Chemnitz (dpa/sn) - Scientists have warned that right-wing extremists could use the international attention from the European Capital of Culture for their purposes in Chemnitz in 2025. "The Capital of Culture should try to protect itself as best it can by focusing on the question of democracy," said sociologist Ulf Bohmann on Thursday. Chemnitz has the chance to go from being a problem to a prime example of how to deal with risk-based democracy and a role model for other cities.
Sociologist Bohmann, together with his colleagues Henning Laux and Jenni Brichzin, presented an ethnographic study on the right-wing extremist riots four years ago, according to Chemnitz University of Technology. The trigger at the time was the violent death of a man on the outskirts of the town festival.
"The city moves on the threshold between a right-wing stronghold, apolitical longing and European capital of culture," the researchers sum up. "At this crossroads, it obviously cannot and must no longer calm itself with the thought of a system-stabilizing center that only needs to be awakened from its political slumber in order to help democracy win against those who despise it." Rather, it could be precisely this middle that turns out to be a political risk group.
However, there is also an opportunity in the risk, they say. "If the Capital of Culture process succeeds in developing effective and sustainable democratic forms of dealing with that risk, then a model of general importance for democracy could emerge at the same time."
