Hooligans vs Jehovah's Witnesses in Bulgaria

Editorial |Author: Nikola Petrov | April 20, 2011, Wednesday // 07:55|  views

On Sunday, the Bulgarian nationalist VMRO party staged a little protest against the Jehovah Witnesses House of Prayer in the Black Sea city of Burgas.

Things were looking normal until a bunch of football hooligans decided to crash the party and beat up 5 Jehovah Witnesses, obviously showing their support for the nationalist cause – banning untraditional religions.

Needless to say, the nationalists themselves declared that the support was totally unwanted – which might just be the case. Throwing stones at people and breaking doors could be pretty bad for a political movement's PR.

Still, the growing number of Bulgarian nationalist fractions, however pleasantly naive they might seem with their proud-to-be-Bulgarian rhetoric, have proven to cause a harmful side effect. Marginalized groups, like football hooligans, need a very little spark to ignite their frustrations and insecurity, assaulting whichever group is pinpointed as different or non-patriotic – gays, Turks, Roma, Jehovah Witnesses.

The nationalistic populists seem to ignore the danger of ill-educated groups taking their words a bit too seriously and exploding in aggression. Hooligans have already hijacked not one or two protests. It is now the politicians responsibility to stop playing with fire.

As for the Jehovah Witnesses and the other cults which are growing in Bulgaria, they actually seem to have one thing in common with their attackers. Like hooligans, they have resorted to marginal groups in which they can comfort the economic and all other types of frustration the Bulgarian society generates.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!


Tags: hooligans, Jehovah Witnesses, VMRO, protest, aggression, nationalist

Back  

» Related Articles:

Search

Search