- Wow, guess who’s back…
- Reminders
Wow, guess who’s back…
Last Sunday there was a vote. The city-state of Berlin and the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania held regional elections to very different results. Berlin re-elected their outgoing and popular mayor Klaus Wowereit (affectionately know as “Wowi” – pronounced “Voh-vie”), a gay party-going Social Democrat, as expected. The true shock came from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania where the NPD party (National Democratic Party in English) secured 6 of the 71 seats in the eastern state’s legislature with a vote of 7.3 percent. Now this isn’t a party with a good past, it’s the new Nazi party. The NPD has cleaned up its image and traded in its uniform of shaved heads and boots with laces for suits and clean haircuts. They promise to bring jobs back to the horribly unemployed eastern state (who has Germany’s highest unemployment rate, 18%) while promoting German nationalism. People’s biggest fear has become a reality after the NPD was granted rights to be an official party in 2003 on the grounds that knowledge should prevail over far-right extremism. Jack Layton and his NDP were not involved in any way.
Reminders
In light of the recent elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, I think it’s a good idea to show you a bit of Berlin’s past. This is a city of reminders. People don’t want to forget the last hundred years and they don’t want to become complacent. Berlin has scars everywhere you look and memorials in every possible place. You simply need to notice them and remember.
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