[This was published at morrissey.substack.com on Jan. 27, 2024 and at CovertActionMagazine on Feb. 17, 2024, with the title "German Protests Are Being Manipulated To Focus on Mythic Anti-Semitism at Time of Growing Popular Anger Over Germany’s Support For Israel’s War on Gaza and U.S. Proxy War in Ukraine." German (automatic) translation here.]
The US border problem, like everything else, it seems, has its mirror image here in Germany. It's not as uncontrolled as it is in the US, but still a problem, caused by the open door policy on refugees. It's complicated because Germany actually lacks skilled workers, but the immigrants we are getting are not skilled and there is no way to train them quickly enough, are a financial burden, etc. The "far-right" AfD was the first party to complain about this, often enough in the crudest manner so that they acquired a reputation as "racists" and "Nazis" -- not entirely undeserved. But since the Ukraine war the AfD has surged in popularity, with many people, also from the so-called "far left" (the Linke) voting for them because the AfD is also the ONLY one of the five major parties that opposes military aid to Ukraine and economic sanctions against Russia.
Now there is a new party, the BSW (Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance) that split off from the Linke (which has been reduced to virtual obscurity), which is also against the war and not "pro-Russia" but not Russophobic either, and already has a large following. Thus the ruling coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP are seriously threatened by not only the largest party (CDU/CSU) but also by the second-largest (AfD) and what may soon become the third-largest, the BSW -- especially by the BSW and AfD because they actually oppose the current government policy on two of the three most important issues: Ukraine and Russia. In the meantime all of the parties have recognized the immigration problem.
Thanks for reading Fire Dog! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
The recent massive demonstrations here are actually two different sets. One is real and authentic, that of the farmers opposed to cuts in government subsidies for small farmers. The second set, I think intended to merge with and distract from the first, is the extremely media-hyped demos against the "extreme right" and "antisemitism." This is the mirror image of the also much-hyped demonstrations against "antisemitism" in the US, also meant to distract from and defuse the pro-Palestine and anti-Israeli genocide protests that came first.
It is hard not to see the absurdity of demonstrating against antisemitism while both the US and German governments are making a point of "standing with Israel" as Israel proceeds to mass murder the Palestinians. Nevertheless this is the case, and especially here, given Germany's history, it is hard for most people to overcome the collective guilt over the Holocaust to openly criticize Israel, even now that the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians what the Germans did to them.
In November a "fact-checking" group called "Correctiv" spied on a private (interpreted as "secret") meeting that included some AfD and some CDU politicos who supposedly discussed something called "remigration," meaning the deportation of refugees and even "non-ethnic" Germans (which would include me). The story spread like wildfire, with full media connivance, and with the result that the AfD as a party is now blamed for this "plan," and tens of thousands of people are demonstrating all over the country against "racism," "antisemitism," "right-wing extremism," and the AfD. There is no question about who benefits from these protests: the ruling coalition, who are of course cheering them on and even participating in the "protests."
If we just step back and look at this, what do we see?
Mass protests against Israeli genocide in Gaza?
No.
Mass protests against the German government, which just like the US government is "standing with Israel" and therefore complicit in this genocide, both rejecting out of hand the 84-page South African indictment against Israel presented at the International Court of Justice (first the US and two days later repeated almost verbatim by Germany)?
No.
Mass protests against the further arming of the Ukrainian government so they can kill Russians by the tens of thousands while the Russians kill them back by the hundreds of thousands in a war that could have been easily aborted or prevented altogether by either the US or Germany?
No.
Mass protests against the economic sanctions against Russia that are ruining the German economy?
No.
Mass protests against the US sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline and the German refusal to even investigate it?
No.
Voilà. The government coalition (SPD, Greens, FDP) is served by protests against one of the two biggest opposition parties (the AfD). The governmentt is further served by no debate and no protest over the most important issue, which is the economy, and which is directly related to the government's support for the Ukraine war and sanctions against cheap Russian energy (which they are nevertheless quietly continuing to buy via India, but at much higher prices). The government is also served by not having to face protests against Germany's shameful standing with the US and with Israel while they mass murder the Palestinians.
It reminds me of the mass protests we had during the pandemic about masks and vaccines. Were people demonstrating against the failure of our governments to clarify the origin of SARS-CoV-2, which was almost certainly a lab leak? No. Were there mass protests against the secret and government-funded research that has created this and other killer viruses, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has amply documented? No. The protests were about vaccines and masks and social distancing, not about biowarfare.
The word co-option is helpful here. The energy of the masses is manipulated in a way that is used against them, without them knowing it. A kind of ju-jitsu. Propagandists and advertisers (Edward Bernays) and intelligence agencies know all about it. It's how "color revolutions" work in foreign countries, to make them more US-friendly, and it is used domestically to lead the masses into less harmful directions than they might take if left to themselves, that is, not co-opted. The pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel (and therefore anti-US and anti-German) protests are turned into "antisemitic" protests. Sometimes it is not subtle at all, just a blunt switch, as when the farmers' protest is morphed and bloated into an "Anti-Right" protest, the two having nothing to do with each other. The German "Anti-Right" demonstrators ("Zusammen Gegen Rechts") might as well be demonstrating against incest, or for motherhood -- or for "Black Lives Matter," or for "All Lives Matter" or against Satanism. The important thing, for the government, is that they are NOT demonstrating against Israeli genocide, for Palestinians, against sending weapons to Ukraine, for friendly relations with Russia (and China), for clarification of the Nord Stream sabotage, against biowarfare research, etc. That is co-option.
It is disheartening and frightening to see this happening. It's not that the masses are incapable of uprising in a rational way. In Vietnam days people eventually did rise up and put an end to that horrific boondoggle. If the Ukraine war continues, and more importantly, if more Europeans and Americans (in addition to the mercenaries and clandestine military already in Ukraine) get directly involved and the bodies start coming home instead of just being left in the fields in Ukraine (where the hospitals and cemeteries are overrun), the masses will gradually see the light and hit the streets. Same goes for the economy. If and when things get bad enough for enough people, either in the US or in Germany or elsewhere, we will see not only farmers in the streets protesting for real, but again those hundreds of thousands that are out there now, but then it will be for real.
What the protesting masses are doing now is not real. It is a media-stoked mass illusion and virtue-signaling performance. The people are somewhat angry (because the deteriorating economic situation is real), and moved enough to hit the streets, but they don't really know why and the ostensible reasons for doing so are so vague and innocuous that it costs them nothing and makes them feel good to join the crowd, not that different from feeling good in a crowd at a football match or a rock concert. "Zusammen Gegen Rechts" is easy, especially given Germany's Nazi past and if it is interpreted as "United Against Right Extremism" and "United Against the AfD" (often explicitly). "Right" also applies to the CDU/CSU, but this is still the largest German party and a known quantity, and therefore cannot be the target. It is the suddenly popular AfD, the so-called "extreme right," that scares our rulers, and now also the BSW, the so-called "extreme left." If these two ends of the political spectrum play together, the middle will have hell to pay.
The last thing the traditional parties, either those in the current coalition government or the CDU, want to do is debate the real issue, which is not immigration or racism or antisemitism, but the war in Ukraine and relations with Russia. Relations with a genocidal Israel is also being studiously avoided, not only because of German history but also because that issue, like Ukraine and Russia, automatically brings into question the biggest issue of all, which is the German relationship with the United States. Germany has never had a more obsequious relationship with the US than now, and a sane foreign policy re Ukraine, Russia and Israel requires a break with the US, at least with the US as run by Joe Biden.
What is a "sane" policy? Stop helping people kill people. That would end the war in Ukraine and in Gaza immediately, if a US president said it and did it. If a German chancellor did so, risking Big Brother’s disapproval, it might not have the same immediate consequences but the overall effect, I think, would be even greater. Germany could help lead Europe into the multipolar world that is coming whether we like it or not, provided the crazed neocons don't blow it all up first.