Right-Wing Sentiment, Ready to Burst Its Dam (Germany)

[pampango]

Source: NY Times

As anti-immigrant sentiment continues to sweep across Europe, generating a right-wing populist wave from the shores of the Mediterranean to the chilly reaches of Scandinavia, there is growing concern that such politics could take root here, too, in the fertile ground of financial uncertainty, rising anti-Muslim sentiment and a widening political vacuum left by the misfortunes of the once mighty Christian Democratic Union.

While the Swedes this week elected an anti-immigrant party to Parliament for the first time, and the French are busy repatriating Roma, Germans continue to debate a best-selling book blaming Muslim immigrants for “dumbing down society” and have heard a prominent conservative ally of the chancellor, Angela Merkel, suggest that Poland helped to instigate World War II. “Uncertainty is widespread over German society,” said Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin. “That is always a good base for those who tell the people all their problems can be solved by simple methods, by solutions that the others wouldn’t dare to do, like throw out the foreigners.”

The C.D.U. faces a difficult balancing act, trying to acknowledge public frustrations without lending legitimacy to xenophobic and racist views. To ignore the problems, some say, potentially opens the field to right-ring parties. “This means that right-wing populist parties enter a vacuum that comes into being because many people get the feeling that politicians are not aware of their day-to-day lives,” said Wolfgang Bosbach, a party member and deputy head of its bloc in Parliament.

At the moment, no one here is predicting the rise of a successful right-wing party, but that is because the main ingredient is missing: a charismatic leader to rally the public. With such a leader, and some financial support, the prospect could take on a life, political experts said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/world/europe/22germany.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Ach, mein Gott!

[iandhr]

2. I was in Europe last semester...

...Mostly in France (Strasbourg) but spent some time in Germany for fun. The lady who ran my program husband is a member of the Bundestag (Free Democratic Party.) They are right of center on economic issues and liberal on social issues. (I think) When he came to seek told us that these groups are small in number.

I did a little reading on my own. Some of the "members" of one of the groups (Nation Democrats) were undercover agents of the german government.


But also it seems that the far-right vote is divided among a few different groups which prevents one from getting a foothold.

But all over Europe there getting a foothold so its possible that Germany would be next.

What the article did not say about France is that the Far Right block of Le Pein Le Front National has zero seats in the Assemblée nationale.

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[Iterate]

4. “dumbing down society” indeed.

So what do we have here? sweeping generalizations, hyperbolic metaphor, little nuance or complex subtlety, plenty of fear aromas laced throughout, no contradictory detail that might indicate the need for a cautious conclusion, and just coincidentally, a view of Europe that supports the NYT's view of the American political landscape.

Except at the end, of course, where they conclude that their headline just might be bullshit. Swell. In the mean time we're left clueless and overwhelmed as to what might be of concern and what the real issues and solutions might be.

Like so many, I tire of playing whack-a-mole with idiots. So let me focus on one line:

"Germans...have heard a prominent conservative ally of the chancellor, Angela Merkel, suggest that Poland helped to instigate World War II."

That sounds terrible: I'm not sure if what I'm hearing is a Stuka or the whispering of Newt Gingrich into Obama's ear.

The person being referred to is Erika Steinbach, the head of the Expellees' Association, a group which represents the 12.5 million ethnic Germans who were kicked out their homelands at the end of WWII. They are generally right-wing, aggrieved, old, and unpleasant. Broadly speaking, they do not feel responsible for WWII, were too young to have taken part, and feel betrayed by both the Nazi's and the Allies. Most were poor and left with nothing; Now they have spent their lives rebuilding and writing libraries' worth of revisionist history. One title I saw recently: "Hitler's Last Victims".

I'm not excusing these people in the least, but just suggesting some depth to the story. The key here is that they are old, old and dying, going away, not feeding the right-wing any longer; the next generation is integrated and doesn't share those views.

Steinbach was invited into the Merkel cabinet as part of the coalition government, with reservations, and now she has been kicked out.

The NYT headline might have as easily read: "Merkel kicks out right-wing nutcase", but it didn't.

For more, a better article (with a caution that it's a UK source):
"Merkel ally quits after claiming Nazis didn't start war"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/merkel-ally-quits-after-claiming-nazis-didnt-start-war-2076379.html

[Blue_Tires]

5. thanks for the insights...

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Iterate]

7. That's not even close to being true

and is a grave insult to one of the most peace-oriented populations on earth. Should you be so foolish as to shout that in Germany, you could be detained or arrested based upon incitement and hate-speech law.

[MissHoneychurch]

9. Off topic

Hallo aus Frankfurt :hi:

[Iterate]

10. Hallo!

Hallo aus Budenheim.

It looks to be a beautiful day now that the fog has lifted, and perhaps a good day for an outing along the Rhein or Main. No doubt your kitty will find a place in the sun this afternoon.

I was lucky to visit Kornbach in the Fichtelgebirge this past summer and had the opportunity to hear tales from some of the old expellees, and although I find their right-wing political views and historical revision loathsome, it's hard to deny the reality of their experience. I imagine you had the same conflict in your other post, but you did it wonderfully well.

Maybe the real lesson here is that we should hear stories directly from each other rather than what the NYT and others want us to hear. The irony is, the media is playing the same "divide people" game as Ms. Steinbach.

[MissHoneychurch]

11. My family is on my fathers side from Bohemia

and on my mothers side from Silesia.

My grandparents all lost their former home. My grandparents from Bohemia were expellees, kicked out by the Czechs. Nevertheless there were never bitter words towards the Czechs in our family. When I was a kid we would visit their former village often and spend our vacation there.
I am sure my grandparents missed their old homes but there was no bitterness. And that is what makes the difference.

[Iterate]

14. I knew of the migration from my school years

in the US, and not long after I arrived I began to hear fragments of stories from that time. My ex-wife's father was from Romania, one of the fortified medieval towns near Mediasch. They were ethnic Germans, but must have been there for centuries. Her mother's family was from a poor village near Cheb. So they were both expellees as well, and after some coaxing they told the whole tale.

As her mother recounted, without notice they were told they must leave, so they picked up what they could and the whole extended family, including five young sisters and a young brother, and began walking the 400 or so kilometers from Cheb to Wiesbaden. They knew one person there, a relative who had just secured a job in a hospital. After walking for weeks, they arrived and were put in a settlement camp where her mother soon got a job filling out forms. That's where she met her soon-to-be husband. His journey was was more fraught with danger, including leaving ahead of the Russian advance and being taken into the army at a young age in the last months of the war. Within a year or two they had all moved into apartments, began working new jobs, raising families of their own. Some of that family moved again, and some went back for a visit many years ago. They mentioned hiking to the Egerquelle, almost as a pilgrimage.

None of the 25 or so people included in that story ever showed any bitterness or odd politics, except for one uncle by marriage, yet another expellee from Bohemia, who for some unknown reason never got over it. It could be he was a naturally unpleasant person. Otherwise, if anything, the only problem I ever noticed was perhaps an odd disconnect from history, as if the whole world began anew in 1947.

In the end, that family told all the stories there were to be told, so I started my own quest for more of the history. And the more I learn, the more complex it gets, and I begin to feel uneasy about generalizations.

[MissHoneychurch]

8. You have to understand one thing

about Erika Steinbach, the lady who suggested that Poland helped to instigate WW2. This lady is head of the "Federation of Expellees" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Expellees In these organizations are (mainly) old people who had to leave their homes after WW2 in now Poland and the Czech Republic. They are still not over it. The CDU has always courted those organizations to get their votes. It is now biting them back.
Erika Steinbach is a very controversial person who keeps saying controversial things to stay in the press. This is going on for years already and she isn't getting any further. Because of her the relationship between Poland and Germany had to face some hard times.

[Odin2005]

12. Mein Gott im Himmel!!! This is not good!

[Zorra]

13. World population is growing.

There's only so much space.

There's only so many resources.

Some places have more safety and resources than others.

People that live in areas with limited opportunity and resources are naturally going to gravitate to those places with the most resources, opportunities, and security.

People that already live in areas where there are more opportunities, resources and security are naturally going to feel threatened by newcomers that they see as a threat to what they feel are their (already diminishing) opportunities, resources, and security.

Does anyone profit from the chaos?

From "The Seven Loose Pieces of the Global Jigsaw Puzzle", (an essay by Subcomandante Marcos)
snip--

The results of this world war of conquest was a great ring of millions of migrants in all the world "Foreigners" in the world "without borders" which the victors of the Third World War promised. Millions of people suffered xenophobic persecution, precarious labor conditions, loss of cultural identity, police repression, hunger, prison, death.

"From the American Rio Grande to the "European" Schengen space, a double contradictory tendency is confirmed. On one side the borders are closed officially to the migration of labor, on the other side entire branches of the economy oscillate between instability and flexibility, which are the most secure means of attracting a foreign labor force" (Alain Morice, Op. Cit.).

With different names, under a judicial differentiation, sharing an equality of misery, the migrants or refugees or displaced of all the world are "foreigners" who are tolerated or rejected. The nightmare of migration, whatever its causes, continues to roll and grow over the planet's surface. The number of people who are accounted for in the statistics of the UN High Commission on Refugees has grown disproportionately from some 2 million in 1975 to 27 million in 1995.

With national borders destroyed (for merchandise) the globalized market organizes the global economy: research and design of goods and services, as well as their circulation and consumption are thought of in intercontinental terms. For each part of the capitalist process the "new world order" organizes the flow of the labor force, specialized or not, up to where it is necessary. Far from subjecting itself to the "free flow" so clucked-over by neoliberalism, the employment markets are each day determined more by migratory flows. Where skilled workers are concerned, whose numbers are not significance in the context of global migration, the "crossing of brains" represents a great deal in terms of economic power and knowledge. Nevertheless, whether skilled labor, or unskilled labor, the migratory politics of neoliberalism is oriented more towards destabilizing the global labor market than towards stopping immigration.
(more)
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html

[Release The Hounds]

15. Did they start with the Bear Patrol first?