The change on the right side of Germany has made its mark on the national game of the country, which causes all kinds of illumination.
Many German football clubs and fan groups have demonstrated against distant rights in the last one year, both stadiums in match days and on the streets of their cities. Several major clubs of the top two leagues in Germany, including Weeder Bremen, VFL Bochum, FSV Mej 05, 1. The FC Colan and Hanover 96 include, calling on their supporters to oppose right -wing extremism.
The continuous success of a distant option for Germany (AFD) is in the leading attention to the federal election on 23 February: in a recent home game in St. Pauli, a Hamburg-based club tradition with a strong anti-fascist, Fans chanting their feelings: “Hamburg hates AFD!”
He marked and marked the International Holocost Day on 27 January, holding a banner, which wrote: “Those who fight Nazis cannot trust the kingdom.”
More casteism, more politics
But this thing of the spirit of politics is away from universal – and for some politically engaged football fans, if the overall trends among fans in recent years are hesitant to get away from the performance of political allegiance.
“I like them to have more courage,” Rico Knock said, board games (“Social sports”), for the organization of football fans which helps in promoting inclusive society. Many times, he said, he has seen that “fan groups interacted between Thasm, have decided something ‘very political,” so they compromise on the smallest possible consensus, or they say nothing. “
This is contradictory, as the culture wars of Germany have focused on football, the most popular sports and a major presence in the German society. For example, the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, when the German National Football Team announced the intention of taking the LGBTQ+ people on the pitch with the “One Love” armband to oppose the host country’s laws.
Similarly, last year, when Germany hosted the European Championship, AFD used the opportunity to start its attack on it, the AFD understood “Worsenness” in football. In the June European election, the party’s prominent candidate Maximilian Krh prepared the men’s national team on Tikok as a “politically right fare contingent”.
“This is the rainbow team, proud team,” he said, referring to the defense of the LGBTQ+ rights team. “We can ignore it.”
“Football is more and more political,” Nock told DW. He said that that is the correct change in the political culture of Germany, reflected in football culture, although “is not that you see real right -wing banners in stadiums”.
But both knocks and journalists Ronnie Blaschke, who have published a book about racism in football, have noticed that the racism has reduced from a taboo in the stand.
“After the so -called refugee crisis in 2015 in 2015, we have seen a change in the stadiums to the right as we have more racist incidents against black football players,” Blaschke told DW’s Dana Sumlaji, “we have seen a change in the stadiums. “We have massive racism and social media, so you have black German national players for young teams or for national team, you can see in social media comment section and find many racist comments.”
OTH protesters ‘can learn a lot from organized football fans’
The German football fan culture is complex. Some clubs like St. Pauli had long had a leftist identity. Others, such as Alemania Achen, are believed to have a connection with a distant view-although near the club.
Several other clubs, meanwhile, port the port to both left and right -wing. Knock has noted that, with some fan groups, whatever political identity becomes less important on the match day, when the club’s separation takes precedence.
Knock is so doubtful that political football fan cultures may have a common impact on society. But he thinks that football fans have a special power: when they protest, they have a confrontation with unity, rebellious emotion-congestion and a sense of humor, which regularly anti-AFD There is a lack of demonstrations.
“You can learn a lot from organized football fans: Football fans are often very creative, they are good to know what to do for creative effective images in the media,” Heer said. “Classic examples are the use of fireworks and smoking bombs – they are always pictures that are printed. Certainly, other protesters can learn something from it.”
‘This fees like final stand fighting for democracy in Germany’
Susain Franky Shalkar Fan Initiative is a board member-an anti-racist organization of Shalke fans established in 1992, when violent right-wing goons had a regular vision in football stadiums.
Schalke is located in the city of Gelsenkirchen, which is an industrial heart region in the Ruhr Valley of Germany earlier. Although it was once a stronghold for the center-top social democrats, the industrial decline in Gelsencanne has transformed the city into one of the poorest cities in Germany, and far-flung AFDs have received land. Borusia Dortmund, the neighbor and eldest rival of the club, has a very manufactured Nav-Nazi party in its fan base in the 1970s.
Franke is worried that football culture is coming back in those days. “It was better, and now it is getting spoiled again. In many places fans are wrestling for the story,” he told DW.
For Franke, the decision by Christian Democrat leader Frederick Marse to pass a non-comprehensive resolution through the German Parliament with the help of AFD has made its group work more essential. “For me, it sounds like the last stand for democracy in Germany,” he said. “Whether you are a football fan or not, it is very important that you take this moment very seriously.”
Although there is no clear evidence that football fans are more or less politically engaged than anyone else, the presence of football in German society often appears more when they express political views.
“Football has a big chance, and a big access,” Franke said. “It appears widely – in news, social media and German society. That is why I honestly expect people to take the honest stand and say something.”
Edited by: Reena Goldenburg
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