The Wattenscheid Affair and the Fragility of Democratic Confidence
The small German district of Bochum-Wattenscheid has unexpectedly become a mirror for the larger state of European democracy. In early November 2025, at the first meeting of the new district council, a representative of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)—a party widely described as far-right—was elected second deputy district mayor. His name, Cedric Sontowski, meant little to most voters; what mattered was the symbol. For the first time in the city’s post-war history, an AfD politician had gained an official post.
The shock among the mainstream parties was immediate and visceral. Only five votes had been needed to secure the position, and Sontowski received exactly that number. Because the AfD held only four seats, it was clear that someone outside the party had voted for him in the secret ballot. Councillors from the Social Democrats, the Greens, the Christian Democrats, and local citizens’ groups reacted with outrage, vowing to uncover who had “betrayed” the democratic alliance. The irony, of course, was that the vote itself had been entirely democratic.
The Reaction: Democracy as a Closed Club
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Within days, voices in the council were calling for an Abwahlverfahren—a formal dismissal procedure. Independent member Wolfgang Rohmann described the election as “unspeakable” and suggested that the only remedy was to remove the AfD man through a two-thirds majority vote. Others agreed in principle but hesitated in practice. Hans-Josef Winkler of the UWG:Freie Bürger warned that the “democratic alliance” had already failed once and could easily humiliate itself again if unity broke down.
District mayor Marc Westerhoff of the CDU also cautioned against rushing into another fiasco. A failed attempt to unseat Sontowski, he argued, would hand the AfD an even greater propaganda victory. SPD leader Thomas Dißelbeck doubted whether removal was politically wise at all. He preferred to end what he called the “state of political emergency” and get back to normal work. Even so, the word ‘Abwahl’ hung over the district like a storm cloud — a sign that moral outrage was being mistaken for political strategy.
The tone in Wattenscheid has taken on something of the Gunpowder Plot — not in scale or violence, but in its indulgence in intrigue. Councillors whisper of betrayal, hunt for the anonymous fifth vote, and treat a minor procedural post as if it were a coup against civilisation. What began as an ordinary local election has turned into a drama of suspicion and moral theatre. The secrecy of the ballot, once the guarantee of democratic freedom, is now regarded as the source of corruption. The psychology is almost Jacobean: an anxious establishment probing its own ranks for treachery while claiming to defend the realm from subversion.
When “Defending Democracy” Becomes Control
The Wattenscheid affair exposes a dangerous confusion at the heart of European politics. The parties that describe themselves as defenders of democracy often act as though democracy were their private franchise. Elections are treated as legitimate only when they produce the “right” result. When they do not, the instinct is to correct the people rather than the policy.
This is not fascism in reverse, but it shares its logic: the assumption that certain opinions are too dangerous to be represented. The language of “defending democracy” thus becomes a tool for moral exclusion. What cannot be refuted must be delegitimised. The same pattern can be seen across Europe wherever populist parties make electoral gains — in France, Austria, the Netherlands, and even the United Kingdom. Everywhere the establishment insists that democracy must be protected, and everywhere that protection means narrowing what democracy is allowed to decide.
The Moral Panic About Populism
The word ‘populism’ once meant little more than an appeal to the people. Today it has become a synonym for ignorance, prejudice, or latent extremism. The reaction to it is rarely political; it is moral. Opponents of populism imagine they are defending truth and decency, when in fact they are defending a sense of moral order that no longer feels secure.
A moral panic arises when a society feels its values threatened but can no longer articulate why those values matter. In the religious world, heresy served that function; in the secular world, populism now does. The panic disguises itself as virtue, but its root is fear — fear of losing control, of losing narrative authority, of being exposed as uncertain. And like all moral panics, it expresses itself not through reflection but through reflex: denunciation, censorship, and symbolic gestures of purity.
The Burden of Historical Guilt
In Germany this panic carries a unique psychological weight. Beneath the language of democracy lies an unhealed sense of historical guilt. For eight decades, the country has lived under the imperative Nie wieder! — “Never again!” — a moral commandment so absolute that it sometimes overrides rational politics. Many of the councillors in Wattenscheid are not powerful figures; they are conscientious, ordinary citizens who have internalised the conviction that any tolerance of right-wing politics is a betrayal of history. Their moral reflex is a kind of inherited atonement.
The result is a democracy that polices itself out of fear. To prevent another Hitler, it suppresses dissent of any kind. In doing so, it risks creating a subtler form of totalitarianism — not the tyranny of one man, but the tyranny of moral anxiety.
Britain exhibits its own version of this syndrome. The toppling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol, the incessant self-flagellation over colonialism and slavery, and the moral theatre of public apology all reveal the same impulse: to erase guilt through symbolic acts. These gestures are not rational reckonings with the past but knee-jerk absolutions. They relieve the conscience for a moment but deepen the cultural divide between those who confess and those who refuse to kneel.
A democracy obsessed with guilt becomes incapable of forgiveness — and without forgiveness, there can be no genuine freedom.
The Translator’s Dilemma: Meaning and Belief
The confusion of moral and political categories in our time mirrors the confusion of meaning that has haunted the translation of sacred texts. Just as the Masoretes supplied vowels to make Hebrew legible, modern societies supply moral vowels to make history pronounceable. But every addition also interprets. Every effort to purify meaning risks distorting it.
The translator of a text faces a choice between fidelity and clarity; so too does the translator of history. The louder we shout about democracy, the less democratic our behaviour becomes. The more we moralise about the past, the less we understand it.
Democracy as Procedure, Not Creed
Democracy is not a creed to be defended but a procedure to be practised. It depends on the rule of law, open participation, and the willingness to tolerate outcomes one dislikes. When democracy becomes a moral identity — when “the democratic side” sees itself as the sole guardian of goodness — it begins to destroy the very principle it claims to serve.
The true lesson of Wattenscheid is not that populists are advancing, but that mainstream politics is losing its equilibrium. Fear has replaced confidence; guilt has replaced judgement. The danger is not populism itself, but a political culture so terrified of it that it forgets what democracy is for.
The real test of democracy is not whether it keeps its enemies out, but whether it can bear to keep its promise when they are already inside.
