VonAnnalena Groppe

On May 28, a democracy festival was held in Neustadt an der Weinstraße to commemorate the Hambach Festival of 1832. On the one hand, it is a preparation for the 200th anniversary celebrations in ten years' time. On the other hand, it is part of a series of measures to counter the appropriation of regional history in the sense of anti-democratic positions. Both in the city center and at Hambach Castle, numerous civil society and municipal actors had prepared program items for experiencing and celebrating democracy. However, the festival unintentionally highlighted current social challenges within democracy, as well as at its borders.

A group calling themselves 'the whites' formed a previously banned demonstration of 3,000 people to the castle wearing white clothing as a sign of recognition. In addition to Reichsbürger flags, anti-system T-shirts and historical analogies to the Vormärz and Nazi era, which questioned the cornerstones of democracy, there were posters with the interests of professional groups (e.g. farmers) or with relationship-related needs (e.g. love, listening, peace). The Neustadt assembly authority classified the previously banned demonstration as an assembly "in the spirit of a living democracy" and tolerated its meeting with the participants of the democracy festival at Hambach Castle. As a result, the access routes for buses and wandering festival visitors were blocked so that program items could not take place at the castle. Finally, civil society groups such as Omas gegen Rechts, the memorial for Nazi victims in Neustadt and the regional alliance against the right were asked to dismantle their stands in order "not to provoke". The atmosphere was threatening, there was verbal hostility and anti-Semitic and Holocaust-relativizing slogans.

State and local politicians as well as the city and palace administration are now being criticized for being "unprepared" in terms of security issues and the underlying political strategy. Civil society groups are also asking themselves: "What could we have done differently?" In addition to calls for even more events and a more effective mobilization of democratic voices, consideration is also being given to reviewing the events and revising the concept .

The handling of such conflicts caused by social change, in which many different actors are involved and which increasingly escalate into violence, can benefit from outside intervention (Glasl, 2008)¹. Municipal conflict counseling actors take on such a role. In this article, I will focus on what local conflict management can achieve in this situation and what its limits are.

Principles of local conflict counseling

Municipal conflict management offers a fundamental change of perspective: It does not view events, such as at the democracy festival, (exclusively) as a disruption, appropriation or exclusion in the sense of a security problem, but as a conflict episode that is based on various interests, positionings and relationship dynamics. Dealing with such conflicts is therefore not so much a necessary evil, but can help to shape social change in an integrative way (Weller, 2013).

Municipal conflict counseling is not a training course or service that implements or teaches 'ready-made' recipes and solutions in a municipality; it works in a process-oriented manner. The prerequisite is a mandate from a decision-making body (e.g. mayor), which can at best represent the entire municipal society. In line with the principle of 'all-partiality', the target group of the advisory service is then as diverse as possible in terms of key people from politics, administration and civil society. After a phase of confidence-building, different perspectives on the conflict are compiled in order to prepare a conflict analysis. Based on the comprehensive understanding of the situation, the people involved jointly identify possible courses of action. For example, they try out formats such as round tables or citizen participation, reflect on existing exclusion mechanisms and develop further ideas to break up lines of conflict and, ideally, change them for the better for everyone. In doing so, they build on existing functioning instruments and structures, as the advice is generally limited in time (Lustig et al., 2018).

This type of conflict counseling could also be used in Neustadt and Hambach. Due to the large number of actors involved and relevant topics, the conflict is characterized by complexity, which could be better understood through a conflict analysis. For example, it would be interesting to find out from which specific perspective the many parties involved, from the castle administration to local and state politics, city administration, local civil society and the nationwide public, each look at the events. The extent to which the conflicts of interpretation surrounding the history of democracy at Hambach Castle, questions of identity, experiences of loss or fears of loss, a breeding ground for nationalism and structural deficits in participation could also be examined together (Groppe, 2021). External process support helps to broaden the limited perception that arises from local involvement in roles and patterns.

At the same time, the diverse and context-specific expertise that already exists locally among the various stakeholders is seen as a central resource. One of the main fields of activity of municipal conflict advisors is therefore the strengthening and expansion of municipal networks (Gatzemeier & Berndt, 2022). In concrete terms, this could result in options for action for the city of Neustadt to involve civil society groups more closely in the planning of upcoming democracy festivals. The power to shape the event can extend far beyond beer table sets with information flyers, e.g. from the joint decision on which speakers should speak on which topics on the large stages to the question of where the stages should be located and which measures can be 'supported' with regard to counter-demonstrators. The composition of the group (who can we work with? Who does not want to cooperate at all?) is itself the subject of the democratic process, as will be discussed in the section on the limits of the approach.

Local conflict transformation cannot and does not want to replace political positioning and decisions. The political mandate to decide on measures remains with the responsible parties. However, local conflict transformation can help in the preparation of such decisions by making different voices heard. Municipal conflict transformation recognizes local civil society actors as experts from different spheres of life. It helps to identify and reduce structural barriers that prevent groups from being reached.

The stage programme Gesicht zeigen - Demokratie leben, which was organized by the initiative group #1832Hambach2022 as part of the Democracy Festival, shows the impact that broader civil society participation can have. It combined migrant and decidedly political musicians with political science debates in lectures and a brochure with contributions on the appropriation of Hambach's history of democracy. Both added a complementary perspective to the (state-supporting) politicians invited by the city and the Hambach Castle Foundation. However, the stage program described above was based on great voluntary commitment and extensive fundraising.

External conflict counseling could specifically support such and similar potential, e.g. by identifying exclusionary barriers to participation and supporting the search for ways to break down these barriers. Whether this would be the provision of financial or spatial capacities or adjustments to the concept (one or more venues? Rather content-related or festive offers?) would result from the joint design process. Certainly, a concept would also have to be developed for groups affected by discrimination, such as migrant self-organizations, to ensure their physical, psychological and legal safety - especially when one thinks of situations such as the stand evictions and insults at the castle. This is the only way that vulnerable groups can afford to play a leading role at such an event.

However, some areas of tension in municipal conflict counselling in conflicts about democracy in Neustadt can already be seen here: If, for example, the protection of marginalized groups is prioritized in order to enable their participation, this entails the exclusion of actors who reject the value of diversity and pluralistic lifestyles - a position often shared among 'the whites'. So to what extent does it make sense (and is it necessary) to involve the organizational ranks and/or participants of this group in communal conflict management?

Areas of tension in local conflict counseling using the example of Neustadt

Generally speaking, local conflict counseling does not offer a recipe solution to this question, but provides support in developing a workable approach together with the local actors. Its fundamental attitude of impartiality should not be confused with neutrality. While the latter suggests an objective external position, actors in local conflict counselling are aware of their own values, they make them transparent and thus also open to discussion and criticism. This does not fundamentally exclude participants from 'the whites', but stands for a sensitivity with regard to power relations and the potential for violence within them.

From this perspective, 'the whites' are actually rather overrepresented in the discourse - contrary to their self-presentation as an oppressed minority: this becomes visible in their quite powerfully enforced admission as an assembly at the democracy festival: the demonstration march to the castle, which was actually prohibited, was only possible due to mobilization power, which is linked to financial and structural resources as well as discursive dominance.

The latter can be seen, for example, in an initial press release from the city administration and police: it still referred to a "peaceful and happy Saturday" - for which those responsible later apologized. Roger Lewentz, the Interior Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, also focused more on security for the majority society than on the protection of minorities when he said "the police [...] had one goal: to prevent violence." The regional newspaper 'Die Rheinpfalz' also commented on the events at the democracy festival with the headline "Freedom for all". These statements ignored the fact that peace and freedom ended where other registered participants were verbally humiliated and threatened and ultimately had to leave the castle.

This discursive dominance should not be confused with an actual majority in the population: the small proportion of society is merely perceived and depicted with an above-average volume. A communal conflict analysis would therefore tend to suggest strengthening alternative - and therefore potentially transformative - narratives. It would contradict this, for example, to give Wolfgang Kochanek, organizer of the 'white' demonstration, additional influence by inviting him to a round table and thereby making it more difficult for vulnerable groups to participate. However, this discursive localization in power structures in no way excludes the possibility that there are (local) individuals among 'the whites' who are affected by real barriers to participation and are therefore experts for the communal conflicts about democracy in Neustadt. At best, these are reached through participation formats of municipal conflict counseling - one could say 'through the back door'. This is because such actors can make it possible to build bridges, to make the communal manifestations of the ideological lines of conflict actually workable on a factual level.

A conflict analysis here also helps to make the limits of communal conflict management visible. This is because many of the political demands visible at the demonstration relate to nationwide issues that cannot be dealt with at their roots at municipal level. For example, the Neustadt city council has hardly any decision-making powers with regard to the coronavirus protection measures to which the demonstrators dressed in white are referring. This is by no means a thoughtless strategy: they deliberately choose the symbolic framework and address a national digital public with their professional video recordings . To this end, they mobilized translocally beyond the Palatinate in southern Germany. These nationwide conflicts will not be resolved at their roots in Neustadt.

Focusing on communal conflict counseling thus comes at the price of accepting that 'the whites' or similar manifestations, such as the so-called 'New Hambach Festival', probably cannot be suppressed, defeated or appeased, but (only) the communal and media handling of them can be improved. Municipal conflict counseling assumes that such nationwide developments "dock onto unresolved conflicts locally and exacerbate them [...] if they are not addressed constructively" (Gatzemeier & Berndt, 2022, p. 203). This makes it all the more relevant to work through conflicts that can actually be dealt with locally between the affected actors on the ground.

In terms of a dual strategy, it would be advisable to also focus on critical political education as well as activism, which is already being implemented in many cases. Viewing the events as a conflict is certainly complementary to approaches against radicalization and right-wing ideology (Groppe, in publication). Through such strategies, municipal actors can use their exemplary political positioning to influence the symbolic impact that extends beyond the region.

Municipal conflict management as an experience of living democracy

The process of dealing with municipal conflicts together is already a concrete shaping and strengthening of local democracy. The previous mobilization strategy for the Democracy Festival, based on its folk festival character with cultural and culinary offerings, can thus be supplemented by stronger content-related discussions. For example, a joint development of the concept opens up space for diverse perspectives on democracy and at the same time strengthens ownership and identification with the city and its historical heritage. The same applies to networks between different actors. This adds a current political dimension to the symbolic remembrance of democratic history, which has concrete relevance for citizens. Last but not least, all of this has a mobilizing effect.

If 'white counter-demonstrators' arrive again in the coming years, the festival no longer has to define itself solely in terms of differentiation from them, but the participants can look proudly and critically at processes in their own community. External support makes it possible to analyze conflicts and make core issues tangible in order to open up new possibilities for action. It draws attention back to one's own conflictual structures and thus enables clarity of content and strong partnerships that see pluralistic ideas of democracy as an opportunity.

There is then less need for a democratic meta-narrative, less burden lies on the shoulders of symbolic figures such as Joachim Gauck, because the involvement of civil society actors and the actual appreciation of their different perspectives allows democratic processes to be experienced with all their potential and limitations. This may not prevent people who come to 'resist' from still being visible in the future. But the joint design of conflict resolution mechanisms creates a basis for the community in Neustadt and the region to actually show 'courage for freedom'.