Wackersdorf: For many sustainable thinkers, the fight against the reprocessing plant between 1985 and 1989 was the beginning of their political socialization.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiederaufarbeitungsanlage_WackersdorfThe name of the town in the Upper Palatinate district of Schwandorf is symbolic of the dawn of the environmental movement. The "Bündnis 90/Grüne" party also sees its roots in the rebellion of the population against the WAA. Both are even documented in large form in the "House of History" in Bonn.
https://www.hdg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Fear_2014-02-0091.kl_Test_klein.jpg
Wackersdorf is also the symbol of a kind of democratization that the then state parties CSU (Bavaria) and SPD (North Rhine-Westphalia) could not have imagined: People gradually turned away from such "people's parties". This is one of the reasons why a tiger duck coalition (CDU and FDP) is currently in power in NRW. And in Bavaria, the CSU is currently facing the biggest electoral disaster in its history, according to researchers' forecasts for the state parliament vote on October 14.
A disenchantment with politics is palpable in the population for anyone who walks through villages and towns with their eyes and ears open, without blinkers on social media or media websites. Radical forces such as Pegida have been exploiting this mood for years, and with the slogan "We are the people" they are scaring the governments at federal and state level. This slogan is beginning to be believed. According to recent surveys, almost a third of people in eastern Germany in particular are planning to vote for the AfD in the next election. A party that has no real alternatives to offer. No, it even exhibits a backward-looking attitude that revives in the minds of many the ideas of the "1000" Nazi years that were thought to be long gone.At precisely this dangerous time, Federal Environment Minister Peter Altmaier wants to "accelerate" the expansion of the electricity transmission grid, which is being fought against in many corners of Germany.
This "action plan" is intended to enact quasi-emergency legislation to build several thousand kilometers of new high-voltage direct current lines across Germany, both above and below ground. The CDU minister is even breaking his personal promise to visit all critical locations in advance and talk to people about alternatives. However, many of the opponents of the power line want decentralized renewable energy with storage in the region, but certainly not more coal-fired power via a power line from eastern Germany or North Rhine-Westphalia
After all, the electricity company RWE wants to clear the "Hambach Forest" for good right now: an area of forest that is many hundreds of years old, a small piece of remaining nature in Germany's largest federal state that has already been ploughed up by the coal industry. So it's no wonder that many people are literally climbing the trees there, chaining themselves to the top and demonstrating against the planned clearing of the primeval forest.
The current open-cast mining plans are not only the fault of the SPD or CDU, but also the Greens. As part of the former NRW state governments, they supported fundamental decisions for Hambach or "Garzweiler II". Westdeutscher Rundfunk commented on "Leitentscheidung 1" on this open-cast lignite mine in 1991 as follows: "Since today, the Greens have been a completely normal party that falls over."
The images of "Hambi" are strongly reminiscent of Wackersdorf: there, too, martially equipped police officers carried away activists, officers cut chains with bolt cutters so that tracks and construction fences could be reported free of WAA opponents. Even today, environmental groups, opponents of nuclear power and green energy activists across Germany are showing solidarity with the treehouse squatters near Hambach - just as they did in Wackersdorf.Hopefully, many people who are now disappointed and turning away from the former people's parties will watch the movie "Wackersdorf" in the cinema and become politically active again. This is a better alternative than falling for the simple slogans of a self-proclaimed "alternative" party.
Maybe even a new, genuine environmental and peace party will emerge. After all, even Anna Maria Sturm, one of the main initiators of the protests at the time, says she has become estranged from the once new Greens. Nevertheless, Sturm is as political today as she was then: she wants to organize a protest bus from Wackersdorf to Hambach herself. A sign of social awakening?
PS: Anna Maria Sturm Jr, her daughter, plays her leading role convincingly in the movie. So the environmental movement seems to be hereditary.
http://www.wackersdorf-film.de/
Author: Future Energy Team Gammel
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