For a couple of weeks I read stories about the fact that Florida is prohibiting books in schools. At the beginning I was curious and thought „ok, what’s the story?“, but then I slowly figured out, that they are really prohibiting books from public schools in Florida.
It is an initiative from the republican side and it is about context that is not „conform“ to their definition of values. Well, what do they mean with that? Transgender, queer, oral sex, publications about the practice of sex, women and women living together, men and men living together, kids growing up in families of equal gender, and so on. There are communities like „moms for liberty“, who are publicly forcing this prohibition. By the way – there is a Governor of Florida, called Ron DeSantis – Republican, who is called the contender of Donald Trump for the upcoming presidency. Fantastic, that this guy is allowing in his state to happen things like that.
I looked in the calendar and it is 2023. Actually 1st May.
When you come from Germany, these kind of things remind you how the 3rd Reich started. How things got forbidden in a very slow process. And at the beginning, people were still discussing. And then, 10th May 1933, on the Bebelplatz in Berlin, the Nazi book burning took place. Starting 6th May, the „German Students Association“, was stealing up to 20.000 books and brought them together at the Bebelplatz. The students invited Joseph Goebbels to make a speech before burning the books. Goebbels, for sure…, followed this invitation. He held an inflammatory speech, attended by the SS, SA and the Hitler youth. They finally burned the 20.000 books. Books from Karl Marx, Erich Kästner, Heinrich Mann and Albert Einstein. Imagine, Erich Kästner was present during this burning. Whenever you are in Berlin – go to the Empty Library – a memorial to this happening.
All of these messages from the US are reminding me of these happenings. Leaving me wondering why humans are so ignorant and stupid to run into the misery again and again. Don’t tolerate that. Support equality and transparency
