A controversial Member of the European Parliament (MEP) encouraged a Vancouver audience on Sunday to get personally engaged to resist the enemies of freedom.Christine Andersen made her comments in a 'Make It Your Business' North American tour. She said a free world was never secured by people who only minded their own business.“What they did is they came all the way to Germany to fight off these freakin' despicable Nazis. I will be eternally grateful to all those who decided not to mind their own business, but made it their business because that had consequences for my life,” Andersen said.“I did not have to live under a despicable totalitarian, dehumanizing. atrocious, totalitarian regime. They had to go. And thank you for not minding your own business, but making it your business.”The German politician was born in 1968 and has been an MEP since 2019. She said when she asked past conversations how they stood by while Nazism advanced, they said it crept up on them.“The Nazis did not start out by rounding up people and transporting them off to camps. That was the end point. They didn't start out that way,” she explained.“It was little incremental, seemingly non-mattering points. It was just little steps, one at a time.”At first Jews couldn’t sit on public benches allegedly for “hygeneic reasons.” Later, they weren’t allowed pets.“For evil to happen, it only takes people not doing anything. And that's exactly what happened back then…getting people used to certain things and we're doing it this way now. Then there came the bigger steps. Then you have stars painted…on shop stores,” she said.“To actually show their ugly face and openly persecute discriminated against and collect all the Jews and transport them…it took them five years.”Andersen said recent events were more disturbing in some ways.“How long did it take them to get the majority of the people to openly harass and discriminate against people in stores because they were not wearing a mask?...Not even a year? And that is scary. Haven't we learned anything from history? No, we haven't learned a damned thing,” she said.“Once the Nazis had secured their power and they openly showed their despicable and dehumanizing ways and their agenda…The regime had all the mechanisms, everything in place. At that point, trying to speak up was likely landing you in a concentration camp.”The MEP recalled the famous words of German pastor Martin Niemoller who said the Nazis came for the socialists, trade unionists and Jews, and finally for him “and there was no one left to speak for me.”Andersen said the West is now headed in ignorance down a similar road.“If you honestly believe you could comply your way out of the tyranny, you're dead wrong. What you're doing is you're feeding a gigantic alligator in the hopes of being eaten last, but you will be eaten that is for sure. So you need to speak up and you need to stand up and you need to not mind your own freakin’ business,” she said.“So we vowed, we will fight the beginnings. And here we have the next level. People have no clue what the beginnings even are. They simply don't know because they did not learn their history.”Like Canada, Germany introduced a law that made it a crime to minimize the holocaust. In an ironic twist, holocaust survivor Vera Sharav is being prosecuted under the German law for comparing COVID times to early Nazi days.“Can you friggin' believe that? And all she did was educating people on what the Nazis actually did, how they started out to wipe out her entire people. She has been slapped with trivialization of the Holocaust,” she said.“You want to talk about anti-semitism? That is anti-semitism.”Andersen said it made as little sense to deny where we were headed was a loss of freedom than to deny a pregnant woman was on her way to having a baby. She said Canada and Germany were both on a bad path, despite past vows of “never again” and she was “totally ashamed” that “such atrocity on mankind is now being repeated all over again.”The MEP with the Alternative for Germany party said it’s common for young Germans to claim if they had been alive in HItler’s day, they would have resisted Nazism.Whenever someone tells me that, all I do now, is I look at them and say, ‘What did you do the last three years?“Did you participate in harassing people in stores for not wearing a mask? Did you beg the government to impose vaccine mandates? Did you not want to sit with unvaccinated people in a restaurant? Was that you? Well, the news for you, you would not have been in the resistance.”In defiance of commentators who said Andersen should stay home, she said, “Where I see fundamental rights being infringed upon or a freedom, democracy and the rule of law is under attack. I reserve the right to make it my business wherever I see this going on.”A voice from the crowd said, “except in my country,” to which Andersen replied, “Mr. Trudeau, you are absolutely not allowed on this stage. Get off right now.”An audience member replied, “He gives us free marijuana.”Andersen said, “He wants you to do that so you won’t realize what an idiot he is.” Chants of “Trudeau must go” echoed through the audience.“I was invited in a room full of people who are apparently glad that I'm here. I’m thankful that the board has actually honoured me with their invitation. And I would have thought it would be impolite if I had not honoured that invitation and would have followed it," Andersen said.“So here I am! You know what? Deal with it!”Dutch commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek was a co-headliner for the event, which also included John Stetch, Linda Blade, Anita Krishna and Billboard Chris. Krishna said the evening was “ballsy” and posted Andersen’s speech live to Facebook with enthusiasm.“It was bloody amazing. All the speakers brought the house down! 😃” wrote Krishna.“Ms. Anderson always brings the whoop-ass!”
