The racial mob attack on eight Indians in an eastern German town last weekend has renewed calls for the German far-right NPD party to be banned.
The NPD is Germany’s bugbear. Never taken seriously by the major parties or media, they are nevertheless extremely well-organised at the grassroots level and have managed to have a small handful of members elected to two eastern state parliaments. The party often sets up informal gatherings for kids and families in small towns to work the crowds one on one. It’s all very suble and low-key and never billed as a gathering of skinheads, but the goal is always the same: recruitment to the anti-immigrant, racist fold.
Those of us who want to protect democracy and free speech have a problem with banning this party.
Because they’re working more or less within the democratic system to gain a foothold, if you’re a true democrat you can’t be in favour of banning them because that would be undemocratic. Their ultimate goal, however, is the overthrow of the federal republic – and democracy – in Germany.
My view has always been: just stop and listen to what these idiots are saying and you’ll see them for what they are.
Case in point is their leader Udo Voigt, who coincidentally the very night of the mob attack nominated the late Rudolf Hess – Adolf Hitler’s former deputy – for the Nobel Peace Prize. An utter nonsense move considering Hess has been dead for 20 years and the prize can only be awarded to the living. Even if he were alive, who would award the Nobel Prize to a Nazi?
Publicly glorifying or justifying the Nazi terror regime is a crime in Germany, so for coming out with this bogus nomination the police have charged him with inciting race hate.
I get the feeling this is as much an attention-seeking move as playing to the faithful at a Saturday night piss-up, so charging Voigt with race hate – especially now with these recent attacks gaining worldwide attention – is playing right into far-right hands. Should the charges stick and their leader go to trial, party members and sympathisers will make him into a martyr, a victim instead of a perpetrator.
In this way Germany’s hands are tied. Ignore him and you’re accused of failing to apply the law of the land. Apply the law of the land, and you give him a forum.
© 2007 lettershometoyou
The banner photograph shows the town of Britannia Beach, BC, Canada, where I grew up. It's home. But I don't live there anymore.
Every community, society and country is cornered into the same situation when these issues arise. Almost always the reaction is to use force to curb such actions, from whatever knowledge I have of world politics & history. Never have I heard of actions taken to find the root cause of the unrest. Not that I wanna sound supportive of individuals like these, but there angst always has a root cause. Poverty, Unemployment, Injustice or issues like that create desperation & young people most of the time get affiliated to groups that justify actions against those issues. The first visible cause & target is always the foreigners in this era of free trade.
The program “His Honor, the Mayor” written by Orson Welles covers precisely this issue of banning a political party, gatherings in a democratic system. You can listen to it online at:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/RADIO/Free/main.html
The Free Company was a series celebrating the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution.
Heck, keep in mind that even Yassar Arafat got a Nobel Prize…
It’s ridiculous, but not quite so far fetched…
Hess was a Nazi, but he left Germany before the Holocaust really started on a nutty impulse to fly himself to England. He was convinced he alone could persuade the English to make peace. Of course, he was promptly captured instead.
This issue of banning the NPD has come up many times before, but here’s another problem. It’s really a no-win situation. The party is allowed to defend itself in court. If it survives the court action against it, then it essentially has a “clean bill of health” from the government. If it loses the fight, then they just disband and regroup with the same leaders under a new name.
I’d opt for: “Give him a forum”. When a forum gathers a crowd, that’s not a problem. A problem is when a crowd can’t tell right from wrong.
(I have failed so far to grasp the reasons behind this German escapism of no-swastika, no-Nazi party, no-Auschwitzlüge, no-forum. Das Unglück das wir nicht sehen kann sich als das schlimste erweisen, so I’d say.)