From: Hank Roth <odin@halcyon.halcyon.com>
Subject: ISO:Germany & Racism
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 00:26:13 GMT

<<< via P_news/p.news >>>
~From: rak608@cscgpo.anu.edu.au (Rick A Kuhn)                              
     
Subject: Article from the Socialist (Australia)                           

[Hank, what follows is an article from the next issue of the 
Socialist which you may want to use. The gate between 
AARNet/Internet, which I am on, and the net which the Socialist 
uses should open in the next week. Hopefully I'll be able to 
forward you stuff regularly after that (and material that deals 
with Australia).]                                      
 ---------------------------
Anti-Fascism in Germany                                                        
     
Racism continues to be a central issue in Europe. The issues are          
     
particularly stark in Germany. But there is a similar pattern in 
most European Community countries. 
     
Governments have been promoting racism, fascists have been the 
main beneficiaries and large numbers of ordinary people have 
mobilised against racism and fascism.                                     
     
But the issue is not simply one of governments promoting racism 
and fascist attacks.  Anti-fascists and anti-racists have also 
been mobilising. After the murder of three Turkish women in a 
late November arson attack in Moelln ,near Hamburg, the anti- 
fascist movement has reemerged in huge demonstrations and even 
strikes.                             

     
The conservative government of Chancellor Kohl has been arguing 
since the middle of 1991 that the German consitution has to be 
changed in order to cut down the number of asylum seekers coming 
to Germany. It raised the question after two major setbacks in 
State elections. Kohl had painted a rosy picture of unification 
in the first all German elections at the end of 1990. He ditched 
key promises about no new taxes almost immediately. 
     
The campaign against `sham` asylum seekers distracted attention 
from growing economic problems. And, by raking up racism, it gave 
the conservatives an advantage over the opposition Social 
Democrats. As the crisis produced by anihilation of east German 
industry deepened and the west German economy started moving into 
recession, the government needed the asylum issue more and more.
     
An unintended consequence of the anti-refugee campaign was the 
rapid growth of fascist groups. The electoral fascists like the 
Republicans and German People`s Union, for the time being, are 
trying to look respectable. But they hold provocative memorial 
ceremonies, conferences and marches. Votes for both parties in 
state and local elections have been on the rise since the 
government started its elections campaign. In Baden-Wuerttemburg 
in April the Republicans won 11 per cent. These organisations, by 
far the largest, have the bulk of their support in the west. 
     
There are also more numerous, but much smaller, neo-nazi groups. 
These jack booted fascists have the same politics as the 
electoral organisations and overlapping membership. Both currents 
are viciously anti-foreigner, anti-semitic and opposed to working 
class organisations. The neo-nazis concentrate on violent 
tactics, attacking foreigners and political opponents. Given 
extremely high levels of unemployment and hopelessness amongst 
young in the former German Democratic Republic, it is hardly 
surprising they have their main base in the east.  
     
There have been over 2000 fascist attacks in Germany this year.           
      
Including at least 17 murders, large numbers of assaults and 
attacks on on housing for asylum applicants, including a pogrom 
in the eastern city of Rostock that lasted for several days. 
     
This has become embarassing for the conservatives. It`s bad for           
     
Germany`s image abroad, especially as the government wants a seat 
on the UN Security Council, and deters investment, particularly 
in the east. To demonstrate its own anti-racist credentials, the 
government called a demonstration in Berlin on 8 November. Most 
of the 350,000 who turned up were opposing racism rather than 
supporting the government. And the Chancellor and President were 
hailed with tomatoes when they tried to speak.  
     
More significant, because it was organised around harder politics 
was the 200,000 strong 14 November mobilisation in Bonn. It 
demonstrated against changes to the right of asylum and the SPD 
(Social Democrats`) capitulation to the government`s demand that 
the constitution be altered. The massive engineering union IG 
Metall also took a stand against altering asylum laws. 
     
The SPD nevertheless agreed that certain countries will be deemed 
not to persecute anyone. People from these countries seeking 
political asylum will be sent back.  Asylum seekers who have 
passed through any other EC country before reaching Germany will 
be sent back to that country.  
 
But since the murders in Moelln there has been a shift in the             
     
political climate. At the Hoesch steelworks, unionists have built 
a telephone tree to defend their foreign colleagues against 
racist attacks. 200,000 workers in the metal industry stopped 
work briefly to show that workers oppose racism. 150 workers in a 
large print shop near Frankfurt did the same. There have been 
huge demonstrations in a large number of cities, including Munich 
(over 300,000) and Nuremberg (100,000). Public opinion has also 
swung against the racists. Support for the slogan `foreigners 
out` fell from 32% to 19%, according to a poll in Der Spiegel 
magazine.                                                  
     
The authorities were forced to forbid a Repulicans conference in          
     
Ottbergen because 30 organisations had called for a counter 
rally. And under the pressure of mass mobilisations and fear of 
its international public relations, the government has banned a 
neo-nazi organisation.           
     
As KlassenKampf the paper of the Socialist Workers Group, the 
ISO`s sister organisation in Germany argues, `thousands can now 
be won to the idea of building an anti-fasicst movement from 
below. This requires the construction of a broad political 
alliance of left organisations, including Young Social Democrats, 
trade unionists and Greens in which all can cooperate to stop the 
Nazis, irrespective of their other political convictions. . . 
Neither the actions of the state nor self-defence against 
attacks by fasicsts are a substitute for such a mass movement.` 
     
Racism in Germany and elsewhere in Europe is the product of two           
things. First the economic uncertainty and increased competition          
amongst workers generated by an economic crisis and the                   
rationalisation of industry. Secondly the efforts of governments 
to increase feelings of national unity and distract attention 
from their problems by arguing that foreigners, refugees or 
asylum seekers are a real problem.  This is being done in 
individual countries and collectively through new EC rules on 
political asylum.                         
     
The argument that foreigners or asylum seekers are a problem is           
particularly weak. The six million foreigners in Germany play a           
crucial role in German economy, especially in heavy industry,             
producing about DM200 billion or 9 per cent of GNP, according to 
the Cologne Institute for the German Economy. They contributed 
DM30 billion in taxes and social benefit contributions in 1991. 
Asylum seekers are net recipients of government spending only 
because they are forbidden to work. Nor are the government`s 
statistics to be trusted. It emphasises that about 500,000 asylum 
seekers entered Germany in 1992, but does not say that almost 
that many left the country the year before. 
     
from "The Socialist" January 1993                                         
     
Newspaper of the International Socialist Organisation (Australia)         
     
G.P.O. Box 1473N                                                          
Melbourne VIC 3001                                                        
Australia                                                                 
     
$12 for 12 issues ($20 airmail)                                           
     
 
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Cross-posted from P_news/p.news. P_news is a conference for 
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See also Anews (Fidonets) for other alternative news....
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