Angela Merkel: Another "mainstream" politician backs racism

Blonde hair and blue eyes brings a smile to her chops

Over the weekend, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a meeting of the youth wing of her Christian Democrat Union (CDU, kind of like the German Tories) party that multiculturalism had “failed, utterly failed” in Germany.

What this amounts to of course is a massive attack on the communities of immigrant descent in Germany, from the top of government.

“They live side by side with us. For a while we lied to ourselves that they won’t stay and they’ll go away one day. But that’s not the reality. To say we are happy about living side by side is wrong.”

Check out how much venom she injects into her voice for taking on “them”:

After the Second World War, the rapidly expanding economy of capitalist Germany needed workers to take part in the massive reconstruction effort. Over the following decades Germany brought thousands of “guest workers” from poorer countries to their south and east (mainly Turkey, but also later many people from the former Yugoslavia). For a long time, they were treated as just that: guests, not full members of society.

It was extremely hard for immigrants to get citizenship: immigration laws demanded that you have a German parent, irrespective of where you were born. This effectively meant that if you were the child of an immigrant who was born and had lived your whole life in Germany, you were still not regarded as a German citizen. In other words, a system that was systematically biased against people living in Germany but not of a “German” background.

Turkish workers made their home in Germany, and did the dirty work of rebuilding it

After years of doing hard work for crap wages rebuilding Germany, many immigrants who had lived in Germany for decades, and who had families with them, didn’t see why they should be expected to just uproot and go to a country which wouldn’t be the home of their children.

These communities, predominantly originally from Muslim countries, face massive institutionalised racism. They are are largely restricted to ghetto areas of German cities, earn less wages and face regular racist attacks.

Throughout Europe we’ve seen the rise of new right wing movements that are attempting too use the fear of a phantom Muslim “enemy” that’s been created over the last decade because of the ‘War on Terror’, i.e. to justify imperialist attacks and occupation of Muslim countries. As capitalism globally has moved into a massive period of crisis, this has been exploited to make Muslim people living in Europe a scapegoat for the failings of the system.

There’s the BNP, UKIP and EDL in the UK, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, and the actions of the governments themselves in Italy and France that have all been part of this trend. Now the fact that the head of the German government has joined this racist crusade shows just how much strength racism has in German society.

Racism, obviously, has a very specific history in Germany as a result of the Nazis. As a result of the history of aggressive German imperialism and violent racism, many people in Germany are very worried about the return of racist ideology to German life. It also makes people uneasy to see how since reunification Germany has returned to being a military power that takes part in imperialist wars, in Yugoslavia and now in Afghanistan.

There are of course the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), who openly call for a return to the fascist past. They have met with some electoral success, have thousands of members and are a major part of the reason Germany is experiencing a record level of racist violence. Then there’s the right wing racist PRO Deutschland party, who hand out stickers with a mosque crossed out.

Getting funny looks: Horst Seehofer

But just like here, it would be a mistake to think that racism, specifically scapegoating Muslims, is confined to those who are explicitly far right. So called “mainstream” politicians are just as responsible for the fact that opinion polls find widespread support for racist ideas.

There’s Horst Seehofer, who’s the Minister President of the German region of Bavaria, where Merkel’s CDU party doesn’t stand, with German Tories being represented instead by the Christian Social Union, the CDU’s sister party. Earlier this year, he called for any further immigration from Muslim countries while Germans “deal with those already here” by “getting tougher on those who refuse to integrate.” Seehofer was quick to welcome the new hardline of his political ally Merkel at the weekend.

But both Merkel and Seehofer are both largely responding to an agenda that’s been set by Thilo Sarrazin, a sharp suited former politician for the Social Democrats (the SPD, the German equivalent of the Labour Party) with a name like a Bond villain.

Strike a racist pose: Massive banker Thilo Sarrazin

As finance minister for Berlin, where he implemented heavy cuts to public services, and became notorious for his comments disparaging the poor. He once claimed that the unemployed should be happy with the benefits they get or less, arguing “sauerkraut and sausage make a good inexpensive dinner” and that in winter people should save on heating by just “wearing a sweater.” He also attacked women who depended on benefits to support their families, saying:

“How can I arrange things so that only those people get children who can manage with them.  Some women get two, three, or more children even though they lack the wherewithal or the personal characteristics to see to their education.  The social system must be altered so people are not able to improve their standard of living simply by having children, as is the case today.”

When he was booted out of being Scrooge in chief of Berlin, he took up another lucrative post at the Federal Bank of Germany. Just before this he took to attacking Muslims as well, saying:

“I don’t have to recognize anyone who lives off this state, but rejects this state, and who doesn’t properly care for the education of his children while constantly producing more little girls to wear headscarves.”

While working as a central wanker, Sarrazin stepped this rhetoric up, claiming “the Turks are conquering Germany. . .with a higher birthrate”, and that: “Since Arab boys can’t make it with their own girls they use easier to get lower class German girls who they despise for being so easy to make out with.”

This was all leading to the release of his bestselling book ‘Germany Does Away with Itself’. The arguments in it are a chilling echo of the way that the Nazis once saw German society: he claims that Muslim children are genetically not as intelligent as white German ones, and that it’s urgent that white parents have more children. He claims that Germany is about to be “overwhelmed” over the next couple of decades.

As pointed out in the video above, Sarrazin’s arguments try to use a pseudo-science fake version of genetics to justify racist, Nazi arguments about supposedly inherent characteristics of different groups which have been conclusively proven to be a lie time and again.

But, unsurprisingly, the right wing German press welcomed his book, and some papers, such as Bild, the German equivalent of The Sun, reprinted large extracts, helping make Sarrazin front page news and his book a bestseller.

The Federal Bank did ask him to leave his post finally last month because of what a controversial figure he had become, but the supposedly ‘left wing’ SPD have yet to kick him out of the party. A former SPD Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, expressed his support for his extreme views, saying: “If he had expressed himself a little less crudely I could have agreed with much of what he said.” He found himself in the company of the neo-Nazis in finding an echo of his own ideas in those of Sarrazin.

The success of Sarrazin’s message has helped push politics towards a racist position, as reflected now in the fact that Merkel has felt the need to jump on the Muslim-bashing bandwagon. This is despite the fact that some of her own allies in big business have actually been calling for more immigration, saying that Germany doesn’t have enough workers. However, if increased racism means that immigrants aren’t in a position to fight for their rights from employers, it will suit them down to the ground as well.

The point of all this is to show that there is a desperate need for an anti-racist and anti-fascist movement that can see that it’s not just the far right defined in a narrow sense that are bringing racist and fascist ideas into the heart of European politics. The current wave of scapegoating and attacking Muslims across the whole EU is as much driven by the right wing press and mainstream politicians who may even pretend to be left wing.

Just like New Labour did in government in the UK, many in the SPD have seen the way to undercut rising support for the far right as to steal their ideas and rhetoric and attack immigrants, instead of recognising these ideas as a serious threat to everyone in society to be confronted head on as soon as they rear their head. The people willing to confront this new racism must be prepared to take on whoever perpetuates it.

Fortunately there are reasons to be optimistic. Germany over the past year has seen mass anti-fascist mobilisations that put even our impressive efforts to shame, with over 10,000 anti fascists making a human chain to stop Nazis marching on the streets of Dresden in February for example.

Thousands of anti-fascists blockade the streets of Dresden

And the success of the German socialists in uniting in Die Linke (the Left Party) is another cause for hope. Die Linke members have been among the few politicians to come right out and condemn the views of Sarrazin. “It is unacceptable that a managing member of the Federal Bank spreads such poison which splits society,” said Sevim Dagdalen, a Left member of the German parliament, who is herself from an immigrant background.

The racist politicians claim that their concern is to ensure “integration”, and so propose cracking down on immigrants who have not yet learned German for example. But is it really surprising that after decades of being treated as “guests” (more like second class citizens) in their own homes, they don’t feel like they are a full part of German society?

The racists desire to see one vision of Germany, and a narrow cultural and ethnic definition of what it means to be German are dividing society, are encouraging violence against those who don’t feel part of or conform to their vision. It’s crucial that the left and anti fascists across Europe fight back against these politics, whoever puts them forward.

Bonus: Check out this idiot I found while googling for racism in Germany.