I am deeply shocked, and deeply hurt in my soul as a democrat that the stronghold of American democracy, the Capitol in Washington, has been attacked so openly and with such outrages. These outrages are nothing more and nothing less than an attack on the idea of democracy.
When the Senate met on 06.01.2021 to confirm Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States, crowds of people gathered in war gear and equipment to overthrow the government and instigate a coup d’etat, as in a dictatorship. These people were not protesters, they were not demonstrators, they were “rioters mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists, it’s that basic, it’s that simple »as Joe Biden himself said on BBC News: “rioting mobs, rioters, domestic terrorists, it’s so basic, so simple.” And the sitting president looks on idly, welcoming the crackdown and refusing to deploy the National Guard.
My comment on the incidents:
It doesn’t take much imagination to imagine that the National Guard would not have been inactive if the rioters had been African-Americans. They probably would not have hesitated to respond. In the end, there would have been more than five unfortunate deaths! We all saw how the peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters were treated; how they were unhesitatingly targeted with rigour and the use of weapons. This is structural racism.
This onslaught on the Capitol was predictable, given how tempers have been under Trump’s administration. The exercise of power at any cost, the contempt for human rights, the denigration of the African continent, the populist diplomacy at the international level, the (fake) information, on the principle of “divide and rule”, leave the United States close to civil war. The pure division of the country has been brought about by Trump. So this is how the mandate of a US president ends in fear, chaos, violence and death. On the day Congress was supposed to certify its defeat, the country got the receipt: it is sinking into rubble, civil war-like conditions.
My thoughts go out to the Capitol colleagues who suffered such humiliation, and especially to those of the Black Caucus who invited me to the Capitol last year and who supported me this year by sending a letter to the President of the European Commission after the Brussels incident. I am whole heartedly with them and share their outrage. I supported all my colleagues in Washington.
Author: Dr. phil. Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana
Member oft he European Parliament (MEP) Green Party; Co-President of EU-ARDI (Anti Racism and Diversity Intergruppe)
Im Internet: Letter from „Congress of the United States“ .Washington , DC 20515, July 2020; – 10 US-MEP signed this letter Karen Baas, Black Caucus Chair and chair of the Democratic Committee on Caucus and Procedures,. in: https://alceehastings.house.gov/uploadedfiles/black_helsinki_commissioners_led_letter_final.pdf
