An event aimed at encouraging German youth to participate in politics turned sour yesterday after two young men were reportedly chastised for wearing a pin with the German flag.
From October 12 to 15, Germany’s parliament, known locally as the Bundestag, hosted a special event titled Youth and Politics, welcoming over 300 young people from across Germany to participate in a mock-government.
Taking on the roles of lawmakers, the large-scale simulation had the participants, aged 17 to 20, re-enact parliamentary procedures for the nation’s various political parties. The event culminated in a final debate, led by real Members of Parliament, where the young “politicians” sought to win a majority of “votes” for their political concerns.
While Youth and Politics has a long history, it was paused during the COVID-19 outbreak and was just resumed this year with great fanfare.
But what should have been a light-hearted event was soured by a viral video in which two young men reveal they had been told to remove their patriotic lapel pins.
In a nearly 30-second video, which has now gone viral on German social media, one of the young men explains that a supervisor came to him and asked him to take off his pin because it threatened “neutrality.”
Expressing exacerbation, the young man turned to his friend and asked for his opinion the situation, who replies: “I think this represents very much the self-hatred that many here have. […] And I think this is definitely not the future for us.” He ends by encouraging people to vote for the right-wing Alternative for Germany.
The incident was witnessed by Tariq Khan, a parliamentary video producer, who submitted an inquiry on the call to order the young men had faced. Under a post featuring the young men’s video, Khan uploaded a screenshot of the response he received from Yvonne Magwas, the vice-president of the Bundestag, who suggested that the pin was an inappropriate “political message” that violated “parliamentary order.”
“Nevertheless, how can wearing the German flag convey a political message, especially in your own country? Absurd,” Khan added.
The video featuring the two young men, who have not yet been named, has gone viral, attracting ample attention on X and Instagram from outraged German nationals.
Sven Tritschler, the Chairman of the Alternative for Germany in the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, uploaded the video to his Instagram account today and condemned the Youth and Politics organizers.
“They don’t even go out of their way to hide their hate for this nation anymore,” he wrote. In the comments, his followers similarly expressed upset, with one suggesting that had the young men been wearing “Ukraine or LGBT Pride flag” pins, they would never have been questioned.
“This is the German federal parliament! They are not supposed to be neutral there, but represent German interests,” another commenter wrote.
