Resist racist propaganda and the restriction of democratic rights
The terrorist attack that took place last week in Solingen, Germany, is shocking. Three people were killed at a town festival and eight were injured, some of them seriously, by a 26-year-old Syrian who, according to media reports, came to Germany as a refugee at the end of 2022. The terrorist attack, which has now been claimed by the so-called ‘Islamic State’, is understandably frightening for many people. Many fear further attacks and feel unsafe in public spaces. Many are dreading the further rise of the so-called Alternative for Germany (AfD) far right party in Germany and right-wing extremists. The riots in Chemnitz, when a far-right mob went on a hunt for supposed migrants, leftists and others after a stabbing there in 2018, were not so long ago. Many Muslims, refugees and migrants have to worry about being placed under general suspicion again and about being exposed to more racism in everyday life. And they have to worry about their rights, which, as usual, will be attacked after just a few days. Unfortunately, all these fears are justified and they are reinforced by the statements from all major parties (with the exception of the Left Party). This will not create more security for anyone. That would require tackling the root causes of terrorism.
The competition to outdo each other that is now beginning, from the AfD to the conservative CDU/CSU and the ‘traffic light’ government parties, to BSW leader Sahra Wagenknecht, is dangerous and in some cases absurd and stupid. While the far-right AfD leaders may have popped the champagne corks at the weekend, as they were given another propaganda gift, the CDU/CSU, liberal FDP, social democrat SPD and Greens are driven to a large degree by fear of the upcoming state elections in eastern Germany where the AfD is leading the polls. However, this should not obscure the fact that the CDU/CSU and parts of the FDP and SPD, in particular, are deliberately using this attack to distract attention from social problems, to place refugees under general suspicion, further restrict democratic rights and build up the surveillance state. It seems that the CDU/CSU, in particular, is calling for a big step in this direction.
The worst thing is that all of this is a boost for the ultra-right Islamists. Organisations like the so-called ‘Islamic State’ have no problem at all with more racist propaganda. It’s part of their calculation because they know it will drive more young Muslims into their arms and they will profit from it. They are playing the same game as the far-right and nationalists when they divide working and poor people along lines of origin or religion.
Dangerous and stupid debate
Unsurprisingly, the far right AfD is repeating its call for a ‘migration turnaround’. What is more interesting is the tone and vehemence adopted by the established parties since the weekend. Among other things, CDU leader Friedrich Merz is calling for a general ban on the admission of people fleeing the civil war in Syria and from Afghanistan, which is ruled by the Islamist Taliban. The ‘traffic light’ coalition had already planned to deport more criminal convicts to these countries.
Merz also wants to talk to SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz and, according to the RND news agency, calls for permanent border controls, no right to stay for refugees arriving from safe third countries, an immediate end to facilitated naturalisation and that dual citizenship must be avoided “in principle”. The Chancellor and other ‘traffic light’ politicians want to tighten weapons laws. For weeks, the Minister of the Interior has been proposing to reduce the permitted blade length from twelve to six centimetres and to set up knife ban zones. As if that would stop any assassin from committing calculated murder. The real goal is different: more blanket controls, which will primarily affect (supposed) migrants.
The former leader of the “Communist Platform” and now self-proclaimed ‘left conservative’ Sahra Wagenknecht has in turn declared that ‘whoever allows uncontrollable migration will get uncontrollable violence’. She is thus repeating what she has already done in the past: establishing a causal link between migration and terrorism or crime, fuelling further fears of immigration and dividing people instead of explaining that the social causes of terrorism and crime must be tackled together and that capitalism is the fundamental problem. In doing so, she is aiding and abetting the agitation of the AfD or CDU/CSU politicians, such as Friedrich Merz, because it reinforces their arguments. It is a disgrace that those on the left who recently have split from the Left Party and joined her new BSW party have so far remained silent on this and apparently support her course.
Wagenknecht and others point out that the perpetrator should have been deported to Bulgaria long ago, where he first entered the EU, and she calls for asylum procedures at the EU’s external borders and an extension of the third country regulation. But what would that mean? Is this the way to prevent terror? These measures would apply across the board to all refugees. There are currently 1.3 million refugees from Syria and Afghanistan living in Germany. The overwhelming majority of those affected have not committed any attacks and have nothing to do with terrorism – except that many of them have fled from terror. It is also cynical nationalism to follow the logic of the Dublin Agreement on asylum processing, which is very convenient for politicians in the centre of the EU because the problem can be delegated ‘to the outside’. What would have prevented the attacker from carrying out an attack in Bulgaria?
Democratic rights in danger
Unusually, the Federal President also got involved in the debate early on and explicitly referred to the planned new law regarding the Federal Criminal Police Office, which according to him must now come into force. The Ministry of the Interior’s draft contains, among other things, ‘the authorisation to covertly enter homes as an accompanying measure for online searches and source telecommunication surveillance’ in cases of suspected terrorism, as well as AI-supported analysis of image material for facial recognition. Democratic rights and freedoms are therefore being attacked, which can also be used against left-wing activists, members of the opposition and those involved in struggle. Anyone worried about the dangers of the AfD’s future participation in government should also consider those who have been working step by step towards a more authoritarian and undemocratic state for years.
These familiar recipes – more deportations and restrictions on asylum rights, more surveillance, fewer democratic rights, more division – cannot prevent acts of terrorism and have not done so in the past. Most of those who are currently making these proposals are aware of this. The debate is calculated, the deaths are being instrumentalised. We wrote about this back in 2015 after the Paris attacks:
“For the Seehofers, de Maizières and other security fanatics, terrorist attacks like this are a real feast. They abuse them to push through their own political goals, which have no connection to the events in Paris. Regardless of whether some of the attackers actually came to Europe as refugees (in disguise), the Islamic State has no need to bring its terrorist cadres to Europe on a rickety boat across the Mediterranean or on foot along the Balkan route. There could hardly be a more stupid idea.”
It is still unclear whether the attack in Solingen was planned in the long term and to what extent ISIS is now just trying to claim credit for it after the event.
Terror begets terror
This does not mean that nothing can be done against terror. Terror has roots that need to be combated. But it does mean understanding that terror has many faces. It is no coincidence that ISIS is trying to justify the act ‘as revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere’. According to the medical journal, ‘The Lancet’, over 186,000 people may have died in Gaza since 7 October, last year, eight per cent of the total population. Compared to the official figures, this also includes those who are still lying under rubble or have died as a result of the hunger crisis. In the West Bank, over 640 Palestinians, and 15 Israelis, have been killed since 7 October. Despite all protestations and criticism, the state terror of the Netanyahu government is also supported by the German government with weapons and is not fundamentally questioned. Those who want to protest against it in this country are subjected to police violence and harassment and labelled as Islamists and anti-Semites simply for protesting. This also enables right-wing Islamist groups.
Israel’s war against Gaza provides reactionary, Islamist groups with their ‘human material’, which they can use to their advantage. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan waged by Western imperialists have had the same effect.
In 2015, we wrote:
“But the terror and the war are being sent back to Europe and other Western states by the recipient. We are witnessing a spiral of violence, terror, war and counter-violence, counter-terror, counter-war. Anyone who now points the finger (only) at Daesh (ISIS) or even accuses ‘the Muslims’, or even misuses the murder of 127 innocent people to create a mood against refugees, is helping to prepare the next terrorist attack.
“Anyone listening to the politicians during their funeral speeches should ask themselves why there are no such speeches and special television programmes when left-wing youths are torn from their lives by an explosive device in Turkey, when a drone attack by the US military has once again ‘accidentally’ blown up a wedding or a hospital, when bombs go off in Beirut, Aleppo or Baghdad?”
There are double standards when it comes to reporting and political outrage. According to Tagesschau ( a TV news outlet) 20 people have been killed in Islamist-motivated attacks since 2006. Since 2014, police in Germany have shot and killed 116 people. Nazis have killed at least 219 people since 1990. Between 2018 and 2020, there were over 19,000 heat-related deaths, especially of the elderly. Why is there not the same outrage and demands that ‘something has to change now’?
Fighting the root cause
If you want to fight terror, you have to put an end to war, imperialism, state terror, discrimination and poverty – in other words, the conditions that generate terror. We cannot trust pro-capitalist politicians to do this. They discover the topic of ‘internal security’ whenever it suits their agenda. Those who have the security of the working majority in mind do not, for example, bring the healthcare system to the brink of collapse, which alone is responsible for thousands of deaths every year. They would not talk about Germany having to become ‘war-ready’ again in order to defend its markets and spheres of influence against other capitalist nations in the future.
Sol, the Germany section of the CWI, is fighting for a socialist world in which nobody has to worry about their house being bombed or their family going hungry because it serves corporate interests. A socialist world would see the obscene wealth of today’s super-rich, banks and corporations be used instead to finance sufficient housing, well-paid jobs, well-equipped schools, hospitals and administrations. But that will not happen under capitalism. Public ownership of the big banks and corporations combined with democratic planning is needed to end insecurity and scarcities that characterise the profit system.
Racist and nationalist poison divides the working class and thus creates conditions under which the attacks on social benefits, working hours or the rights of wage earners, which the German capitalists have been demanding eagerly for some time, can be implemented more easily. It is therefore necessary for the left and trade unionists to engage in this debate from a class standpoint.
This means rejecting racist propaganda and the further deterioration of asylum law and democratic rights and demonstrating that what is needed instead is a joint struggle by all wage earners and socially disadvantaged people for equal rights for all, higher wages, really affordable and sufficient housing and massive investment in public infrastructure. These are the interests of the majority of the population, regardless of their passport entries, origin, skin colour or religion. Recognising these common interests and standing up for them is also the best way to combat racism and right-wing Islamism.
