Good morning. 🌸
Within a single week, both the memorial bench and the memorial tree commemorating the Berlin CSD attack were vandalised and destroyed.
A bench.
A tree.
Both rainbow-coloured.
Both symbols of remembrance, solidarity and love.
It should be difficult to imagine anyone being angry enough about that to destroy them.
And yet here we are.
There is something profoundly rotten about a person so consumed by hatred that a rainbow-painted bench becomes an enemy, and a tree planted in memory of victims becomes something that must be ripped from the ground.
But perhaps we should stop pretending that this is merely some unfortunate disagreement between people with different opinions.
It isn't.
Fascism has never been satisfied with words. First it tells you that certain people are disgusting. Then it tells you they are dangerous. Then it tells you they don't belong.
And eventually, someone will start killing the people they feel don't belong.
So no.
There can be no compromise with that.
We will not make ourselves smaller so fascists can feel comfortable. We will not hide our colours. We will not politely negotiate over whether our friends, our families, our children or ourselves deserve to exist.
They tear down the tree?
Plant another.
They destroy the bench?
Build two.
They try to erase us?
Stand together. Stand visible. Stand unafraid.
Don't let hatred decide what our streets look like.
Don't let fear decide how loudly we love.
Don't let fascists teach us to disappear.
Show up. Speak out. Protect one another. Defend our spaces. Rebuild what they destroy. And never, ever surrender the ground they want us to leave.
They can tear down a tree.
They cannot uproot a movement. 🌈🏳️⚧️
#CSD #Berlin #Pride #QueerResistance #NoPasaran #Antifascism #QueerSolidarity
