{"id":33828,"date":"2025-02-20T08:06:47","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T08:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/20\/in-these-dark-times-of-racially-charged-election-campaigns-the-german-left-offers-a-flicker-of-hope-fatma-aydemir\/"},"modified":"2025-02-20T08:06:47","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T08:06:47","slug":"in-these-dark-times-of-racially-charged-election-campaigns-the-german-left-offers-a-flicker-of-hope-fatma-aydemir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/20\/in-these-dark-times-of-racially-charged-election-campaigns-the-german-left-offers-a-flicker-of-hope-fatma-aydemir\/","title":{"rendered":"In these dark times of racially charged election campaigns, the German left offers a flicker of hope | Fatma Aydemir"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Heidi Reichinnek\u2019s speech went viral on TikTok \u2013 and sparked a surge of support from voters who reject the mainstream\u2019s xenophobia<\/p>\n<p>I was shopping for groceries the other day in Berlin\u2019s neglected northern outskirts, when I remembered a joke. A banker, a social welfare recipient and an asylum seeker are sitting at a table. There are 12 cookies in front of them. The banker takes 11 cookies and says to the social welfare recipient: \u201cWatch out, the refugee wants your cookie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It came back to me as I witnessed a young white mother completely losing it at the checkout. At first I thought it was the prices that had caused her fury, though there was no indication of that; I was probably just projecting my own anxieties about money on to the woman\u2019s tantrum. It took me a moment to realise that she was accusing another woman, also a mother but not white, of standing in her way on purpose. She shouted that this was her country and we should all step out of her way and that soon we would see. Two people told her to be quiet and one older woman went to calm her down, but there was no chance. The young white mother chose to stay loud and angry, and she knew exactly at whom.<\/p>\n<p>Fatma Aydemir is a Berlin-based author, novelist, playwright and a Guardian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/europe-news\">Europe<\/a> columnist<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2025\/feb\/20\/in-these-dark-times-of-racially-charged-election-campaigns-the-german-left-offers-a-flicker-of-hope\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heidi Reichinnek\u2019s speech went viral on TikTok \u2013 and sparked a surge of support from voters who reject the mainstream\u2019s xenophobia I was shopping for groceries the other day in Berlin\u2019s neglected northern outskirts, when I remembered a joke. A banker, a social welfare recipient and an asylum seeker are sitting at a table. There &#8230; <a title=\"In these dark times of racially charged election campaigns, the German left offers a flicker of hope | Fatma Aydemir\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/20\/in-these-dark-times-of-racially-charged-election-campaigns-the-german-left-offers-a-flicker-of-hope-fatma-aydemir\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about In these dark times of racially charged election campaigns, the German left offers a flicker of hope | Fatma Aydemir\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}