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Three days ago, my hometown Berlin witnessed an event (German news article) that combines several culture war flashpoints into an almost absurdist melange: a cyclist was driven over by a concrete mixer truck (who was at fault is unclear at the moment, initial statements by the police indicate that the cyclist fell over by her own and that the driver could not react in time, though he might still be at fault for driving too close to her), the driver, as he was leaving his vehicle to call for help, was attacked and wounded with a knife by an unknown and currently fugitive
homeless* person, resulting in him needing hospital care, and finally, to top it all off, the special emergency service vehicle purpose built for rescuing people stuck under heavy vehicles was hindered in its approach to the scene of the accident by a traffic jam caused by climate activists who had glued themselves to one of the main highways of the city, losing valuable time and forcing personnel that had made it to the scene to "improvise", in their own words. The woman has died of her injuries today, the driver will survive, as far as is known.It goes without saying that this story has something for everyone: car drivers vs bikers & new urbanists; crime, homelessness and decay of public spaces; climate activists vs people wanting to go about their day without disruption; and of course the extra comedic cherry on top that this happened in Berlin, notorious for incompetence and embarrassing gaffes.
In the days that followed, several notable people weighed in on social media. One particular take by one of the luminaries of German climate activism quickly made waves on social and legacy media for its display of a pretty cold-bloded pragmatism:
(image of the now deleted original)
Now, this guy in particular was always pretty radical, but until now this exact scenario was always waved away as something improbable that no activist of good conscience would allow to happen. As already mentioned, after the backlash he quickly deleted it and apologized, but his output since then has been to basically affirm the content of the tweet in a more polite tone, and the scene around him seems to agree AFAICT.
The last few months have seen an increase in highly visible stunts by climate activists, most notably a constant flow of people gluing themselves to the glass casings around famous paintings throughout Europe's museums. Highway blockades such as the one from this event are becoming a regular occurrence here in Berlin and other large German cities. It seems as though climate activism is becoming more and more serious. Up until now, reactions have been more annoyed than angry, with most people I talked to or saw posting on social media dismissing these activities as childish stunts. This and the rather unapologetic stance of the people involved might change things a bit. It remains to be seen if the reaction will be a decrease in happenings as activists are slapped down by prohibitive fines or a further radicalization. Demographically, the protestor seem to be a mixture of almost entirely urban and college-educated young people and a few younger Boomers and older Gen-Xers. I don't know if that's the stuff which refinery bombers or electricity-cable cutters are made of, but perhaps an event approaching significant eco-terrorism might be on the horizon.
* I remember reading something to this effect initially, but that seems to have been retracted or deleted. For now, nothing but the assailant's gender is confirmed.
Wow. Tragic in the classic sense—no one wanted any of these outcomes, except maybe the knife-wielder, and yet one thing led to another. It really does beggar belief.
I remain confident that radicalization and counter-radicalization will not meaningfully escalate. Radicals and edgelords say shit on Twitter all the time; the unusual thing about this case is that outlets happened to run with it. As for backlash, I don’t think that any number of tweets will convince random people that environmentalists are a threatening entity. They will (correctly) continue to be viewed as something that happens other people.
Twitter is okay at convincing other users that one believes/will act on something. It’s pretty abysmal at convincing outsiders that such a belief has accrued a meaningful following. News sites will say such-and-such is trending, and show screenshots of one or two inflammatory examples. This will fail to mobilize counter-radicals as long as they aren’t affected personally by one of them.
"Wanted" as in consciously acted towards this world-state? Probably not.
But preferring it to one in which a highway wasn't protested and the green movement didn't gain a "martyr"? Well, there is at least Mr. Mueller.
To the degree one conflates these two, depends on how charitable one is.
From the other side of the aisle, the right is often accused of "wanting" muslim terror-attacks or anti-European hate-crimes, because it can use them to build a cae against immigration.
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