### Reader’s Letter to The Guardian, 21st September 2024 ###
Dear Editor,
So, with the third regional election here in Germany coming up tomorrow (in Brandenburg) people are asking themselves why the AfD and BSW (Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance) are riding so high? With the media here frantically trying to paint supporters of those two parties either as fascists or communists. This ongoing trend is becoming massively tiresome and is not helping the debate.
Personally I would not vote AfD but I have turned against “mainstream” for very concrete and non-radical reasons …
First are the wars: I am distraught that my tax-money is going to supply weapons (both to Ukraine and to Israel) thereby prolonging the slaughter. With an almost total absence of diplomacy!
Second there are crazy decisions which significantly compromise the normal citizen. For example here in Cologne 1.3 billion euros have been spent renovating the rather mediocre, concrete, 1950s opera-house. At the same time the central market is due to close thereby removing sourcing/sales options for masses of small farms and small businesses (e.g. restaurants and small shops).
Then we have pie-in-the-sky plans to “save” the environment: For example Germany is investing billions in a plan for a UAE-investor to produce “green hydrogen” in Egypt to then ship that as ammonia to Germany to be converted to hydrogen. Massively expensive, convoluted and dangerous (e.g. there is currently a ship, The Ruby, loaded with ammonium-nitrate pottering around the North Sea, which no port will accept because they think it is a floating bomb). Not to mention the fact that probably Egypt itself could use that electrical energy far more efficiently.
So, when policy becomes this weird, why would you vote for one of the mainstream parties?
Yours,
Alan Mitcham
Link to Ammonium-Nitrate article: https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/frachter-ammoniumnitrat-100.html
Link to article on green hydrogen from Egypt: https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/energie/wasserstoff-import-liefervertrag-100.html
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