On May 19, 1933, in my hometown of Kassel, Germany, 30,000 spectators watched and cheered as the Nazis burned books. It was a Friday night, and Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) forces had gathered near the opera house in the city center on the orders of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. While a band played traditional and patriotic songs, thousands of books were set on fire to symbolize that the ruling party considered their authors “un-German.”
This was more than thirty years before I was born, but it’s only one of many ways that extremist and authoritarian rule has affected my family and me, embedding in me a strong belief in democracy and the power of each vote.
Everyone knows that the twelve years that followed that shameful Friday night in May were some of the most gruesome in world history.
A century before, German poet, writer, and literary critic Heinrich Heine was prescient when he warned, “In places where they burn books, they eventually also burn people.”
November 5, 2024, will be the first United States presidential election in which I get to cast my vote as a new American citizen. After 35 years living here on a Green Card, it was time last year to apply for my citizenship, and with that the opportunity to make my voice heard. Admittedly, it had been a combination of a busy schedule and complacency that made me wait so long. I had my Green Card and my German passport, so the only drawbacks were that I couldn’t vote and or be pulled for jury duty. I was content with my status quo for many years and saw no urgent reason to change. And, of course, for the most part, our democracy was humming along without my vote.
That all changed when Christian nationalists started flexing their well-funded muscles and moved from the fringes of our society into positions of power on the local, state, and national levels. The country I loved and that had, since my childhood, stood for freedom and opportunity in my mind, was changing so quickly right in front of my eyes. And while I may have seen the U.S. through rose-colored glasses throughout my younger years, the stark reality now became clear: my time of sitting on the political sidelines was over. I had to get my citizenship and do my part.
So on January 5 of this year, I swore an oath to this country and quickly registered to vote. I’ve also joined the League of Women Voters and am training to be an election inspector for my county.
And it’s not just because I work for American Atheists that the issues around the separation of religion and government are first and foremost on my mind. History has shown that whenever people want to exert power over others, religion and tradition are cited as the basis for their actions. Too often, authoritarians with nefarious intentions appeal to faith and allegedly idyllic bygone eras to create a feeling of nostalgia for something that never existed. That’s why church-state separation is crucial on issues as diverse as education, civil rights, healthcare, and the environment.
With any luck, this will be my first of many more presidential elections. And I must say, it feels pretty damn good.