Germany's 'New Berlin Wall': Free Speech Edition
The irony of a Russian state media outlet, RT, decrying political division and 'exclusion' in Germany truly writes itself. Putin's Russia, remember, famously walls off dissenters, independent media, and opposition figures with arrests, poisonings, and laws criminalizing 'fake news' about military actions. While RT criticizes German parties for refusing to cooperate with the AfD, it conveniently
forgets that its own government offers political opponents a choice between prison and exile. Real walls in Russia are built from state-sponsored repression, making German political maneuvering look like a Sunday picnic. One might wonder if RT's foreign policy experts are familiar with the concept of a glass house, or if they just prefer to cast stones from behind a digital firewall of their own
creation. The critique of a 'new East-West divide' from a state that just invaded Ukraine for daring to look West is particularly rich. Perhaps the 'two-tier society' RT laments is not political exclusion, but rather basic democratic self-preservation against parties flirting with ethno-nationalism and historical revisionism. Some walls are there to protect, not just to divide, a concept Russia
understands intimately—especially when it's building them around its neighbors.