Neo-nazis up the ante
International Viewpoint #247 July 1993 pressure on activist initiatives and make concrete proposals which favour pan-European united action. The real challenge is to make this link between debates - from Copenhagen to Paris - and an activist and pluralist investment in the mass movements.
It is through the successful combination of these two approaches that future progress
TWO days after the passing of a very tough new law on asylum rights, a in the definition of an alternative Europe will house was set ablaze in Schengen in the vicinity of Cologne, killing five be made. There is a long list of movements for which commitments made in Paris could
Turkish women and girls. The target of racial attacks in Germany has have important consequences in the future:
changed - from refugees and recent immigrants to the long-established in European anti-racist campaigns, against
Turkish community. In response, Turkish youth have started to defend unemployment and for the reduction of the work week, in the feminist movement (notably in defence of abortion rights), and in the themselves.
DAVID MÜLLER & BJÖRN MERTENS — Hannover, June 16, 1993 building of a anti-militarist and anti-imperialist movement.
Many of those present have real forces to invest in such struggles; and while the ideological and strategic debate should be had in full, the ability to join together around immediate demands will be decisive. It is precisely in this that the interest and utility of the Paris Assembly lies.
And this is why the Fourth International and its sections were a driving force. To be sure, there is a need for further proof after this first initiative, before we can make a final judgement. But other organisations who claim allegiance to socialism and a revolutionary project are wrong to keep aloof from such initiatives.
We are neither dreaming nor racing ahead of ourselves. The Paris Assembly clearly demonstrates what is currently possible and necessary. *
A growing list
THE following is a list of new signataries of the Paris Appeal, which appeared in the May 1993 issue of
International Viewpoint.
Joseph Zisyadis, deputy and president of the Party of Labour, Switzerland; Charis Golemis, secretariat member of the AKOA, Greece; Per
Gahrton, spokesperson for the Green
Party, Sweden; Gudrun Schyman, deputy and president of the Left Party,
Sweden; Johan Lonroth, deputy and vice president of the Left Party, Sweden; Eva Nikell and Kjell Petterson, spokespeople of the Socialist Party,
Swedish section of the Fourth
International; François Houtart,
CETRI, Belgium; Pierre Galand, President of OXFAM, Belgium; Ken
Livingstone, Labour Party MP, Britain; Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party
MP, Britain; Gilles Perrault, writer,
France. *
T HE constitutional changes
and new asylum law passed by the German parliament on May 26, 1993, virtually abolish the right to asylum in Germany. The new rules mean, example, that a refugee arriving in Germany who has passed through a third country deemed to be "safe" can be expelled back to that country. Countries falling into this category include India, which Amnesty International considers to have one of the world's worst records of torture. Refugees without valid papers will also be thrown out. Despite all the politicians' protestations to the contrary, this will clearly work to exclude political refugees.
The German establishment has been insisting that the asylum restrictions would bring the fascist groups onslaught to an end. In fact, the new law represents a concession to these forces and a retrospective vindication of the fascist mobilisation.
CDU
Now the fascists and the youth under their influence have the wind in their sails, as was gruesomely shown by the murders in Solingen. Since then, every day has seen new arson attacks mainly directed against Turks, but also against refugee centres. This new wave of terror has arisen because of -and not in spite of — the new asylum laws.
Since the start of 1991, the mainstream rightwing government parties, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) have been in the forefront of whipping up hysteria against refugees. The aim was to create a climate in which immigration can be halted. The government would no longer give money to political refugees. At the same time, it was convenient to blame non-Germans for the crisis produced by German re-unification.
The government campaign rolled out a red carpet for the fascists. The number of racist attacks soared, reaching a high point in the pogroms in Hoyerswerda in August
SPD
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International Viewpoint #247 July 1993
1991 and Rostock in September 1992. And on the very night that the refugee hostel in Rostock was set ablaze, the leadership of the opposition Social Democrat Party (SPD) caved in and declared its readiness to support a change in the constitution.
This turnaround would not have come so fast without the fascist terror. The Nazis have gone from being scavengers in the wake of the official policy to being its trailblazers, at least in terms of the mood of the German people. We now have the first shoots of a new fascist street movement.
The Nazis were able to wage a campaign of open terror in Hoyerswerda and Rostock. In Rostock, the police effectively arranged to leave the field to the Nazis for two hours. In Dresden fascist groups were able to take over the whole city and even cooperated with the police - in this case against public gambling and prostitutes. So far, fascist actions on this scale have only been seen in East Germany where the left is weaker and the militant wing of German neo-fascism — small but highly organised groups such as the formally banned Nationalist Front or the Freedom Workers Party - have been able to win far more influ-
The tactic of night-time raids by hooded commandos on immigrants and refugees throughout Germany, however, has allowed the Nazis to sow fear and confusion while remaining largely secure from retribution by the left and immigrants.
The government and the SPD have fanned the flames, giving the impression that the Nazis are pursuing a righteous aim but with the wrong methods. The terror became uncomfortable, however, when it met serious resistance that could not be controlled; when immigrants were murdered in Mölln, the fascists struck at a group that could defend itself. However, the establishment was most concerned about reaction
At the same time, they saw that resistance was growing. The official demonstration in Berlin on November 8, 1992 turned into a rally in defence of asylum rights and on November 14, 150,000 people turned out in Bonn to oppose the SPD leadership on the occasion of the special congress of the SPD (which nonetheless voted by a majority of 90% to accept constitutional change); in both cases, the demonstrators escaped the control of the traditional apparatuses of the left.
A further factor was the growing independent strength of the militant Nazis — desirable as auxiliaries but to be kept in their proper place.
All these factors gave rise at the turn of 1992-93 to the "Chains of Light" movement which brought out 500,000 people in
Munich, 100,000 in Hannover and 2300,000 in Berlin. This was an expression of a change in the popular mood which was no longer ready to accept open terror. The chosen form of action united the broadest participation.
Against the background of the deeplyrooted racism of the German population, the Chains of Light undoubtedly marked a step forward. At the same time, they performed functions which were anything but
The specifically racist nature of the vio lence got lost under the general condemnation of "hate and violence" by these demonstrations. And, most disastrously, no concrete demands were raised. Racism as a disembodied spirit was to be exorcised, but there was to be no struggle against concrete racist attacks and laws. The murders in Solingen and the subsequent protests exposed all the weaknesses of the existing anti-racist movements in Germany.
Solingen delivered a shock above all to Turkish immigrants. For the first time we saw anti-racist demonstrations made up in the majority of immigrants — 5-7,000 strong in Solingen on the day after the murders, two demonstrations of 1,500 each in Hannover, 6-7,000 in Munich. The small size of these marches compared to the Chains of Light was a result of "fear of vio
Even on the evening of the first demonstration in Solingen disputes arose mainly between young Turks and the police. These incidents were sensationalised by the media into civil war-like street battles, although in fact they were at first the outcome simply of spontaneous anger, and the human cost was strictly limited
These minor incidents were used by the establishment to raise a hue and cry against "rampaging Turks". The German government threatened those taking part with expulsion. Stopping any such expulsions is thus now a major task for anti-racists. That it is equally important to develop perspectives that can prevent frustration and anger blowing themselves out in incidents that only bring further danger to immigrant
Nonetheless, it remains the case that the current mobilisation by immigrants is a positive development. Immigrants (the biggest group being 1.8 million from Turkey, including some 200,000 Kurds) are both in the frontline against racism and are an important component of the German working class. Many work in big industry — for example Volkswagen — while a third of Opel's workforce is from Turkey
- and are unionised. However, much of the German and Turkish left have not recognised or even reacted negatively to the new developments.
Much of the radical left, for example, rules out common actions with nationalist or Islamic groups. By this they mean not only Turkish fascist groups, like the Grey Wolves - which attack the Turkish, and especially the Kurdish, left - but also Turkish youth who wave Turkish flags at demonstrations and people mobilised through the mosques. In Hamburg, for example, the far-left stayed away from the demonstration on June 5 and in Hannover there were two demonstrations.
This is all the more disastrous in that the far-left, both German and Turkish, is
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International Viewpoint #247 July 1993 very much in the minority among immigrants. The field is being left to reactionary groups.
The essential reason for this attitude as far as the Turkish left is concerned is that their political priorities are determined by what happens in Turkey. Efforts have been made to take up specifically immigrant issues but they have not lasted. Thus what the Turkish left - overwhelmingly of Maoist extraction — does in Germany is determined by the state of the political play in Turkey. And this is particularly true of the dominant party among the Kurds, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).
The PKK has seldom taken part openly in these mobilisations. One reason is a justified fear of attacks by Turkish fascists. However, more important is the PKK's policy which limits work in the diaspora to solidarity with Kurdistan.
This policy has a basis in reality. The German state has strong links with Turkey, including in the fight against the Kurdish national struggle. Furthermore, the Turkish government exercises direct influence over emigrants through a host of organisations. In Germany, Turkish nationalism has the support of a really-existing state.
Nonetheless, the straightforward repudiation of Turkish nationalism in Germany by the German left is a big mistake. It fails to see that the nationalism of the Turkish immigrant youth who wave Turkish flags is that of an oppressed group and has no necessary connection with Great Turkish chauvinism. It is an initial defensive response to German racism. However, since most of the German left has long ceased to draw any distinction between the nationalism of the oppressed and that of the oppressor, it is unable to grasp what is going on.
There is also a fear about leaving the left ghetto and relating to people pursuing a struggle for their own interests. And there is an underswell of unacknowledged prejudices about immigrants even among left radicals. The overall result of all this is a clear field for the Islamic fundamentalists. The perfidious tactics of the Turkish government, which is trying to make use of immigrants' fear of Nazis in favour of its own racist policies towards the Kurds may bear fruit.
Thus, after the arson attack, it was cynically claimed that criticism of Turkish policies in Kurdistan "contributed to the 'antiTurkish' atmosphere", thus favouring the attack. The big middle ground of moderate Islamic and nationalist-inclined Turks are left to the tender mercies of openly reactionary forces.
Socialists in the anti-racist movement face three central questions:
• How can the fascist terror campaign be counter-acted?
• How can the defensive struggle be turned into a campaign for equal rights for immigrants?
• How can the divisions amongst immigrants and between immigrants and refugees be overcome?
Definitive answers require more experience, but outlines of a strategy can nonetheless be suggested.
The Nazi terror must be countered both at the level of the atmosphere in society and through direct self-defence actions. On the one hand, we need broad mobilisations in which people can take part and which must, obviously, avoid confrontation. On the other, self-defence structures can be created, drawn from all the nationalities in a neighbourhood. This would not stop all attacks but such activities as street patrols would raise the stakes for the fascists. In the town of Achim near Bremen, attackers have been driven out. Demonstrations and protests against Nazi meeting places are also important.
The demand for equal rights has been vigorously raised by immigrants themselves. Such rights should concretely include: the possibility of dual nationality at the request of the person concerned; the right to vote at all levels; and the withdrawal of the new labour law, which discriminates against immigrants and refugees. Germany is a multi-ethnic country in which all nationalities must have equal rights, including that of cultural autonomy. Educational campaigns and mobilisations can be organised around these questions.
An important means of struggle untested in Germany is the strike. It would put the unions in the forefront of the anti-racist struggle. At the start of this year independent union groups succeeded in organising a short strike. And now the chair of the European Christian Democratic Workers Association has called for a general strike of all immigrants in Germany. We can learn from the Swedish general strike against racism and initiate common actions between German and immigrant workers. An anti-racist strike would also give an opportunity for educational campaigns and the organisation of demonstrations.
The common struggle for equal rights can also be a means of overcoming divisions. On this point also, socialists must undertake educational work and outspokenly oppose discrimination against particular groups of immigrants and above all against refugees. That means following through the demand for open borders in practice, mobilising against expulsions — even of single individuals and trying to prevent them. This struggle must also oppose the planned assembly camps.
The longest and hardest struggle will be to bring together the different potential opposition forces (workers, women, immigrants, refugees, and so forth). We have to do more than just talk about common struggle. Practical solidarity must be organised - in particular, solidarity with immigrants and refugees, from movements in which the majority of activists are German.*
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SPANISH STATE