Minneapolis Is More Than a Warning – the Struggle for Democracy Has Long Reached Europe

On Monday, federal agents advance in formation in Minneapolis. No conversation, no hesitation, only enforcement. In the front row stands a woman. She holds a sign, makes the peace sign. She says nothing, she attacks no one, she does not move. Seconds later, she is violently shoved to the ground. Her body slams into the asphalt. The sign falls. This is exactly how it is meant to look.

Shortly afterward, the same image elsewhere. An anti ICE protester refuses to step back. He stays where he is. Not aggressive, not loud, simply steadfast. The response is immediately physical. He is grabbed, thrown backward, forced to the ground. No dialogue, no proportionality, only force.

What matters is not who pushed whom. What matters is what is being enforced. Standing still is declared a transgression. Visible protest is declared a provocation, but it has to be. One has to go there in order to keep the struggle for democracy alive, to document it. That is also our task, our mindset, which does not look away. People have to help one another, especially the innocent. Those who do not move are removed. Not because they are dangerous, but because they remain visible. That is precisely where the message lies, and it knows no borders.

What is happening in Minneapolis no longer feels foreign. It carries no specific place within it, but a mood. One of those quiet shifts that you only notice once it has already happened. People stand there because they believe they are allowed to stand, that they must stand. The state moves on because it has learned not to stop. In that brief moment, between body and motion, something is decided that later comes to be seen as self evident. People then say there was no alternative. But exactly here, in this moment, there was one. Anyone who believes this concerns only America fails to see how similar our doubts already sound. Here too, people quietly ask themselves whether standing still is still permitted. This logic knows no borders.