Opposing the neo-
Nazi onslaught
International Viewpoint # 242 February 1993 within each of these formations. Their electoral rise is very much a media phenomena completely disproportionate to a weak activist base and lack of well-known personalities. Brice Lalonde has openly declared his intention to contribute to the building of a modernist (or Democratic in the US sense) alliance between centrists, ecologists, and enlightened Socialists. In spite of their stated aim of engaging in a new type of politics, the THE murder by racists of three immigrant workers in the German town of two partners have already become involved Mölln on November 23 last year made headlines around the world. A in the traditional shady political games. German correspondent, David Müller, looks at the background to the
More generally, the fragmentation of the attack and assesses the massive anti-racist protest movement in his electoral landscape and the fact that nearly 40% of the electorate may have no parliamentary representation owing to the twocountry.
round electoral system will only add strength DAVID MÜLLER — Hannover, January 19, 1993 to Mitterrand's promotion of the need for an institutional reform, a scheme that has divided the right.
This reform could also be the occasion for Mitterrand to fine tune his agenda. The former Socialist leader and minister of education Alain Savary said ironically that François Mitterrand is an honest man in that he has given the Socialist Party back in the state in which he first found it over 20 years ago— that is, shrivelled up.
Mitterrand today seems no longer interested in the future of this party and has been encouraging a range of transitional initiatives such as Generation Ecologie, the promotion of Bernard Kouchner, or the extension of Bernard Tapie's Energie-Sud into a national Energie France. These are components of an eventual coalition or "Democratic" formation built around a core from the current PS.
But such a situation is still a long way off. With the disappearance of the red peril in the East, the end of the liberal mirage of the 1980s, and the abandonment of the social democratic reformism of 1981, the time has come to make hard choices. The president has set the tone for the next months. Resigned to the inevitability of a return of the right, the president has posed as the guardian of social rights.
The threshold of three million unemployed has been officially crossed and a wave of lay-offs is feared, with indications that the recession will last into 1993 with disastrous effects for the youth. In his blunt manner, Bernard Tapie has already declared on television that everything has been tried as far as government measures go, and only imagination and the good will of all concerned remain. The right finds itself in the same situation. Balladur's speeches are as empty as Bérégovoy's: in order to recreate jobs, growth is necessary; but how can this be done without deepening budgetary deficits and cutting social security? * 16
FTER the mass anti-racist
A
demonstrations at the end of November, in which some one million people took part, the debate on racism in Germany is today dominated by two events. The first is the agreement between the main political parties, the SPD, the FDP and the CDU, over the restriction of asylum rights. More important, however, has been the murder of three immigrants, who died in an arson attack by fascists in Mölln in Schleswig-Holstein on November 23, 1992 which has had a decisive effect on the mood in Germany.
The vision of blazing asylum hostels and deaths raises the question of the roots of this terrible racist wave. In fact, both long-term and more immediate factors are
Racism exists in all imperialist states. However, racism in Germany has two peculiar characteristics. Firstly, German citizenship is fundamentally tied to "race membership". Anyone from the former Soviet Union who can prove themselves to be of German origin can become a German citizen when they move to Germany — while the same is not true, for example, of Turkish immigrants who have lived in Germany for many years.
The other is the fact that the German trade unions and the mass workers party, the social democrats of the SPD, no longer bother to give even verbal adherence to a socialist perspective. In the former East Germany (German Democratic Republic - GDR) the experience of Stalinism is a supplementary factor. The outlook even of union-organized workers cannot be described even as reformist in the classical sense. It is at the most democratic. They are thus more open to a reactionary perspective than in the 1920s.
This circumstance also affects the social composition of the far right and fascist organizations. The base — and voting support — of the far right Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) and the Republicans are still largely from the lower middle class. However, the classic fascist organization, the National Democratic Party (NDP), has 50% workers in its national leadership. The social change is even more striking in the former GDR, where the fascist shock troops are mainly high school students. Further inroads into the working class cannot be ruled out. In any case it is not true that today's Nazis are overwhelmingly marginal "declassed" types.
### Reactionary vanguard
Overall it can be said that the militant Nazis have for the time being succeeded in creating a racist atmosphere through direct terror. Their role is that of a reactionary vanguard. However, the Nazi terror has only been able to reach such dimensions because since 1986 the government has been campaigning against refugees in order to distract attention from its own failures and social cutbacks. Furthermore, the defeat of the public sector workers strike at the start of 1992 meant the loss of a crucial opportunity to mount a progressive opposition to social decay and falling wages.
And let us not forget the behaviour of the social democrats, who have done nothing to defend refugees. The way to the December 7, 1992 agreement on this question was paved by the decision of the SPD special conference of November 1415 allowing the party to take part in changing the constitution.
Just before the special conference it seemed possible that the SPD rank-and-
"Decency First"
THE demonstration "Decency First" was the biggest mobilization in Austria's postwar history. More than 250,000 people joined the Lichtermeer ("Sea of
Light") organized by SOS Mitmensch. Though boycotted by the media, a demonstration organized by Platform gegen Fremdhaß und Rassismus ("Platform against Xenophobia and Racism") gained the support of 10,000 people.
International Viewpoint # 242 February 1993 file would reject the change. However, the SPD leadership, and in particular the head of the party's parliamentary fraction Klose and party chairman Engholm succeeded in two weeks of manoeuvres in assuring a big majority for their policy at the special conference.
The occasion for these actions was an "anti-foreigner" petition campaign by
Klose made it clear even before the
Jörg Haider's far right Austrian Freedom Party (FPO).
conference that, while the SPD deputies
Haider thought he only had to harvest the prevailing xenophobic climate assiswould take its decisions into considerated by the racist laws of the government coalition of Christian Democrats and tion, they would continue to negotiate over
Social Democrats as well as the deployment of troops on the borders with Slothe asylum issue with the government.
Engholm made an opening speech which contained much anti-fascist rhetoric as a
However, in nearly every community in Austria initiatives have arisen to oppose sop to the rank-and-file, but made no mention of the little matter of the constitutional people turned out. In Salzburg, Lina and Innsbruck there were marches of more change. The SPD leftwing, meanwhile, than 100,000. And in the capital Vienna, 250,000 filled the city centre with torches did not put up much resistance.
The inter-party compromise is a big blow for the anti-racist mobilizations, whose central demand was for the maintenance of article 16. The agreed changes to vakia and Hungary.
and candles in their hands.
paragraph 16 of the German Constitution
Platform has therefore been largely boycotted by the media, while SOS Mitmensch received ample attention. Furthermore, the latter formation manoeuvred on asylum and the associated package of to undermine the Platform, which was nonetheless able to get 4,000 to its laws amount to a comprehensive dismantdemonstration and 10,000 to the rally outside a government office.
ling of asylum rights.
The central point is that refugees who chewing the im a the regentry good prene have travelled across so-called non-persethose entitled to vote - but the impact of these demonstrations may prevent cuting states (that is, states that the German government decides are not involved challenged. If the FPÓ fails to get over 500,000 signatures — a figure compa rable to its vote of 782,000 in the last general elections — this will be considered in persecution) can be sent back to those as a defeat for Haider. Hermann Dworczak * states. Poland and the former Czechoslovakia are numbered among them. Gypsies from Romania could find themselves sent back to that country, which may likewise be designated non-repressive despite clear evidence that Gypsies are persecuted
We should recall in this connection the prolonged campaign needed to persuade the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party which now dominates the German government, to abandon its definition of Turkey as a non-persecuting state.
More than 150,000 people turned out for the demonstration around the SPD special conference on November 14, a significant number given that this was a demonstration against the SPD leadership. The coalition which organized the march stretched from the anarchist autonomists to the
Jusos (the SPD youth organization) and it was attended mainly by the left and high
However, public opinion was affected far more dramatically by the murders on
Mölln than by the anti-racist demonstrations. For the first time the victims of the attack were immigrant workers who, unlike refugees, have a real social weight and some collective political experience. Furthermore, while the ruling class has an interest in using the refugees as scapegoats, they also want to keep the immigrants as a class of workers with few rights. They do not want to see a massive outflow of such labour.
Thus, we heard the Opel car firm, a third of whose workers are immigrants, promoting "tolerance and peaceful neighbourliness" through the mouth of Kevin from the American hit film Home Alone. Fear of radicalization among immigrant workers also played a role. They have more than once shown themselves to be the most militant and politically aware section of the working class in Germany. Thus there is a broader consensus against terror against immigrant workers than that ready to defend the refugees.
The murders inspired both fear and anger among immigrants. It was noticeable that when interviewed many immigrants went beyond defensive demands. While older immigrants tended to appeal to the state to defend them, the youth often talked of organizing self-defence
However, the Turkish-Kurdish immigration is very diverse. Among the youth there is a small vanguard which is oriented both to the autonomists and towards (moderate) "multi-culturalism" but which also defends its own independence. On the left of this layer are the Turkish youth groups who have taken militant action against the Nazis.
The Greens have played a different role among immigrants than in other movements, including the ecological movement. In most movements the Greens have an ideological rather than an organizational influence. Things are different with the anti-racist movement. Lists connected to the Greens frequently get the biggest vote in elections for the immigrant councils - this is true for example in
These councils are elected by immigrants at local level. They can make proposals to the town councils but have no decision-making power. Few immigrants actually vote. Nonetheless the Greens have gained real mass influence among immigrants — for example, in Berlin -and can mobilize them.
The first signs of the initiating role of immigrant workers in the working class have already been seen. Symbolic strikes took place in several enterprises (in some cases with the support of the management).
Ambitious appeals and action circles have also been set up in enterprises. A
17
Jhr Visum bitte!!
International Viewpoint # 242 February 1993 are two sides to this development. On the one hand, it is a good thing that the reformists are backing and taking part in mobilizations. As immigrants begin to get involved, reformist participation is unavoidable and also desirable. In recent years the influence of the revolutionary groups among immigrants has fallen constantly and the possibilities for wider mobilization are welcome.
Call for state ban
However the orientation of the reformist organizations presents problems. They call for a state imposed ban on the Nazis, a line which will tend to sideline the massively raised demands for self-defence. Furthermore, they will not welcome attempts to draw the links between social and anti-racist demands.
Another problem inherent in the new situation is that, while there have been huge demonstrations, there is as yet little in the way of long-term organization. Some groups have arisen but they are very weak. There are a handful of coordinations at local level which usually bring together the traditional left groups - the
"Your visa please" meeting of these different initiatives took place on January 17 this year on the initiative of the shop stewards' committee in the Hösch enterprise in Dortmund and the Initiative Movement of Unionists against Racism and for Friendship of the Peoples. The meeting brought together some 100 union functionaries, above all from the IGMetall union. They issued an appeal to the leadership of the DGB union confederation and the individual unions to organize anti-racist actions on January 29 including industrial action. A campaign for a general stoppage on May 3 is underway.
After Mölln there was a change of mood; there is now a prevailing sentiment in the population against racist terror (but not against all forms of racism) and the first stirrings of a movement amongst immigrants.
In recent weeks almost all the big cities have seen so-called "lines of light" in which more than a million people have taken part. These involve people holding candles for half an hour in the city centres. They are either silent as in Munich or listen to Bible readings and stories as in Hannover.
The lines of light have been mainly organized by bourgeois forces, up to and including the Bild newspaper which has been violently attacking refugees for years.
While they certainly express the change in mood they also have the effect of 18 channeling and restraining the possibilities for more profound anti-racist activity. A line of light has little in common with the collective experience of a demonstration; people stand around alone or in small groups without any encouragement of a sense that they can take some action to further the goal. The organizers often make a virtue out of the "non-political" nature of the action. Anti-racism is reduced to an expression of feeling.
However in many places the left has also taken initiatives - for example leafletting campaigns in Hannover (the Greens) and in Munich (the local anti-fascist committee) calling for equal rights and denouncing the compromise on asylum. These actions are often very well received.
Another novelty is that the reformist organizations have become heavily involved in the movement.
Previously the demonstrations were mainly made up of high school students among whom the reformists have little weight. However the same is not true of the immigrants. The Greens, who are represented in many immigrants councils, are seen by immigrants as a force that consistently defends their interests. The SPD is anchored amongst the immigrants via the trade unions. They have to watch out for pressure from their rank-and-file Turkish and Kurdish workers.
The reformist organizations have worked tirelessly in these mobilizations. There remnants of the Communist Party, left Greens, autonomists and small communist groups — and high school student activists. There is less activity in the universities than during the Gulf War.
There is a crying need for nationwide coordination based on the activists. Only the reformist and bourgeois forces are organized on a national level. But these do not do a lot. On the left the dominant force in the anti-fascist movement are the anarchist autonomists the majority of whom are opposed to common national link-ups.
The goal of socialists should be to work towards the building of a united front. Simply to issue propaganda calling for this is not much help. Practical steps need to be taken on two fronts:
• The setting up of grassroots' organizations which can activate all those who want to fight racism. Actions and mobilizations are needed which can provide a credible guarantee of the physical security to immigrants and refugees. There must also be a consistent orientation towards self-defence rather than state defence.
• Coordination of the radical forces — something that is feasible with some of the radical immigrants and autonomists — around an approach of promoting a united front of workers, immigrant, refugee and other progressive organizations.
Finally, socialists face the task of exposing the social roots of racist oppression and linking up our movement with allied movements in other countries. *