The result of this coordinated polarisation were partly violent riots in many European countries and an unjustified generalisation of the protest’s perception and description. But there were violent attacks, death threats for politicians and scientists, damage to property and even riots. There have also been individual tragedies, where people committed suicide, murdered individuals or, as happened in Germany, murdered their entire family. The ideological basis for this were these apocalyptic narratives. The degree of radicalisation of groups that had not previously been perceived as violent and the heterogeneous nature of the protest groups led politicians and academics to seek a name for this phenomenon. The protests, while referring to concrete measures in connection with the fight against the pandemic, generalised the addressee of their criticism to politics in general. Thus, it was no longer the measures that were conveyed as the enemy image, but politics in general, as it was held responsible for the situation. Fuelled and reinforced by the processes described above. The result: weaponised distrust. According to the 2022 Global Peace Index (GPI) “The pandemic pushed many countries towards economic and political crises, while also heightening levels of anti-government sentiment and distrust of authority,” the report stated. “Countries that had become progressively more peaceful experienced outbreaks of protests and violence aimed particularly at the government’s handling of the pandemic.”

Are we using the right terms?

Due to the size of the protest and its propensity for violence, as well as the fact that responsibility was addressed to politicians, the protests were described under the term “anti- government sentiments”. In some countries, the term also found its way into official observation categories, for example for the domestic intelligence service. A term that at first glance seems to summarise the broad field of actors and issues, but on closer look it poses problems. If one looks at the meaning, it describes an attitude that is directed against a government or an administration. This points to the first problem. The term says nothing about the quality of the protest. Is it violent? Further, it does not say anything about the content or the underlying ideology. What does the anti-government sentiments category convey? What political goal, what ideology underlies anti-government sentiments? In addition, there is the underlying yardstick, with reference to the contextual conditions. Who defines a protest as legitimate or illegitimate, and under what conditions? What social or historical conditions affect the interpretation of the term and how is a protest evaluated under changing social or political conditions? Because of these ambiguities, the term runs the risk of criminalising legitimate protest or narrowing the space for criticism of state action.

Therefore, the term only describes a social phenomenon and can therefore lead to incorrect conclusions when dealing with it. It affects the media, politics, the educational field as well as the pre-political space. Nevertheless, in addition to describing and evaluating a phenomenon, we should think more intensively about the naming or re-naming of this phenomenon. Because the problems we are facing are real, but we have to name right.