December 23, 2014

Germany's democracy on thin ice?

located:	Germany
editor:	Murat Suner

Recently Dresden has become the centre of a movement called Pegida, an abbreviation for Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident. Dresden is the capital of Sachsen, which is one of Germany's five states that formerly belonged to the GDR. The city of 500,00 inhabitants is historically landmarked through the late and vast bombing in WWII, which caused the debate on the ethical justification of the Allied forces' conduct of war. A circumstance that rightwing extremists regularly abuse to mobilize a Nazi-minded crowd of protesters each year. Second, Dresden became known for its so-called "Monday Demonstrations", which took off 1989 in the city of Leipzig before spreading over to Dresden as well. These demonstrations were a crucial element in the peaceful revolution that led to the German unification. The shouting "Wir sind das Volk!" (We are the people!) became a powerful call for democracy against the repressive regime of the GDR.

However, since a couple of weeks Pegida grew from a small group of several hundred followers to 17,500, walking every Monday, scanning and showing various slogans. While the protests benefit from a large media coverage, part of the debate puzzles over their (real) intentions and motives. Conservative and rightwing parties are putting out ambivalent messages, dissociating themselves from Islamophobic and racist statements on the one hand, but acknowledging the protesters' frustration over vage discomfort on politics and media on the other hand. Their motive seems to be the absorption and capitalization of people's voting potential.

The vast majority of politicians, media, civil organisations and anti-Pegida protests that showed up in the streets see Pegida's motives as a clear resentment against immigrants and refugees of Muslim origin, abusing the values of democracy, and in the eve of Christmas, if you will, of Christianity as well.

If not some of the protesters, surely the initiators must be aware that they are not only abusing former GDR civil rights campaigners' s call for democracy and freedom "We are the People"; the characteristics of the paroles used by the protesters are actually of bare Nazi origin: "Lügenpresse" (Liar Press) is a term that was coined by the Nazi's propaganda head Josef Goebbels, just like "auf deutschem Boden" (on German soil) was a common vocabulary of the racist regime back then. The initiators speak of being concerned about the future of "our children", which actually means children of ethnic German origin, particularly excluding descendents of immigrants.

Editor of the German newspaper Die Zeit Yassin Musarbash clearly outlined in The Guardian why Islamophobia is pure racism. Particularly, one should know that Dresden with a portion of 0,4 %, has almost no Muslim inhabitants in Dresden.

But apart from that the movement dismantles the thin ice of democracy this minority of people is walking on: Frustration and anxiety over their lives seems to turn within weeks into hate, exclusion and agitation against immigrants and refugees.