PEGIDA nazis return to Dresden

Xenophobic racism took to the streets of Dresden this week, presenting Germany with its toughest challenge since reunification.

by Guido Caldiron
il manifesto, Oct. 22 2015

Few see­med to pay much atten­tion when, in early Sep­tem­ber, Hans-Georg Maas­sen, head of the Office for the Pro­tec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion, the agency that wat­ches over dome­stic radi­cal groups, war­ned of the risk repre­sen­ted “by the deve­lo­p­ment of right-wing ter­ro­rism” in Germany.

Maassen’s words, repor­ted by Der Tages­spie­gel, announ­cing a “dan­ge­rous radi­ca­li­za­tion of anti-immigrant for­ma­tions,” came after Chan­cel­lor Angela Mer­kel ope­ned up to refu­gees, pri­ma­rily Syrians, who were fil­ling head­li­nes across Europe. Demon­stra­tions sup­por­ting asy­lum see­kers were taking place all over the coun­try. And instead of a “Brown Army Fac­tion” Ger­man citi­zens see­med com­mit­ted to true soli­da­rity, with lines of peo­ple assem­bling to look after the arri­ving refugees.

Despite the racist attacks that sum­mer, the dan­ger see­med to have been exor­ci­sed. Only after the attemp­ted mur­der of a can­di­date for mayor of Colo­gne by a for­mer mili­tant neo-Nazi, and the return of the xeno­pho­bic and anti-Muslim group PEGIDA did it seem that things weren’t so kum­baya after all.

Ini­tially puzz­led by the wel­co­ming stance from Merkel’s con­ser­va­tive party and by the mass sup­port for refu­gees, the extreme right has re-formed its ranks, ready to reap­pear as soon as the indi­ces of popu­la­rity for the chan­cel­lor give way to anxiety and fear.

PEGIDA — Patrio­tic Euro­peans Against the Isla­mi­za­tion of the Occi­dent (Ger­man: Patrio­ti­sche Euro­päer gegen die Isla­mi­sie­rung des Abend­lan­des) — orga­ni­zed an event on Mon­day in cen­tral Dre­sden to mark one year since the birth of the anti-Islamic group.

About 20,000 peo­ple gathe­red and faced off against anti-fascist counter-demonstrators, on seve­ral occa­sions erup­ting in bra­wls. The crowd inclu­ded the usual mix of young neo-Nazis and those a bit on in years. Some hoi­sted signs in favor of Hun­ga­rian Prime Mini­ster Vik­tor Orbán, who became a dar­ling of the extreme right in Europe by vir­tue of his xeno­pho­bic poli­tics.

In addi­tion to a speech by the foun­der of PEGIDA, Lutz Bach­mann, who posts pho­tos of him­self dres­sed as Hitler on Face­book, the more anti­ci­pa­ted stage appea­rance was that of the Turkish-German wri­ter Akif Piri­nçci, a popu­lar author of detec­tive sto­ries nota­ble for their homo­pho­bia and ultra-conservative ideas.

Piri­nçci did not disap­point the crowd. He sta­ted that all refu­gees should be expel­led, then added that “of course there would be other alter­na­ti­ves, but unfor­tu­na­tely the con­cen­tra­tion camps are no lon­ger in operation.”

The words led Ber­tel­smann, Pirinçci’s publi­shing house, to announce they will pull his books from the libra­ries and dis­solve his con­tract, and the pro­se­cu­tor in Dre­sden ope­ned an inve­sti­ga­tion against him for justi­fy­ing Nazism, a charge that in Ger­many car­ries a pos­si­ble sen­tence of three to five years in prison.

But it’s dif­fi­cult to believe the threat of racism can be defea­ted with the cri­mi­nal code. Tat­jana Fester­ling, a PEGIDA can­di­date in Dre­sden muni­ci­pal elec­tions, won 10 per­cent of the vote, while the anti-immigrant Alter­na­tive for Ger­many polls at 8 per­cent nationally.

This might be Germany’s most com­plex chal­lenge since the reunification.