On the 29th August 2020 the city of Berlin was flooded with people protesting against the rules concerning the Coronavirus. They demanded the immediate abolishment of the restrictions and while most people remained peaceful, there were some incidents where the police needed to arrest extremists.
Let´s be honest – we all imagined the year 2020 to be a little different. If it´s the long-awaited family vacation that had to be cancelled or just the weekly trip to the grocery store where you now must wear a mask all the time.
We probably all had these moments in which we thought things like “I just want these rules to be gone so I can live a normal life again”. And it is completely normal to have these thoughts and to have the desire to just move on with our normal lives again.
Most people are aware of how important these rules are and that they exist so that we will be able to go back to our normal lives as soon as possible. These rules do not exist to steal our freedom – they were made to protect us and decrease the risk of getting and spreading Covid-19.
Sadly, there are still many people who do not get that. This shows when we hear about so called “Corona – Protests” where opponents of the Corona rules (let´s call these people “Covidiots”) get together (without masks and minimal distance of course) to protest against those government actions that were originally designed to keep us healthy and safe.
An example of such a protest can be found in Berlin where up to 38.000 people met on the 29th august all over the city to protest. They had posters with slogans like “Stop the Corona madness” or “End the Corona dictatorship” and demanded the end of the Corona rules because they feel like their freedom is being restricted by the government. Amongst those people you can find elders, grown-ups, teenagers and even families.
Around 3000 police officers were required to try to keep the protests peaceful. This only worked partially because in some parts of the city a few extremists started to break through barriers, destroy others property, set things on fire and the right-wing extremists even tried to storm the Reichstag. The police had to go against them and arrested about 300 people while around 40 police officers got harmed.
Later on, the protest got dissolved due to the lack of health measures and the violation of the minimal distance. However afterwards the protesters met up again.
Protests like this one can be found all around the world since the beginning of quarantine and they will most likely continue to be events supporting the spreading of the Coronavirus instead of preventing it.
P.S. Remember hard times don´t last forever and we will get through this together. And if you can stay positive in a negative situation you will win so spread JOY not germs.
Carina Bergmann, Rebecca Dotzauer, Stefanie Griesbach, Maria Sesselmann, Q12
Pictures by OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay and by https://www.flickr.com/photos/mmmswan/ – https://www.flickr.com/photos/mmmswan/49818849926/in/album-72157714040852303/, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90850443