Letter from the Streets of Berlin

Anti-Fascism, Immigration and 21st Century Communities

(An unfortunately prescient piece from 10 years ago)

September 5, 2006 — One of the shifts that we all have to adjust to in the Global North is the fact that as the global population grows, we are increasingly in the planetary minority; and that as the youth bulge reaches adulthood lots of young people in Africa, Asia and Latin America will seek work and better lives in Europe and America.

There are three great forces at work here. The first is that as developed countries have gone through the demographic transition that accompanies modern, urban lifestyles, birthrates have declined, leading to comparatively older societies in need of young labor. The second is that countries in Global South have just encountered the first part of that transition, where death rates fall as birth rates rise. As a result, for instance, the countries neighboring Europe (from Morocco to Afghanistan) once had only half its population; now they are slightly more populated; and by 2050, their population will be three times as large as Europe’s. The third is that our world is connected as never before, and people nearly everywhere know what Global North standards of living are like and to some degree wish to have the same. In short, the world is full of ambitious young people, the developed world is short of labor, and the money immigrants can make here and send home has become vital to the fates of many, many people. Immigration is not going away (and no fence will stop it).

Finding ways of accommodating these realities is essential to building a stable planet in the 21st century. Sensible immigration policies and multicultural societies are prerequisites for a bright green future.

But it is also an uncomfortable fact that anti-immigrant politics, including Neo-Nazism, are on the rise across the developed world.

Here in Germany, the extreme right, while still very fringe, is growing larger and more violent, with almost 1,000 hate crime attacks last year. Public displays of Nazi sentiments, once nearly unthinkable, have become more common, while the NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) — a right-wing party widely considered to be fascist sympathizers, or worse (though so heavily infiltrated with secret agents and informers that an attempt to ban the party had to be suspended) — has gained ground in recent years, actually sitting a few elected officials.

What’s more, neo-Nazi culture (from rascist music to veiled Nazi symbols to particular brands of clothing known for their skinhead associations) is reportedly becoming semi-mainstream among conservative youth and in former East Germany. Some German commenters see this resurgent fascism as mostly youthful rebellion, albeit of a disturbing form schools and police seem unable to stop.

Many here, though, conscious of the terrible cost of this continent’s history of racism and fascism, are unwilling to sit by and watch the spread of far-right politics. Indeed, anti-fascism is a big movement here. Anti-Nazi posters and stickers are scattered all over the hipper parts of Berlin and over the next couple weeks there are a series of rallies and hip-hop concerts and lectures, even a skateboarding competition, all aimed at confronting the spread of neo-Nazism here. Reportedly, leftist/ punk/ immigrant kids are even turning big parts of Berlin into “no-go zones” for skinheads, and will attack them on sight.

Fascism is abhorrent enough that, despite believing that extra-state political violence is always wrong, I find myself sympathetic to anti-fascist kids willing to kick the crap out of right-wing thugs.

But I also wonder if escalating violence is, in fact, an answer, either in Europe or America. Efforts at building tolerance and multicultural sentiment through art, community dialogue and civil rights laws have clearly worked to a certain extent, but it’s my data-free belief that racism and enthnocentrism are still deeply entrenched on both continents, and the most progress has been made among those already sympathetic to the cause.

Which leaves me, sitting in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighborhood and watching the mix of people walking the streets — Europeans, Germans of Turkish descent, recently-arrived folks from Africa, Russia and the Middle East — to wonder if there isn’t perhaps a more worldchanging approach to forming truly multicultural societies. Given the degree to which both global inequity and structural racism are part of the problem, don’t we perhaps need some tools, models and ideas which get at the embedded systems and cultural roots of the problem? It seems to me that putting the stomp on a skinhead is the ultimate case of treating (or beating) the symptom while the cause goes on festering.

But can we successfully hack our communities to eliminate or at least greatly reduce racism and ethnocentrism?

How? Models must be emerging which allow us to win hearts and change minds and get at systemic problems, but we rarely hear of them. If you’re reading this and you have suggestions of models to look at, or ideas of your own, we’d love to hear them.

We need to find a way to overcome these 20th century attitudes and start building truly multiethnic 21st century cities. To fail does more than invite further unrest like the French riots of 2005, it frays our societies, leaving unprepared to deal with the even bigger challenges we know we will face over the next half century.

Originally published September 5, 2006 on Worldchanging.

Alex Steffen is a planetary futurist and creator of the books Worldchanging and Carbon Zero. His new project The Heroic Future launches in September. Follow Alex on Twitter or to sign up to get his free weekly newsletter.