Learning the World

Several groups of out-of-town neo-Nazis have called for a demonstration in Frankfurt tomorrow. That in itself is absurd, because this city is one of the most multi-cultural places in Germany, and it is irrelevant what ethnicity somebody belongs to: we are all Frankfurters. Besides past attempts have been prevented by police delaying tactics and legal restraints in combination with protesters blocking their demonstration routes, so their effort is pointless.

What enthralls me more (and is the reason to write about here) is the technical progress of the anti-fascist movement. Some are still stuck in the 1990s while others have embraced the wonders of web 2.0. To my surprise the website of the Anti-Fascist Coordination Frankfurt features a clean design with a tag cloud-like navigation, sliding animations with jQuery, YouTube videos, and a very basic microsite for mobile access. What rocks most is the creative use of twitter to keep protesters informed via mobile phone. Brilliant!

That said this approach comes with a few drawbacks, for example pages are not bookmarkable. I cannot link to the mobile page because it’s just an invisible layer with display:none on the main page. Their JavaScript is obtrusive, and the site is inaccessible for people with disabilities. Although these issues could be fixed, I suppose it was not their main priority. However, it would be suitable for politically correct organizations to enable participation for all, regardless of disabilities. Especially when their protest is supported by disability organizations like the CeBeeF.