For years, a sense of disillusionment has been growing on the right. Now, the refugee crisis has magnified that frustration. Increasingly, people from the very center of society are identifying with the movement — even as political debate coarsens and violence increases. By SPIEGEL Staff
Martin Bahrmann, a local politician in the Saxon town of Meissen, was just preparing to speak in a council debate on refugee shelters when a ball-point pen ricoched off the back of his head. It was a cheap, plastic writing utensil — blue with white writing.
As a member of the business friendly Free Democrats (FDP), Bahrmann’s seat in the regional council is at the very back and the visitors’ gallery is just behind him. The pen must have come from somebody in the audience. When Bahrmann turned around, he found himself looking at a sea of hostile faces. Although there were around 80 visitors in the gallery, nobody admitted to having seen who threw the pen. On the contrary: The FDP representative and his colleagues were later insulted as being “traitors to the German people.”
Bahrmann, 28, does not draw a salary for his involvement in local politics. It is merely his contribution to a functioning democracy. He was born and grew up in the region he represents and he has known many of the people there for many years. But even he, Bahrmann says, now must be more careful about when and where he makes political appearances. Ever since the regional council discussed transforming the former Hotel Weinböhla into a refugee hostel, the established political parties have been confronted with the hate of many locals. One Left Party representative was spit on as he was walking down the street while another was threatened with violence. Meanwhile, representatives from the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and the neo-Nazi NPD were celebrated for having voted against the refugees in the regional council.
The pen thrown in Meissen may not have garnered much media attention, but it says a lot about the public mood in Germany, a country in which increasing numbers of people are united against the state, its institutions and its elected officials. It is a country in which antipathy towards democracy is gradually increasing while xenophobia is growing rapidly. And it is a country where incidents of right-wing violence are on the rise and refugee hostels are set on fire almost daily.
It is still just a radical minority that is responsible for much of the xenophobia and violence. The tens of thousands of volunteers who offer their assistance in refugee shelters every day still predominate. But at the same time, a new right-wing movement is growing — and it is much more adroit and, to many, appealing than any of its predecessors.
Reinforcements from the Center of Society
In the past, the right wing was characterized primarily by thugs with shaved heads, bomber jackets and jackboots — people who had difficulty getting the words “Blood & Honour” tattooed on their arms without a spelling mistake. After the 1990s, the jackboot crowd was replaced by the “Autonomous Nationalists,” right-wing extremists who disguised themselves by wearing left-wing clothing, but who were just as violent as their forebears.
These street-extremists are still around, but they have received reinforcements. The New Right comes out of the bourgeois center of society and includes intellectuals with conservative values, devout Christians and those angry at the political class. The new movement also attracts people that might otherwise be described as leftist: Putin admirers, for example, anti-globalization activists and radical pacifists. Movements are growing together that have never before been part of the same camp. Together, they have formed a vocal protest movement that has radicalized the climate in the country by way of public demonstrations and a digital offensive on the Internet.
Graphic: Right-wing crime in Germany.
The state and its organs, such as the government and parliament, have become the object of a kind of derision not seen since the founding of postwar Germany. Once again, political representatives are being denounced as “traitors to their people,” the parliament as a “chatter chamber” and mainstream newspapers as “systemically conformist.” All are insults that have origins in Germany’s dark past.
It’s not just the government’s refugee policies that are bringing the New Right together. The origins are much deeper, reaching back to the protests against the welfare reforms passed in the early 2000s, the anger at the euro bailouts and demonstrations against massive construction projects such as Stuttgart 21. They were all demonstrations of angry citizens who felt their politicians were failing them. Many of them have since become even angrier and have, at least internally, transformed into radicals.
The 1 million refugees who have arrived in Germany in 2015 are now acting as a catalyst for this new right-wing movement. The fear of foreigners, of being “swamped” by them, is bonding the New Right together and drawing more “concerned citizens” into their ranks every day.
Unsettled Germans
German society seems more unsettled than it has in a long time. In a survey performed by TNS Forschung for SPIEGEL (see left-hand column), 84 percent of respondents said that the large number of refugees currently coming to Germany will result in “lasting changes” to the country. Some 54 percent said they are concerned that the danger of terrorism is higher due to the influx of refugees and 51 percent believe that the crime rate will rise. Forty-three percent are worried that unemployment will increase.
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By Melanie Amann, Maik Baumgärtner, Markus Feldenkirchen, Martin Knobbe, Ann-Kathrin Müller, Alexander Neubacher and Jörg Schindler
Categories: Democracy, Europe, Europe and Australia, European Union, Germany, The Muslim Times