Pros and Cons of the #NACHBAR

Last week, the vice-president of the right wing political party “Alternative für Deutschland — AfD”, Alexander Gauland made the following statement about the full-back of the German National Football squad, Jérôme Boateng in order to promote his views on the integration of everything “foreign” into Germany and its culture: “The people like him as a football player. But they wouldn’t want a Boateng to be their neighbor.” The implied background of this statement is Boateng’s dark skin color, which he inherited from his Ghanaian father. His mother is German, as well as himself, since he was born and raised in Berlin.

Now, anyone who has switched on their TV, internet browser or looked at any newspaper during last week knows about the statement and its aftermath: Social media were flooded with posts countering Gauland, thousands of private people, celebrities and institutions proclaimed how much they’d love to have Boateng and his family as their neighbours (just search the #NACHBAR or #BOATENG in Facebook), whilst simultaneously bashing Gauland’s racist slur. Essentially, this is a good thing, since a vast majority displayed their disgust for racism and had Boateng’s back after the public attack. Also, the full-back himself reacted in a very calm official statement that easily dismissed the politician’s views as racist and uncalled-for.

So why am I writing this post about a topic that has been settled since a few days now? Well, I just find myself in a problematic spot, since on the one hand I am really glad about all the positive feedback in the (social) media but on the other hand, I think with all the publicity and turmoil that his statement has caused, Mr. Gauland has reached everything he wanted, which was to get attention for himself and his good-for-nothing party. Surely, one cannot just look away and let such statements stand for themselves, but I think that the AfD uses offensive declarations like Gauland’s in order to strategically gain attention for their cause, and it wouldn’t be the first time they did this.

To conclude this post: I am not sure how future slurs of the AfD should be reacted to in a way that on the one hand gives them the riposte they deserve but on the other hand does not provide them with more momentum. I suppose social media attend to both tendencies in an uncontrollable way.