2024-03-24 20:47:07
Activists interrupt Scholz’s speech in Leipzig several times
Updated on March 21, 2024Reading time: 3 min.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz opened the Leipzig Book Fair on Wednesday. Activists tried to disrupt his speech – with little success.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s speech at the opening of the Leipzig Book Fair was interrupted several times by demonstrators on Wednesday evening. During the speech, several activists scattered around the Gewandhaus shouted loudly but largely incomprehensibly into the SPD politician’s speech.
Large parts of the protest were drowned out by sustained applause from the audience. “What brings us all together here in Leipzig is the power of words – not shouting,” said Scholz to applause.
“Books have accompanied me through my life for as long as I can remember”
After a few minutes he was able to continue his opening speech. Scholz came out as a bookworm. “All of us – and I include myself here – are united by a love of reading,” he said. “Whether as a child in the evening before going to sleep, as a young politician on the train between Hamburg and Bonn or now, whenever time allows – books have accompanied me through my life for as long as I can remember.”
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It is no more tied to a specific genre than the fair: science or society, adventure or crime, non-fiction or novel. “If you allow it, then behind the cover of the book there will be a surprise that we often miss on the Internet because algorithms there show us primarily what we think is good anyway, or should like.” If you allow it, you will find something interesting, exciting or touching everywhere.
Anyone who reads allows perspectives other than their own and takes a personal interest in developments, says Scholz. With every chapter, with every new page, contradictions that seemed unbridgeable in everyday life could be overcome. “Reading is therefore daily proof that we can understand each other despite our differences, that our societies, in Germany and in Europe, are by no means doomed to drift apart.”
Scholz appealed: “Let us not follow those who want to divide us, who want to deny entire groups in this country their membership in our society. Let us never believe those whose answers ultimately result in intolerance, exclusion and hatred.” This would ruin the country “not only morally but also economically.”
Book fair expects more spectators than in 2023
The Leipzig Book Fair – the most important German literary show after Frankfurt – runs from Thursday to Sunday. 2,085 exhibitors from 40 countries present their books and new publications. After positive advance sales, an increase in visitor numbers is expected; 274,000 people came last year.
As guest countries this year, the Netherlands and Flanders are presenting themselves as a common language and cultural area under the motto “Everything but flat”. Around 100 events with 41 authors are planned.
Book fair focuses on diversity
The book fair sees itself as a center for living democracy. “As a book fair, we explicitly focus on diversity,” said the new director Astrid Böhmisch. “Freedom, democracy and diversity are not self-evident, but rather values that need to be fought for again and again.”
Martin Buhl-Wagner, Managing Director of the Leipziger Messe, said: “The social responsibility of the Leipzig Book Fair has a very special significance right now.” The times are challenging, he said, referring to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the shift to the right and the rising populism in Germany and Europe. It is all the more important that people talk and argue with each other. “That’s why the Leipzig Book Fair is also a place for diversity of opinions and for standing up for democracy and democratic values.”
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