Got any lawn to mow?
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What with the Federal Elections looming on the horizon at the end of this month, all parties are busy holding rallies to catch more voters.
All parties?
Yes, all parties, unfortunately so, including the far-right NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands - National-Democratic Party of Germany).
As so far all plans and/or attempts to forbid the NPD have led to nothing1 holding rallies is their protected right as a registered political party.
So on the 28th of last month the NPD was holding a rally in Kochel am See in Bavaria.
The original plan had been to simply ignore them, mayor Thomas W. Holz (33, CSU) told newspapers in an interview.
This was proving difficult though, as the NPD came “armed” with megaphones and huge loudspeakers, effectively drowning Town Hall and the surrounding area in their right wing drivel.
Not easy to ignore such a racket.
And then…2
… a resident started mowing his lawn.
Another one “remembered” he had some urgent work to do that required the use of a buzz saw.
This inspired another to do some serious work in his garden with a chainsaw.
Other residents got out their lawnmowers and chainsaw as well.
Yet others drove by Town Hall with their tractors and cars, honking their horns.
According to the mayor the NPD could not interest anyone in their flyers either, and “Kochel has never been mowed so tidily before”.
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Sources (in German):
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September 2nd, 2009 at 3:12 pm
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I wonder if people disinterest is because of the loudness or is it such right wing parties are getting less interesting than before!
There is some un-balanced situation in Europe generally. Many people talk about the fear from Islam, credit crisis, and many politicians are taking this opportunity to make their voices heard. On the other hand, there are many who are just living with no problems and wonder what the fuzz all about!!
I love this post, by the way, thanks for sharing
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:30 pm
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Hah! Good for them.
Go, Kochel am See, go!
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
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September 2nd, 2009 at 7:42 pm
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I would think that the use of huge loudspeakers would constitute disturbing the peace. Such bad behavior is deserving of a huge fine being levied!
Well, good for the residents of Kochel drowning out these very rude interlopers with even more noise!
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:21 pm
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@ MixMax: I dunno, maybe the residents of Kochel am See are true World Citizens and deserve a medal or two. Or three.
Bavaria as a whole seems to be more sympathetic towards the far right than these people are (Go, Kochel, go! indeed).
Either way, I don’t think that the noise level would have driven off true supporters of the NPD; they’d only have felt reassured in their delusion that Germany has been undermined by Islamists and Islamophiles and needs to be liberated by them.
Yup, at the moment Islamists, er, Muslims (oh hell, ’s all the same anyway, right?) are the main enemy of the far-right political parties because it is so easy right now to play on people’s fears and distrust.
Pro Köln for instance is only trying to protect us from mosques being built in Germany. Because as everyone “knows”, if Muslims are allowed to build real mosques they will feel even less inclined to integrate themselves, and in 10 years we’ll have the shariah ruling Germany.
Don’t believe me? Talk to Pro Köln members or some of the self-professed “Islam experts” who are writing their Islamophobic drivel for a rising number of magazines - including formerly leftist magazines….
Not that they’re forgetting their other goals over their fight against Islam(ism); for instance Pro Köln was involved in the publishing (and free distribution in front of schools) of a “youth magazine” called “Objektiv” (objective my ass….) which - apart from articles on “Überfremdung” (superalienation) and wicked Muslims molesting lone blonde girls on the subways - contains ads like this. The tag line means “German is geil/cool/desirable”.
Fun fact: the woman in this ad is a Czech porn actress (not so Arian after all, *snigger*), and the publishers never contacted her or her manager about the use of that photo (legal action!!!).
Well, as I already told you, I loved reading about this too, and while I was sharing it with someone else I thought “Why not write a blog post on it and share it with non-German speakers as well?”
@ the nasty Kitten: Indeed.
@ Caesar: Well, thank you for trying.
@ David: Well, some sources say that one problem was that it was an authorized rally which would have made it difficult to do something, while others say that the police was lacking the technical equipment to measure the noise level, while yet others say that the police had no trouble shutting down some left-wing noisy protest rally.
The problem with the latter though - if it is even true, I have no clue - may simply have been that the anti-rally had not been authorized.
Either way, way to go, Kochel!
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:47 am
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*appaluds*
That so excellent and inspiring! I bow to the good folk of Kochel am See.
Next time I see a BNP member, I will simply wip out my chainsaw…
side note: I see you went with “superalienation”. It works well
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:53 am
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And I agree with Mix-Max that the feeling and situation in Europe recently seems generally unbalanced.
Theres a slow drain on civil rights and xenophobia is increasing…seems to me that islamaphobia and fears about the economic crisis are encouraged by some politicans.
September 3rd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
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@ Pandora: Chainsaw, eh?
Yeah, I first scrapped “superalienation” as the Mad Canuck said he’d never heard any of the words the dictionary suggested, but then Frans sent me that wiki link and I changed it back again.
Maybe the word gets used so rarely in English that hardly anyone knows it?
September 4th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
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My dictionary does not contain the word “superalienation”, but it was printed about 40 years ago. Is this a recently created word?
September 4th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
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I guess so. I don’t know.
The startling fact is that “Überfremdung” is a term that is very present in Germany, and has been in use (in its present meaning; never heard of the old one mentioned on wiki) for at least 20 years.
As the fight against “Überfremdung” is one of the two main pillars of the Pro Köln movement (the other one being the fight against Islam(ism)) I consulted my favourite (and so far accurate) online dictionary.
It offered me the choices “hyperxenesis”, “superalienation”, “foreign domination” and “foreign infiltration”.
I was tending towards “superalienation” as it sounded the most like a more or less literal translation of “Überfremdung”.
Then I asked a few native speakers for help, Lelly/Pandora, the Mad Canuck and the (in)famous Newf Brad.
None had heard any of those words.
The Mad Canuck could think of no other word either, really, when I described to him what the German word meant, but eventually came up with “cultural dilution”. Sounded not quite right either, but I thought I’d go with that before using a word that apparently no-one had ever heard of.
But then Frans gave me that link to the wiki entry on “Überfremdung” and I went back to “superalienation” and included the link so that everyone could look it up if necessary.
I have been reading a lot of racist drivel lately and found some of what I’ve been reading very alarming (and disturbing).
But I think that in some ways this random discovery is even more scary.
We Germans have a xenophobic word that is mainly being used by the far right, but not exclusively by them.
And there’s no real translation into English.
Way to go, Germany….
September 2nd, 2014 at 6:07 pm
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