romantic, mythical animal; But many people in the countryside fear him. City dwellers with a good climate conscience and thanks to well-developed local transport use their 49-euro ticket, which is heavily subsidized by taxpayers' money – but are jealous of the farmers for their agricultural aid. They demand more animal welfare and climate protection from them, but they like to buy cheap products in the store. The urban population has the luxury of condemning the car – but in the countryside it remains the central means of transport.
Attempt to delegitimize the farmers' uprising is likely to backfire
Holding together the worlds that are falling apart is the task of the middle parties. It is not very helpful to ridicule city dwellers and their political representatives as “party people,” as Hubert Aiwanger does. Conversely, the attempt by some traffic light politicians to delegitimize the farmers' protest by branding it as “right-wing” is likely to backfire enormously. That didn't work at the Erdinger heating demo. Yes, there are a lot of free riders, and everyone involved needs to pay close attention to who is marching where. But the Chancellor and his ministers have made too many hair-raising mistakes, from the heating law to the abolition of agricultural diesel, which they had to hectically correct afterwards, that they can now simply cover their ears so as not to hear the citizens' outcry.
George Anastasiadis
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