On 1 September – the day of our arrival in Dresden – Germany played the Czech Republic in Prague in a qualifying match for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. After Alison had learnt to drive the technology in our apartment, she found the right TV channel, but sadly just after the anthems which are her favourite part. The football was of a high standard, we enjoyed the match, and predictably Germany won 2:1. We only found out the next day that it was not the German footballers but some German spectators who had made the headlines. They had chanted Nazi slogans and used the Nazi salute – actions against the law in Germany – during the national anthems and the minute’s silence that followed for two Czech football officials who had died the previous week. After the match the group created further disturbances of the peace, described as a “riot” in our local paper. The German Football Union and the national team expressed their regret and dissociated themselves from these spectators. We did not see any of these after-match events on television – FIFA makes sure of that. The German police conducted an investigation and concluded that these German “fans” had come largely from Dresden and Zwickau, two cities in Saxony which are just a short train trip from Prague.
Saxony and its capital city Dresden have recently gained a national reputation for extreme right wing radicalism. This has not always been the case: the excellent City Museum shows that the socialist movement was very strong in the city between 1870 and 1930, when it was an industrial centre and home to a sizeable working class. However, after the establishment of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949, Saxony, like most of East Germany, became isolated from the social and multi-cultural developments taking place elsewhere in Europe. Even now, 26 years after German reunification, we see, for example, little evidence of migration in the city.
Dresden is the home of Pegida, a far right-wing movement that has arisen in response to acts of terrorism and the migrant crisis of 2015. Pegida is an acronym for Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West). Pegida was initiated in October 2014 as a protest movement with the aims of opposing Islamic extremism, curbing immigration, expelling religious extremists, and tightening internal security. Demonstrations, called “evening strolls”, take place regularly on Monday evenings in the central square of Dresden. Numbers protesting have varied according to the issues of the moment; 35,000 people took to the streets after the Charlie Hebdo shootings in January 2015. On one occasion two journalists were injured. Mock gallows were erected when the Federal Chancellor, Angela Merkel, visited Dresden and she was loudly jeered. There is usually a strong police presence.
We watched a Pegida demonstration just after our arrival here: it was a low key affair, perhaps two thousand people. A speaker railed against an alleged link between Pegida and the fans at the football match in Prague the previous weekend. Constant themes appeared to be accusations of “Hassrede” (hate speech) made against the movement and counteraccusations made about the “Lügenpresse” (the lying media, or “fake news”). The speaker referred to Dresden as the “capital of resistance”. At the same time some counter-protesters with banners peacefully lined the outside of the square. We did not stay long: we didn’t want to seem to be supporting the protest.
But what of the real issue? Public opinion surveys in Germany have shown that a majority of citizens have concerns about the nation’s immigration and asylum policies. A third of respondents have noted increasing Islamisation as a social concern. Perceptions of Pegida vary around the country: some view it as a conservative middle-class movement giving voice to a social concern held by many people which is not being addressed by the Government; others accuse it of being nationalist, xenophobic and anti-Islam. A social commentator has described the movement as the “ghosts of the old nationalism re-entering Germany via the back door”.
Interestingly, only 2% of Germany’s Muslim population lives in the five federal states that used to form the GDR. And only a small proportion of that 2% lives in Saxony. Nonetheless, the Sächsische Zeitung, one of the local newspapers in Dresden, reports that over 50% of Saxons believe that Germany is being overrun by foreigners and 40% would stop immigration from Muslim countries. Saxony is fast becoming regarded by other states in Germany as a bastion of nationalistic and anti-foreigner sentiment.
The Dresden City Council has responded to these perceptions by drawing up a local action programme called: “We are developing democracy: for a diverse and cosmopolitan Dresden”. The mayor has stated that the tarnished image of Dresden needs polishing, and he wants to end divisions and bring people together. The Council has just this month voted in favour of the programme, backed by a budget of €560,000. The Council debated this issue during our first week here before approving the measure. The debate revealed that the social divisions that the programme is designed to address are entrenched in the Council itself. The mayor later described the debate as shameful and commented: “That was not the greatest hour in the history of democracy. But it does show how urgent and necessary the programme is.”
A significant number of Pegida supporters, not content with just protesting week in and week out, have sought a channel to establish their place in the political spectrum. Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is a political party founded in 2013 by a group of conservative economists opposed to economic bailout packages for failing economies in the Eurozone. This party has been taken over by extremists who have pulled it to the far right wing; it has gained a foothold in the Parliaments of a number of states in Germany. It had not been represented in the national Parliament until this weekend.
Yesterday elections for the federal Parliament in Berlin took place. The two traditional political parties in Germany – the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Socialist Party (SPD) – who represent the centre-right and centre-left emerged again as the two highest-polling parties, but both took a hammering, winning just 33% and 20% of the vote respectively. They lost votes heavily to the far right: the AfD won 13% of the vote and so became the third highest polling party in the new Parliament. The party, riven by infighting and internal leadership problems, had conducted an islamophobic, anti-immigration campaign which was strident, aggressive and at times vitriolic. The AfD will take up 93 seats in a Parliament of 690 representatives.
Where does its support come from? Well – surprise, surprise – the AfD is now the strongest party in Saxony with about 30% of the total vote.
After the election result was announced, an AfD party leader announced: “We will hunt her down” in reference to Angela Merkel. “We are going to take back our country and our people.” The following day, in the course of its first major press conference, one of its leaders stood up and walked out, resigning from the party. Not a great start.
We are here at an historic moment: the 2017 election is a break with a near 70 year history based on a negotiated national consensus. It is a turning point in German history because the AfD represents populism, the rise of an extreme form of German nationalism, xenophobia and has created social and political division; the party will undoubtedly bring a style of debate to the German Parliament in the next four years that the Federal Republic has not seen since its foundation in 1949. The rapid rise of such a party in Germany is an extraordinary development in a country that is sensitive to its recent history. German politicians face a challenge over the next four years to heal social rifts and rebuild a new social contract.
Monday 25 September 2017
