Posted on 02/12/2005 8:16:44 AM PST by longjack
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NEO-NAZIS Rebellion of the Clueless By Henryk M. Broder Twelve right-wing MPs are stirring the Republic up. The Democrats are in panic and are blaming each other - yet zero-tolerance would be the correct approach.
Oh, wouldn't it be beautiful if only there were a Super-Nanny in real life who specialized in treating rebellious right-wing radicals! But instead of a super Nanny, there are only little hobby Nannies, who don't have any idea of what must be done, and who announce their ignorance publicly. Last week, right in time for the carnival season, there was another fasching-fools debate on principles. The governor of Brandenburg, Matthias Platzeck, demanded new proceedings for banning the NPD. His deputy, Jörg Schönbohm was promptly against it: "I am sceptical whether a NPD ban is workable or not." Commentator Arnulf Baring explained that the NPD is a kind of early warning system against threatening local tsunamis: It "picks up on things that the population feels are important, but that are ignored by the established parties....". It wasn't quite clear whether he meant that xenophobia had now become so important you just couldn't leave it in the hands of the right-wing radicals - but that didn't stop the new CDU Secretary General Volker Kauder from continuing to build on those thoughts: "You can fight the NPD best by listening to the concerns and the fears of the people who are drawn to the right-wingers." In turn, FDP boss Westerwelle wants to spread the responsibility onto many shoulders: "We expect courage of conviction in every citizen", says the man who in the Möllemann case exhibited everything possible, other than courage of conviction. Saxony's governor, Georg Milbradt, in whose state the right-wing radicals now sit in the parliament, asked Dresden-ites to demonstrate against zero-tolerance. People should come to the square in front of the Semper Opera House with burning candles. He meant well, however, it is also based on an intellectual fallacy. It shouldn't concern demonstrating against zero-tolerance, rather for it. Until now, tolerance for right-wing radicals has worked about as well as the freedom to ply their trade has for drug dealers. Politicians react like drivers in the first snowfall Two years ago, instead of doing something themselves, the government called for a "rebellion of the decent". The thoroughly correct consideration that most citizens in the Federal Republic aren't Nazis, and find the Nazis disgusting found its fallout in a demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate. That was it. The government was relieved, and the decent went home with the good feeling of having shown the indecent just who is in charge in the country. Surprisingly and unexpectedly, the indecent continued on as if nothing had happened. Now, after the events in the Saxon Landtag, a rebellion of the clueless is taking place across the entire republic. Aside from Dolly Buster and Boris Becker, almost all representatives of the new Germany have given their, "What to do about NPD"-statement, even Charlotte Knobloch, the chairperson of the Israel community in Munich, who has demanded founding a commission to "prevent the NPD from moving into the Bundestag". Not a bad idea: replacing the election process by a committee decision wouldn't only guarantee a result, it would also save a lot of the time and money.
The current discussion about the NPD makes three things clear. Firstly: The political class in the Federal Republic was caught napping by a phenomenon which has occupied the public for decades. The politicians are reacting like drivers to the first snow: They are still trying to get home as fast as possible before everything shuts down completely. Twelve NPD representatives are stirring up the country, creating the topics, determining the agenda. And every day they are laughing themselves silly at how easy it is to create panic in the parlor. It's not imaginable what would happen in the Federal Republic if they emphasized their demands with a little physical force. So, this is the "well-fortified democracy", whose representatives didn't weary of shouting "resist at the start", on that November 9th, while just around the corner agents for foreign affairs were writing up the number of attacks against the foreigners who were careless enough to go out after dark. Secondly: The right-wing has learned something, the representatives of the "system" haven't. NPD people don't only wear neat and proper suits, carefully prepare their appearances and use the media skillfully to their favor. They have modernized their terminology. The holocaust isn't denied any more, it is integrated into their own reasoning. Instead of saying, as before: There never was the holocaust, they now say : The holocaust meant the Germans. We weren't the perpetrators, we were the victims. Absurd Liberalness NPD people aren't the last incorrigibles from yesterday, they are the scouts for the politics of tomorrow. They think the unthinkable and act with the naturalness that is meant when one speaks of "normality" in civil circles. The worst reproach one can make of them isn't that they contaminate the climate in Germany, rather that they damage the image of the Federal Republic abroad and deter investors. There are only two effective strategies against the NPD: ban them or isolate them. If a ban is hardly possible any more, at least a type of political quarantine should be possible. But this isn't applicable if the NPD is legitimized by assertions that it articulates moods in the populace which wouldn't be picked up by the other parties. This can only mean: They represent legitimate interests. Why then should we exclude them? Thirdly: The NPD profits from a climate of liberalness which favors all absurdities. The sentence: "Das macht man nicht!" ["That just isn't done", or, "you just don't do that", longjack], that doesn't have to be justified because everyone knows what it means, doesn't exist in public usage any more, even cannibalism has become a question of taste and is judged under diet / physiological aspects. However, the most popular and wide spread social-philosophical oldie is the unproven assertion that unemployment leads to right-wing extremism. Why, really? The unemployed Englishman goes fishing, the unemployed Dutchmen plays billiards, the unemployed Italian looks for a lover, only the unemployed German automatically becomes a Nazi. Is there a genetic disposition for this? Nonsense only makes sense when everyone believes in it. And when experts proclaim over and over that you must talk to everyone about everything. That understanding doesn't mean agreement, that one shouldn't see actions as isolated but should search for the motives. A Nazi who beats up an African who has dared to go into the "wrong" disco, isn't simply a thug who enjoys violence, he is probably unemployed and so desperate about his situation that he can't do anything besides hit things around him. . But why must it always be the foreigners, the homeless and the handicapped, why don't the underprivileged ones vent their rage at agencies of the state , or at a festival where the super-rich demonstrate their caring for the poor of the third world?
Translated by longjack
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2005 Alle Rechte vorbehalten Vervielfältigung nur mit Genehmigung der SPIEGELnet GmbH
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Gives you some background about the Neo-Nazi scene in Germany at this time.
longjack
longjack
I hate it when writers and speakers use "Nazi" and "right-wing" in the same sentence. Since when did National Socialists become "right wing"? In my lexicon, Nazis are the antithesis of conservative principles and values.
And the difference between the Nazis and the Islamo-fascists is........?
I think this is because of different definitions of the word "right-wing" in America and Europe.
Japan was a member of the Axis. That is what comes to my mind.
I agree. As I was translating, I knew someone would pick up on that.
longjack
Well... I thought the guy forgot to take off his Carnival outfit.
That flag in the OP sure looks like the Rising Sun.
longjack
Well.. maybe you're right after all. In fact I have never spent much thought on those idiots and their flag-fetishism.
Another topic.
I scanned over the preview of Schroeder's speech at the security conference that is being given today, but was written up in "Spiegel" last night.
I thought it was going to be controversial when I read it yesterday, and now I'm starting to pick up on the RSS feeds that it actually is being viewed like that.
Have you seen anything about it here on FR?
longjack
The Nazis were much snappier dressers.
It was an eye-opener for me to read how the NPD has polished up their methods. Unfortunately, the cat is out of the sack, now.
Also....
The same question I asked Schiller. Have you seen the reports about Schroeder's speech?
I'm sure that will be a great discusssion topic here.
longjack
No, I haven't as of yet and I am sure you are right,that it will be a great discussion topic.
BTW,I was just sitting here wondering ,when the next election is in Germany.The election is the only way to change the politic climate over there,by people making it known that they are fed up with that nonsense.
I challenge you to define "right" vs. "left", as used by the Europeans, in a manner that does not contradict itself.
The terms "right wing" and "left wing" originated in Europe to describe the members of the French Chamber of Deputies after the French Revolution of 1789. The aristocrats sat on the right and the revolutionary radicals sat on the left.
How does the National Socialist Worker's Party become the "Right"?
The term "Right Wing" is now used without any rhyme nor reason by socialists on both sides of the Atlantic to mean "The Bad Guys."
For decades, the European and American socialists worshiped at the altar of the Communist Soviet Union.
When the USSR fell and the horrors of Soviet Communism could no longer be denied, remember what the hard-line Soviet Communists were called by the Liberal news media?
They were then called "Right Wing".
I believe Schleswig-Holstein in a couple of weeks, and Niedersachsen in May, I'm not sure about others.
Schroeder is back, though. I contribute it to CDU/CSU infighting and/or lack of message. Incredible to believe after Schroeder was down to 25% or so in the polls last year.
longjack
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