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Germany and the 'Pinstripe Nazis'
Other | Wednesday 7th January 2015 | Matt
This month sees Germans pitted against each other in a bitter row over immigration and the perceived ‘Islamisation’ of Germany. With immigration at a twenty year high, the country has been rocked by a spate of widespread demonstrations by ostensibly anti-Islamist protestors organised under the banner of Pegida, “Patriotic Europeans against Islamisation of the West”. The group drew a crowd of 18,000 to their protest in Dresden, and their sudden rise in popularity reflects a wider xenophobic insecurity that is sweeping through Europe amidst economic hardships.
Despite Pegida’s claim that the group offers a voice for legitimate grievances around the state of Germany’s immigration policies, the group has become an umbrella for a number of far right and neo-Nazi organisations, and marches have been dogged by nationalist rhetoric that proudly claims “Germany for Germans”. Event organiser Kathrin Oertel addressed a crowd of Pegida supporters, “In Germany, we have political repression again. We are called Nazis for our justified criticism of Germany’s asylum seeker policies.”
Despite these protestations, there is a central dichotomy at the heart of Pegida. They claim to be reacting against the violent misogyny of Islamist ideology, but then suggest a return to Germany’s Judeo-Christian culture as anathema to this problem, exchanging one expression of barbarous monotheism for another. Even the Catholic Church has taken up against the group, shutting off the lights of Cologne Cathedral in order to warn its congregation that Pegida supporters were advocates of extremism. Representing groups with wildly differing agendas has led to the ideological disarray that underpins Pegida’s recent protests, and any materialist critique of either religion or policy has been lost amidst racist psychobabble about ‘Muslim Immigration’.
Thankfully, counter protest movements have been strong, and Angela Merkel has issued a warning to those swept up by the group: “Do not follow those who have called the rallies. Because all too often they have prejudice, coldness, even hatred in their hearts.”
