Thilo Sarrazin and the preparations for a new right-wing party in Germany

[Antid Oto]

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Thilo Sarrazin and the preparations for a new right-wing party in Germany
11 September 2010

In the space of two weeks, a concerted campaign has developed in Germany to
defend the racist views promulgated by Thilo Sarrazin in his new book Germany
Abolishes Itself. Behind the former Social Democratic Party (SPD) official and
member, until recently, of the executive board of the Bundesbank (Germany’s
central bank), there has emerged a broad alliance extending from leading Social
Democrats to prominent intellectuals and media figures to the right wing of the
Christian Democrats. Their goal is to overcome long-discredited racist
prejudices and prepare the ground for a new right-wing party.

In his book, Sarrazin has supplied this campaign with its key themes. He
declares that social problems are really ethnic problems, and places the
responsibility for these problems on Muslim immigrants. To support his argument
he cites falsely interpreted statistics and the types of pseudo-biological
arguments which, since the Nuremberg racial laws and the Nazis’ eugenics
program, have had credence only in the grubby propaganda of various neo-Nazi groups.

Sarrazin, who served in the Berlin city government as finance senator for many
years and bears major responsibility for the social decline of entire
neighbourhoods, ascribes the increase in poverty and its associated problems to
immigrants’ supposedly below-average intelligence and alleged unwillingness to
integrate. “The problem is not material but intellectual and moral poverty,” he
writes.

His book is a transparent attempt to divert growing anger over worsening social
conditions away from those political and corporate figures who are responsible
and channel it against vulnerable sections of society.

The publication of Sarrazin’s book was accompanied by a well-orchestrated
campaign in the media. This began with the advance publication of long passages
in Der Spiegel and Bild. In recent weeks there has not been a television talk
show that did not feature Sarrazin himself or one of his defenders.

Whereas most commentators initially distanced themselves from Sarrazin’s most
provocative theses, declaring that he had initiated a “legitimate” debate but in
an unfortunate manner, prominent politicians and journalists have now begun to
openly support his racist theories.

On Monday, former federal education minister and current mayor of Hamburg, Klaus
von Dohnanyi, a prominent Social Democrat, wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that
he was prepared to defend Sarrazin in a hearing to consider his expulsion from
the party.

He justified “Sarrazin’s basic thesis,” which he summarized by saying that
Germany was “in danger of seeing its intellectual elites melt away,” as they
were having too few children, while groups that have thus far “not distinguished
themselves through their work or performance” have produced more children, and
thereby depressed “the long-term performance level of the nation.”

Dohnanyi also explicitly defended Sarrazin’s racist theory that there were
“special cultural characteristics of ethnic groups, and that Jews had a slightly
different genetic structure.” His contribution ended with the call: “Please
don’t shrink from words such as race, Jews, Muslims.”

On the Spiegel Online web site, Matthias Matussek, former head of the magazine’s
culture department, banged the same drum. Sarrazin had “become a symbol for
those outraged at the way in which the self-righteous of the social consensus
unleashed the steward to escort disturbing hecklers out of the room,” he wrote.

Matussek then summoned up all the anti-Islamic prejudices by which the war in
Afghanistan and the war preparations against Iran are justified. He wrote that
Sarrazin embodies “the anger of people who are fed up with seeing the Middle
Ages return to their society, which has a long and arduous process of
enlightenment behind it… They are tired of reading about Islamist associations
that are close to terrorism, about honour killings, about death threats against
cartoonists and film makers… Who are furious about reading that Western
statesmen have to intervene on behalf of women in an Islamic country because
they are to be stoned for adultery.”

Finally, referring to Dohnanyi, Matussek complained that “in Germany, against a
background of the Holocaust, a culture of intellectual suspicion is blooming
that means hardly anyone uses words such as ‘gene’ and ‘Jew.’”

Sarrazin has also had support from Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg
of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU). Speaking in a Bavarian beer
tent in front of a 2,000-strong audience, Guttenberg said that Sarrazin had
initiated the right discussion, and called himself for an “unblinkered debate”
about the integration of immigrants.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) interior affairs expert Wolfgang Bosbach
and his SPD colleague Dieter Wiefelspütz expressed themselves similarly, saying
that integration was the “mega-theme of the next few years.”

In its latest edition, Der Spiegel proclaims Sarrazin a “national hero.” His
face is featured on the cover of the news magazine alongside the headline: “Folk
Hero Sarrazin. Why So Many Germans Fall for a Provocateur.”

In fact, there is little evidence that the hype over Sarrazin is anything more
than a media-fueled campaign, or that his racist theses find broad support among
the population. It took an intensive media campaign full of distortions and lies
before the Emnid Institute could report in an opinion poll commissioned by Bild
am Sonntag that almost 18 percent of Germans were prepared to vote for a protest
party led by Sarrazin.

It is noteworthy, however, how vehemently prominent politicians from the SPD and
the CDU/CSU support Sarrazin and demand an end to the political “taboos” with
which German post-war politics has supposedly been burdened as a result of the
crimes of the Nazi regime.

Although the SPD leadership initiated an expulsion process against Sarrazin, it
rejected any fast-track procedure, meaning the deliberations will drag on for
months if not years. According to the party statutes, the first arbitration
hearing does not have to be held until six months from now.

The Left Party too has been silent. There is no conflict with Sarrazin’s theses
from their side.

In a brief statement, Left Party Chair Gesine Lötzsch welcomed Sarrazin’s
dismissal from the board of the Bundesbank, but justified this primarily from
the standpoint of defending the reputation of the central bank. She said nothing
about the content of Sarrazin’s theses. According to the Emnid poll, Sarrazin
enjoys considerable support among supporters of the Left Party.

Unlike in Austria (Jörg Haider), the Netherlands (Pim Fortuyn and Geert Wilders)
or Italy (the Lega Nord), Germany has not previously seen a xenophobic party win
influence in the urban middle classes. Neo-Nazi parties like the NPD and the DVU
have been able to achieve isolated electoral successes, but these quickly
evaporated. They were able to hold onto their gains only in some rural areas
such as the Saxony Schweiz or Western Pomerania.

This could now change in view of the worsening of the social crisis. The
employers’ associations and their mouthpieces in the media have long complained
about the weakness of the Merkel government. And they do not trust the SPD under
Sigmar Gabriel to continue what was begun by Gerhard Schröder with the Agenda
2010 welfare and labour “reforms.”

Under these circumstances, Sarrazin’s book and the accompanying media campaign
represent a deliberate attempt to prepare the basis for a new right-wing,
xenophobic party. Such a party could be used as a lever to transform the
political landscape. For a long time, the right wing of the CSU has been moving
away from Merkel. Such a party could also count on support from sections of the
SPD, the Left Party and the trade unions.

This danger and Sarrazin’s racism can be combated only by building a new working
class party that fights for an international socialist program independently of
and in opposition to the SPD and the Left Party. This is the program of the
Partei für Soziale Gleichheit (Socialist Equality Party), the German section of
the Fourth International.

Peter Schwarz

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/pers-s11.shtml

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