A photograph capturing the moment a teenage girl Scout stood up to a Neo Nazi to explain why nationalism “makes no sense” has been shared thousands of times.
Neo Nazis marched in Brno in the Czech Republic on Monday and amateur photographer Vladimír Čičmanec snapped the moment 16-year-old Girl Scout Lucie stood firm in the face of man from the far right.
The image was reminiscent of Birmingham woman Saffiyah Khan, who was pictured smiling whilst confronting an EDL demonstrator during a march through the city last month.
A short video posted to Facebook showed Lucie standing as the man remonstrated with her and leaned in close to her face to intimidate her.
In a Facebook post, The World Organisation of the Scout Movement said: “People from all walks of life and Scouts among them came to the streets during an extreme right march yesterday to express their support for values of diversity, peace and understanding.”
The demonstration was reportedly organised by the DSSS, a far right fringe party.
Speaking about his photo, Čičmanec told CNN: “We wanted to show the neo-Nazis that they are not welcome here. This year the counter protest was to make fun of and to troll the Nazis...
“I didn’t hear all of their exchange but they were talking about the concept of nations and nation-states, immigration, refugees.
“She tried to explain to him that nationalism makes no sense because we are all people and should not be treated differently based on some arbitrary distinctions.”
He told The IB Times he was thinking of Saffiyah Khan, saying: “The situation looked similar, and the bubbles were just a sweet coincidence. I thought ‘this will be a nice photo’, but in the sense ‘when my friends see it on Facebook, they’ll probably like it’.
“I initially shared it with limited privacy not thinking much about it. And then people wanted me to make it public and it exploded.”
The picture is also reminiscent of the photo of Tess Asplund, who firmly raised her fist in protest during a march by Nazis in Sweden in May 2016.
