Merkel urges Germans to keep fighting for democracy – Action News Jax

BERLIN – (AP) – Germans must keep working for democracy, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday as the country celebrated the 31st anniversary of the merger of East and West.

In what should be one of her last big speeches, the outgoing Chancellor said that reunification had happened “because there were people in East Germany who risked everything for their rights, their freedom and a different society “.

Even today, said Merkel, achieving democracy should not be taken for granted.

“Democracy is not just there,” she told an audience in the eastern town of Halle, warning of the disinformation and incitement seen in current public debates. “On the contrary, we have to work at it together, over and over again, every day. “

Merkel cited the assassination of one of the regional politicians of his party, the assault on the Halle synagogue, and the recent fatal shooting of a gas station worker who asked someone to wear a mask as examples of verbal attacks leading to radicalization in German society.

She also warned that German reunification “is not a finished process,” noting that many former East Germans like her felt they had to continually justify that they are also part of the country.

Three decades later, there remains a political and economic divide between the east and the west of former Communist Germany. The difference was illustrated in last month’s national elections, where the far-right Alternative for Germany party won 16 constituencies in the east even as its overall vote share declined across the country.

Drawing on some very personal anecdotes, Merkel urged Germans to learn from each other’s past struggles to help address future challenges, such as climate change.

Referring to the pandemic restrictions of the past 18 months, Merkel said it had been “incredibly difficult” to temporarily restrict individual freedoms 30 years after reunification.

“To regard something as politically necessary and at the same time as an unbearable imposition on democracy is something that I consider to be one of the most difficult experiences of my tenure as Chancellor,” she said.

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