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“PEGIDA”: German anti-Islamic, racist and nationalist movements are growing.

Since October 2014, every Monday night, demonstrations are organised against an alleged Islamization of the West in the German city Dresden. The demonstrations are organised by the Dresden citizen initiative “PEGIDA” (“Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West”). In October, there were aproximatly 350 participants in Dresden. On december the 14th, their number has growed to estimated 15.000 demonstrators. Meanwhile, similar protests take place all over Germany.

The demonstrations will continue until the Federal German Government accepts the 19-points plan of the PEGIDA citizen-initiative and puts it in law.
PEGIDA’s 19-points plan was published in december 2014. It includes a required “commitment to integration, anchored in the German Constitution”. War refugees and opressed people have to be housed in decentralised descent housings, not in “inhuman centres”, it wants better care for asylum seekers by social workers, it demands that asylum requests are processed faster, so that “people can start the integration much earlier”. Furhter, the 19-points plan demands a direct democracy based on the Swiss example; zero-tolerance policy against delinquent asylum seekers and migrants; and the implementation of the existing laws concerning asylum and expulsion. “Parallel societies and parallel courts” such as sharia courts, sharia police and justices of peace are not allowed by PEGIDA.

The accent lies on resistance to “misogynistic, violent political ideology”, so that female-friendly integrated Muslims who speak fluent German, work and pay taxes in Germany and encourage the German national football team don’t have to fear anything from PEGIDA. PEGIDA also protests against a laque of police personnel and for maintaining a “Christian-Jewish-dominated Western culture.”

The initiative for the Monday protests of PEDIGA comes partly from Lutz Bachman, who causes alot of controversy in the German media because of previous convictions and his escape to South Africa in 1998 in order to avoid a prison sentence of 4 years. According to an interview by PEGIDA with the German newspaper “FAZ”, “12 people who come from different countries, religions and professions work in the core of the organisation team” among them we find at least one criminal Christian-Democrat who had a conviction for physical agression. In addition, there is a much larger team of several people who give support, “including some Muslims”.

The social networks and Facebook in particular are PEGIDA’s main means of communication, where they publish calls to demonstrations and take part in discusions. Since 19 december PEGIDA is also an official political association. Next to right-wing populist positions PEGIDA also takes clear left-wing positions, to save herself from the image of an extremee right-wing movement and to dispair critisizers. According to the German Federal Police, the organizers of PEGIDA never did show up in the extreme right-wing environment. The intelligence service in Saxony wich observes counterpart organisations of the German Constitution (Verfassungsschutz), claims that there is no reason to observe PEGIDA.

Meanwhile activists who are opposing PEGIDA formed a network called “PEGIDA # WATCH”. PEGIDA # WATCH informs about activities of new right wing political environments, neo-Nazis and the recuperation of left political activities and ideas by extreme right-wing organizations (such recuperation is known in Germany as “Querfront”).

The political landscape in Germany, apart from the AfD (Alternative to Germany, national conservative and euro-skeptic party), recognizes the existence and recuperation by extreme right-wing organizations within PEGIDA and dissociates itself officially from the PEGIDA movement. Still, it is assumed that the 15’000 people who protested in Dresden on December the 14th are ordinary concerned citizens who have a great fear and mistrust the government. And that their fear and dissatisfaction must been taken seriously by the government and be solved by a dialogue with PEGIDA. The government doesn’t know so well how to handle, for one poltician PEGEDA is a disgrace for Germany, for the others PEGIDA is a warning call by concerned citizens. Credibility is hard to find when, for example, the Christian Democrats party CSU wrote in their general party assembly design that foreigners who want to live in Germany are obliged to speak German at home and in public. After the protest and the humilitation, the CSU changed the design: instead of “obligate” they want to “motivate”. A few weeks before the PEGIDA protests broke out, the German government adapted the assylum law, declaring that Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia are secure states. But in those countries the repression of Roma people is very dangerous. Instead of saving Roma people the German governments decided to send them back, wich can be considered as a presign that the German government will bend for the demands of the PEDIGA movement.

The AfD is the only political party in Germany who declared their solidarity with PEGIDA. According to Frauke Petry, party chairman in the German state of Saxony, there is a “substantial overlap” between the demands of the movement and the AfD program. It is also no secret that many party members at AfD showed up at the PEGIDA protests. To support the demonstrations, some national conservative AfD members have joined forces in a “patriotic platform.” The chairman of the patriotic platform, Hans-Thomas Till Schneider, AfD member and Islamic scientist at the University of Bayreuth. In november, he praised the movement on the homepage of the “patriotic platform,” and wrote that the participants are “smart people” opposed to the participants of HoGeSa (HoGeSa represents Hooligans against Salafists and consists of an alliance between thousands of right-wing hooligans and neo-Nazis, they had a first violent protest march with many riots in Colonge on octobre 26th, 2014) .Further, Till Schneider wrote: “What PEGIDA is missing is a party that supports the protests from within the parliament.” A party like the AfD. Besides the AfD also members from the Christian Democratic coalition CDU / CSU are showing sympathy for PEGIDA.

Recently, Bernd Lucke, party speaker AfD stated on his facebook page that he finds the PEGIDA demands legitimate, which will probably not be shared by many people. When German television moderator Günther Jauch confronted Lucke with his facebook message during his talk show, Lucke excused himself by saying: “It happens sometimes that my employees put messages on Facebook, wich…”, the rest of his sentence went up in the laughter from the audience.

Just as the fear of neo-Nazis for the “national death”, the organizers of PEGIDA are in a “state of war” between ethnic and religious groups. They shout against the alleged destruction of the West and the “German people”. “Worry and fear of others” are in the core of this thinking.

That the demonstrations PEGIDA and the North Rhine-Westphalian variants BOGIDA (Bonn) or DÜGIDA (Düsseldorf) are not directed against the IS and other regressive Islamic groups comes clear when one observes the protesters and the protest choirs. Neo-Nazis and people are shouting together “We are the people” also “Germany for the Germans” and “working places first for Germans.” People are valued on the basis of their origin and religion, and based on alleged biological characteristics. PEGIDA may represents itself as a public iniative in the media, but in fact it is based on racism and nationalism.

Racism hides the real cleavages in society. People living in a capitalistic society, fight for real jobs and access to limited life stocks. The mutual competitive positioning for access to limited vital resources leads to progrom, hatred and the desire for a larger, more protective collective belonging, in the case of PEGIDA the belonging to the German nation. Therefore the anger and desperation of this constructed community is focused against those who live within the boundaries of the German nation, but do not belong to the community. The “German nation” in European history is a very young concept, the German State was first established in 1871, the German borders have expanded several times by robbing life space of other nations, in very cruel ways, then the German nation also got punished very hard by the Allies. Nevertheless, the sense of the German nation until this day remained unchanged: marked by nationalism, racism, religion and mythos.

Rather then changing a system where people are opponents to each other, the hate is
projected on “competitors”. The racist delusion has no place for the finding that the value of a person is not determined by descent. Instead, it propagates through German mythos dominated group feelings and it devalues all other communities, wich are held responsible for their own impotence, exploition and the threat of social decline.

PEGEDA pours even more water on the fire. The extreme right movement in Germany includes, estimated by the German on crime office BKA (Bundes Kriminal Amt), 22.000 supporters, 10.000 of them willing to use violence to achieve their political goals. In 2014, racist violence in Germany towards refugees clearly increased. Among the crimes registered in 2014: 30 attacks against refugee centers with firework and fire accelerators, 33 vandalistic acts against refugee centers, 53 physical attacks on refugees and one refugee left to dy. Although the given number of victims of acts of violence might seem small, we must deal with these phenomena with alot of attention: who puts an occupied building on fire knows that his/her act can kill people. The condition for refugees in Germany is extremely tense and could result in pogrom-situations such as in the German city of Rostock and Hoyerswerda beginning 1990s, where five young lives were ended and which condemned the victims instead of the agressors: no one was called to justice to take responsebility for this inhuman actions, later in 1993 the fundamental right on assylum in Germany was simply abolished. Just a few years ago the secret neo-nazi terrorist organization NSU (National Socialistic Underground), committed several shootings and bomb attacks in germany with the knowledge and support of secret agents. Nine immigrants and one police officer have been killed. There is strong suspicion that both in Germany and in the rest of Europe other violent extreme right networks, similar to the NSU, are still active today.

sources:

Faz, German newspaper: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/demonstrationen-in-dresden-wer-sind-die-organisatoren-der-pegida-proteste-13325574.html

Noz, German newspaper: http://www.proasyl.de/de/news/detail/news/hetze_und_rassistische_gewalttaten_nehmen_zu/

HPD, German humanist press: http://hpd.de/artikel/10775

Amadeo Anonio Stiftung, German association for civil society and democratic culture: https://www.amadeu-antonio-stiftung.de/

Pro Asyl, German refugee organization: http://www.proasyl.de/de/news/detail/news/hetze_und_rassistische_gewalttaten_nehmen_zu/

Antifa AK Köln, antifascist action group from Cologne:
http://antifa-ak.org/

PEGEDA # WATCH: Anti-Racist info site:
http://pegidawatch.blogspot.de/