Climbing is a partner sport. There’s someone at the other end of your rope, someone whose life is in your hands and who is holding yours just as carefully. It requires communication, trust, and honesty – if I truly can’t climb something, I put us both in danger when I claim that I can. Likewise, if you are climbing, I’m watching the rope and it’s on me to tell you when it needs a quick tug to avoid a snag that could be dangerous.
In climbing, a partner check takes place every time one ties into the rope and the other clips in a belay device. We both look at your knot and we both check that my belay device has been set up correctly, that it brakes where it’s supposed to, and that the carabiner holding everything together is locked. Every time.
But sometimes we make mistakes. We take it for granted that this is something we’re used to doing and we forget. Sometimes we catch these mistakes before the climber gets off the ground. A quick, “Hey show me your knot” could be the difference between a fall and something much worse.
But sometimes we make mistakes. My climbing partner decided to follow a route in the climbing hall one day, meaning another climber had set up the rope and it was already hanging when she tied in. She climbed the route and I let her down. I had unscrewed my carabiner and was taking my belay device off my harness when she looked at me, face white, and said, “I didn’t finish my knot.”
I was horrified. She showed me where her half-completed figure eight had pulled tight onto itself as she climbed, how it had held fast even though there was every reason it might not have done that. She hadn’t finished her knot and, in making sure we were situated on the correct side of the rope as she got ready to follow the route, we had somehow skipped our partner check, therefore failing to notice.
We got damn lucky.
We apologized to each other immediately and continued to climb shortly thereafter, making an exaggerated show of doing our partner check. The friends there with us teased, but followed suit. Climbers do a partner check every time – we had just missed it that time.
And all it takes is one time.
Everything was okay, and we’ll never make this careless mistake again. To make ourselves feel better, we reasoned that we had now effectively saved our entire climbing group. But we know it could have had a very different outcome. We slowed down a little, went through the standard procedures as a matter of fixing them into the motion of our bodies, and kept climbing.
Nobody’s perfect, and that’s why I’m writing this post. Please do your partner check. Everything depends on it.
When I accepted a job in Weimar, Germany, I knew exactly two things about the town:
Its location on a map.
Its historical significance as the place where the Weimar Republic was founded in 1919.
I didn’t know that Weimar’s position in founding Germany’s first democracy continues to hold political significance today, but this is very much the case. The Weimar Republic period brought a flourishing of arts and literature, much of which was due to the new focus on civil liberties that was written into the Weimar Constitution. Women received the right to vote, freedom of speech was protected, censorship banned, the right to education guaranteed, and the freedom to negotiate for better working conditions granted.
These and other social and political rights are critical to a functioning democracy, and it is for this reason that Weimar is still a gathering place for people who have something to say. A significant point for many are the Monday Walks, in which far-right supporters and activists come to town with drums, whistles, flags, and placards. The march routes are protected by police, as are the gatherings from other groups often located along the route, accompanied by their own music and placards.
A particularly large far-right demonstration was scheduled for Saturday and the city put out a statement urging anyone without essential business to avoid the city centre. In response, left-wing activist groups did what they usually do and gathered in pedestrian zones of town around the square where the right-wing demonstration was set to take place. In doing so, they effectively blocked the route the demonstration was supposed to follow through town. Considering that the counter-protest wasn’t registered in advance, it wasn’t legal. But this would only become a problem if the counter-protest and far-right protest actually came into contact.
Following a breakfast discussion about freedom of expression, Germany’s laws against hate speech, and the role of discourse in a democracy, my partner and I headed into town. Listening to the far-right tropes made me nauseous, but I didn’t feel much better standing with the counter-protestors. The music they had chosen was largely political and aggressive, and the slogans they chanted were not much better. Although a number of people sported pride flags and t-shirts with statements like “Love is love” or “I greet all people”, the mood did not reflect these sentiments. Why, I asked my partner, were we not listening to Summer of Love music? Where were the guitars and the hand holding? Why was the counter-protest, in being against a group of people, just as negative as the far-right protest?
What would the world be like if we were for peace, for love, for humanity rather than against these people and their idea of peace and their idea of humanity? Wouldn’t finding commonality be much more effective if we spoke for people rather than against them?
This is not to say that far-right extremists, many of them the very definition of neo-Nazis with clothing and tropes only thinly vailed, should be allowed to spread the hate that they spread. And due to hate speech laws in Germany, there are limits on speech. This is rather to say that we, the people for justice and diversity, do not have to sink to their level. We can be for our beliefs rather than being against theirs. And considering that the rise in far-right extremism has not been accompanied by a rise in support of democratic ideals, it seems that the “against” message has turned people off or away.
As the newspaper reported the next day, there were no clashes between the two groups. Fewer right-wing protestors had come to town than expected and nearly the same number of ad-hoc left-wing protestors had turned out. Through force of numbers alone, opinions were made apparent.
Nevertheless, I was left with a feeling of disquiet that I cannot quite shake. There is something very wrong when one side speaks of freedom and screams, “Foreigners out!” and the other side speaks of equality and screams, “Nazis out!”. What these groups actually stand for is hidden behind the curtains of what they are against.
We live in a time in which there is a political weakness in standing for. Online and social media have created an environment in which the air time is given to those who are against, regardless of which side. Anger receives more clicks than attempts at common ground, but anger does not win. It destroys, and then something else picks up the pieces.
I am not an activist, but an educator. It’s my job to listen to young people and their ideas, my job to ask them where the evidence comes from, why they believe what they believe. I ask them to try on different hats, to empathize. We talk about what was surprising or challenging, what was comfortable or uncomfortable. My job is to encourage the formation of informed opinions, not to tell young people which opinions to have. I work in a school, one of the few places where, changing one’s mind is normal and it’s a sign of learning, not of weakness.
And I didn’t feel comfortable out on the street, just behind a crowd of counter-protestors lying in wait for another group of protestors. I might be on their side if we have to pick sides, but these were not my people. Their slogans were not my slogans.
Without discourse, the exchange of beliefs, only hate and anger remain. I refuse to do nothing, which is why I was there, but I also refuse the detestation with which these two sides regard one another. Over a glass of wine a couple weeks ago, I learned that the evening’s host had voted for the AfD, Germany’s far-right political party. Reminding myself that I stand for democratic values, I asked about his opinions and then gave him mine. A tiny drop might not make a difference, but a few more drops could do just that.
I can’t seem to move from the floor, even though there are plenty of other places to sit. As a rule, I enjoy sitting on the floor, but this isn’t a particularly comfortable spot. The day is grey and while I had an idea of what to do with it when I woke up, any desire to follow through seems to have vanished. There’s no real reason for it, but there it is.
When the French press was empty, I made a cup of tea and stood at the balcony door, watching the trees move in the wind, looking out into a distance that I could reach by foot in just a few kilometres. The idea had been to head out there, not because it’s a nice day but because it’s something to do.
But to be honest, I’m tired of finding things to do just for the sake of something to do. I enjoy my time at home, but I also enjoy purposeful activity, and that was noticeably missing. There’s enough to do for the sake of diversion, but doing itself was not the point. And besides, tomorrow is likely to feel like today and the chores could get done then. Maybe there will be a greater sense of urgency.
But urgency is not the same as purpose, and purpose seems to be in short supply at the moment. Our trip to Peru was a life dream to fulfil before we embarked on other life dreams. And I guess I’m feeling a little dream-shy at the moment. What’s to say that the new dreams aren’t snatched away, too?
One could argue, we’ve lived through a pandemic and come out the other side. Isn’t that evidence enough?
One could argue, it’s too soon, take your time, life will settle back to normal.
Both true. Neither especially comforting.
So I’m sitting on the floor, writing this instead of going out to – what? Be out. Just to be out. Because being out there is certainly more fulfilling than being in here.
Photos, travels, musings, and ideas on education by someone trying to make the world a better and more peaceful place
By Rebecca Michelle 