Rise of the far right in Europe.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

A lot of it is down to perception. If there is a Paris style attack in Germany in won't really matter if they are refugees or European born it'll be just be ' Muslims ' who did it and the hysteria will rise to block any more coming over.

 

It is what the terrorists want, to hit us in the heart of our own countries and spread fear and to stop us taking in future sympathisers or people they can turn into fighters etc. They want to expand within the Middle East before trying to take over other places, which isn't going to happen due to the fire power most Western countries possess. They'll be able to orchestrate the odd terrorist attack etc, but they'll never be able to take over a Major Western country. 

[VladimirIlyich]

Things will soon settle down, I dare say we'll hardly hear in the press of the vast numbers being rejected or going back once hostilities in Syria settle down. Once they realise that the German law (as I have mentioned above) means they can't work or earn a wage for 3 years, have to do courses to learn German etc etc, are being held in camped areas etc etc...can't get German nationality or bring family over for 8 years.

 

The German government also passed a bill yesterday that a special personal ID will be made for Refugees/Migrants which they will have to carry at all times, any serious misdemeanour's will end up in expulsion. If they are stopped for checks and do not have the ID on them then once again it will have repercussions.

 

The majority of people over here are happy enough with how things are being dealt with but realise that it could have been handed better to begin with. The right wing are getting louder but that is to be expected in such circumstances as they thrive on fear etc, they are still in a massive minority though.

 

Having said all that, it would/could only take a Paris style attack to change a lot of people's minds and for shit to hit the fan.

 

Not everyone realises that such an attack is possible regardless of the influx of Refugee's/Migrants. The terrorist cells have long been established over here in Europe and are just sleeping until they get the financial backing and equipment to try an attack. A lot of these attacks or their plans are hindered by the Government and security forces/agencies, but some will not be picked up due to certain circumstances or maybe just down to political reasons.

 

Personally. I'm not arsed or frightened. I live my life as I always have and if I have to pop my clogs then so be it. As long as they don't ravish my poop before killing me.

Its all down to who has the most power of the media to set the narrative.

Is it as bad as the UK with the media over there mate,or are there some more down to earth publications and tv channels which set a more balanced agenda?

[Sugar Ape]

It is what the terrorists want, to hit us in the heart of our own countries and spread fear and to stop us taking in future sympathisers or people they can turn into fighters etc. They want to expand within the Middle East before trying to take over other places, which isn't going to happen due to the fire power most Western countries possess. They'll be able to orchestrate the odd terrorist attack etc, but they'll never be able to take over a Major Western country. 

 

No, of course they won't be able to spread over here in that way. To be honest ( not aimed at you ) I don't really want this thread to turn into another " everything is the fault of capitalism, I hate the media " thread as we have too many of those already and the main reason I started this thread is to talk about the noticeable rise in nationalism/far right parties in Europe which has got worse recently with the new Polish goverment and seems more complex than capitalism and media bias in countries like Hungary.

 

In that respect the main point I'm interested in with the refugee situation is how it will/could give rise to more of these parties. The situation in Europe is interesting because with so many countries being so closely bound now, same currency etc... Germany taking in a lot seems to be influencing the whole area and raising some anti-German sentiment.

 

This new Polish goverment in particular seem to be having a pop at the Germans regularly and raising Nazism and the holocaust in their rhetoric. It just seems like the tensions are getting higher and higher in that part of the world.

[Moctezuma]

No, of course they won't be able to spread over here in that way. To be honest ( not aimed at you ) I don't really want this thread to turn into another " everything is the fault of capitalism, I hate the media " thread as we have too many of those already and the main reason I started this thread is to talk about the noticeable rise in nationalism/far right parties in Europe which has got worse recently with the new Polish goverment and seems more complex than capitalism and media bias in countries like Hungary.

 

In that respect the main point I'm interested in with the refugee situation is how it will/could give rise to more of these parties. The situation in Europe is interesting because with so many countries being so closely bound now, same currency etc... Germany taking in a lot seems to be influencing the whole area and raising some anti-German sentiment.

 

This new Polish goverment in particular seem to be having a pop at the Germans regularly and raising Nazism and the holocaust in their rhetoric. It just seems like the tensions are getting higher and higher in that part of the world.

 

I realise you don't want to get into the media side of things but it's notable that the polish government have just passed a law allowing their finance minister to hire and sack the lead of the national broadcaster when they want, they've also produced a list of names of Journalists that they feel should be banned as they are biased against them politically. This may lead to stronger nationalist rhetoric in their press.

[Sugar Ape]

I realise you don't want to get into the media side of things but it's notable that the polish government have just passed a law allowing their finance minister to hire and sack the lead of the national broadcaster when they want, they've also produced a list of names of Journalists that they feel should be banned as they are biased against them politically. This may lead to stronger nationalist rhetoric in their press.

 

Sorry, probably didn't make myself clear. I posted an article the other day which covered that and that's very much part of the debate. I just had the feeling the thread was heading towards moaning about the BBC/Guardian territory, and while that might be fair enough there are plenty of other threads covering stuff like that.

 

Re the Polish media law in particular, it's looking very bad there. Not only have they passed that law they've stacked the cards in their favour regarding the judiciary as well. The Tories are trying to change things more subtly in their favour over here with boundary changes and cutting funds to Labour but the Polish lot seem to be trying to make it damn near impossible to vote them out without even trying to hide it.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

Its all down to who has the most power of the media to set the narrative.

Is it as bad as the UK with the media over there mate,or are there some more down to earth publications and tv channels which set a more balanced agenda?

 

I'd say things are not as bad as that cunt Murdoch doesn't have his fingernails into things, still not perfect, but nowhere is. 

[Moctezuma]

Sorry, probably didn't make myself clear. I posted an article the other day which covered that and that's very much part of the debate. I just had the feeling the thread was heading towards moaning about the BBC/Guardian territory, and while that might be fair enough there are plenty of other threads covering stuff like that.

 

Re the Polish media law in particular, it's looking very bad there. Not only have they passed that law they've stacked the cards in their favour regarding the judiciary as well. The Tories are trying to change things more subtly in their favour over here with boundary changes and cutting funds to Labour but the Polish lot seem to be trying to make it damn near impossible to vote them out.

 

I think sometimes the left in Eastern Europe has a pretty hard time of it because it is connected to the autocratic corruption of the communist regimes prior to the fall of the wall. That in part allows the right/center right to get away with far more meddling with the judiciary and the media as they are able to state that they are just getting rid of the nefarious old guard. This is pretty much what has happened with the Orban government in Hungary where they demolished the judiciary by stating they were all venal ex-soviet's and then proceeded to replace them with hardliners.

[s(k)aturation]

Polish powerbrokers will - if it's useful to them to have a crack at Germany - bring up Nazism and the Holocaust... rightly or wrongly, or even hypocritically given their political leanings nowadays... because they simply can.  

Hitler Inc. was only 76 and a bit years ago, and it's a recent and convenient enough reference to make.

If the Polish people are taken in by it and allow an ironic far right to take hold in their country, well, perhaps they've been gullible and stupid and malleable, regardless of the ideologies, all along.  

Not the sharpest tools in the box that lot, although they've always fancied themselves as movers and shakers. They're a bit like Croats, I think: talk the talk, but essentially better at being governed than governing. Let's hope they get it right in these awkward days in E Europe... which, as usual historically, will be the gateway to potential East/West conflict. 

[Section_31]

[SasaS]

Polish powerbrokers will - if it's useful to them to have a crack at Germany - bring up Nazism and the Holocaust... rightly or wrongly, or even hypocritically given their political leanings nowadays... because they simply can.  

Hitler Inc. was only 76 and a bit years ago, and it's a recent and convenient enough reference to make.

If the Polish people are taken in by it and allow an ironic far right to take hold in their country, well, perhaps they've been gullible and stupid and malleable, regardless of the ideologies, all along.  

Not the sharpest tools in the box that lot, although they've always fancied themselves as movers and shakers. They're a bit like Croats, I think: talk the talk, but essentially better at being governed than governing. Let's hope they get it right in these awkward days in E Europe... which, as usual historically, will be the gateway to potential East/West conflict. 

 

Apologies for obviously being obtuse again, but what is an ironic far right?

 

Self-aware Fascists listening to Laibach?

[s(k)aturation]

Apologies for obviously being obtuse again, but what is an ironic far right?

 

One that might come to power in a country, at the behest of the people, less than 80 years after that country's people were totally devastated by foreign invaders of a far right persuasion.

 

I reckon that would be ironic.

 

But of course, I wouldn't know.

 

And why apologise for being obtuse if you're intending to be so again?

[Sugar Ape]

I wonder how much credence was given in Europe to, say, the Franco-Prussian war when World War II was about to start? I don't think you can generalise about a whole nation based on what happened 70 years ago.

 

Sure, you've got to learn the mistakes of the past and the Second World War obviously changed Europe and the attitudes of a lot of countries but each era has their own reasons for the rise of nationalism and I don't really see outright conflict starting between European nations as in the past but I think we could be looking at the break up of some aspects of the EU ( Schengen zone etc..) and a huge rise in anti Islam feeling.

[s(k)aturation]

I wonder how much credence was given in Europe to, say, the Franco-Prussian war when World War II was about to start? I don't think you can generalise about a whole nation based on what happened 70 years ago.

 

Sure, you've got to learn the mistakes of the past and the Second World War obviously changed Europe and the attitudes of a lot of countries but each era has their own reasons for the rise of nationalism and I don't really see outright conflict starting between European nations as in the past but I think we could be looking at the break up of some aspects of the EU ( Schengen zone etc..) and a huge rise in anti Islam feeling.

 

I agree.

 

I don't think I was generalising about a whole nation. In fact, I was saying I hope the eventual outcome in Poland refutes any generalisations about the past.

 

That said, history that goes back 1000 years affects attitudes today.

 

The interaction and relationships between Judaism/Christianity/Islam, for instance, which greatly influences may of the nationalisms we discuss on this and other threads, is affected by factors that go back 1-2 thousand years even. 

[SasaS]

One that might come to power in a country, at the behest of the people, less than 80 years after that country's people were totally devastated by foreign invaders of a far right persuasion.

 

I reckon that would be ironic.

 

But of course, I wouldn't know.

 

And why apologise for being obtuse if you're intending to be so again?

 

Obtuseness is seldom intentional.

 

What in fact is ironic with many far right parties in Central and Eastern Europe (and elsewhere) is their love of German Nazi symbols, leaders and paraphernalia, even though they almost always position themselves us ultranationalists, they are oblivious to the fact their idols would think them a lower race of people. Like that Russian Jew starting a Neo-Nazi movement in Israel.

 

[Sugar Ape]

I was reading an article the other day that I can't find now that was linking globalisation, partly, to the amount of refugees/economic migrants coming over which then gives rise to right leaning movements that was interesting.

 

Gist of it was 30 years ago your average Afghan/Syrian wouldn't know much about Europe or how to get here, what life was like here etc... But now they can plot their route here on the Internet, watch TV shows and films that glamorise life here, find our their rights they should expect when they arrive and what to say when they get here to be accepted i.e some countries will process people from Syria faster and be more sympathetic towards them so you have Iraqis/Afghans ripping up their passports and saying they are Syrian.

[s(k)aturation]

What in fact is ironic with many far right parties in Central and Eastern Europe (and elsewhere) is their love of German Nazi symbols, leaders and paraphernalia, even though they almost always position themselves us ultranationalists, they are oblivious to the fact their idols would think them a lower race of people. Like that Russian Jew starting a Neo-Nazi movement in Israel.

 

Yep, just goes to show what idiots far right (or extreme anything) can be... they are prepared to turn a blind eye to the belittlement of themselves/their "race" in the pursuit of power, because ultimately power is all they really care about... not their nation and much less their people.  

 

Stalin, for example, had every reason to hate Hitler because the latter thought Stalin's "race" inferior.

But Stalin didn't give a philosophical or actual fuck, because he killed more of his own people than Hitler could have dreamed of ever killing.

[Sugar Ape]

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Things like this will spread and spread and before you know it they'll be banned from all kinds of places.

 

http://gu.com/p/4fpdh?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

 

German town bans male refugees from swimming pool

 

Bornheim, near Cologne, announces ban after reports women were harassed by men from asylum shelters, as ire towards migrants rises nationally

 

A western German town has barred adult male asylum seekers from its public indoor swimming pool after receiving complaints that some women were sexually harassed.

 

The measures in Bornheim, a town of 48,000 some 18 miles (30km) south of Cologne, are the latest sign of social tensions related to the arrival last year of 1.1 million migrants in Germany, followed by sexual assaults on women by young male migrants and asylum seekers during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Cologne.

 

Bornheim’s deputy mayor said on Friday that a difficult decision was taken to send a clear message that breaching German cultural norms was a red line.

 

“There have been complaints of sexual harassment and chatting-up going on in this swimming pool … by groups of young men, and this has prompted some women to leave [the premises],” Markus Schnapka said.

 

“This led to my decision that adult males from our asylum shelters may not enter the swimming pool until further notice.”

 

He did not say how the ban would be enforced. German media say asylum seekers, who get no funds from the state, must present an identification document to be admitted to pools at a discounted rate.

 

Schnapka said his town had begun a campaign in local asylum seekers’ shelters to teach the occupants about gender equality and respect for women.

 

The gang attacks on women outside Cologne’s historic cathedral on the river Rhine deepened public doubts about Angela Merkel’s open-door policy towards refugees fleeing conflicts in the Middle East and about Germany’s ability to integrate the mainly Muslim and Arab newcomers.

 

Police investigations into the incidents of sexual molestation are focusing on 19 suspects, including 10 asylum seekers and nine illegal migrants thought to be from north Africa. Police said the suspects came from outside Cologne.

 

On Thursday, a carnival parade planned for 8 February in Rheinberg, a town north of Cologne, was cancelled after organisers said they would not be able to provide a security plan for the event on as required by police.

 

Merkel is now under increasing pressure to stem the flow of migrants coming to Germany. Several thousand continue to arrive every day and there has been a backlash by rightwing nationalist groups.

[cloggypop]

They should have just stuck up a No Petting sign.

[Sugar Ape]

Could turn out to be a good thing for them. They should go and grope in Ikea and Costco and the like in preparation for when they get married. " sorry love, you'll have to go to Ikea on your own, I'm banned "

[Sugar Ape]

Who's this cunt, Gordon?

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/07/frauke-petry-smiling-face-resurgent-right?CMP=twt_gu

 

Frauke Petry: smiling face of Germany’s resurgent right

 

Her youthful looks have helped her stand out among German politicians, as has her talk of shooting refugees trying to enter the country illegally

 

 

Time was when, if anyone mentioned a female German politician with roots in the communist east and a doctorate in science, they were talking about Angela Merkel.

 

But these days there is a new woman on the block. Frauke Petry, the youthful leader of Germany’s main rightwing anti-immigrant party, Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD), is on a roll, profiting from the growing dissatisfaction with the chancellor’s refugee policy, which has led to more than 1.1 million refugees arriving in Germany in the last year.

 

Petry, 40, has hardly been out of the news since courting controversy last weekend for her insistence that Germany’s border police should be allowed to shoot at refugees trying to enter the country illegally. “People must stop migrants from crossing illegally from Austria [into Germany],” she said in an interview with a regional newspaper. “If necessary, [they] should use firearms. I don’t want this, but the use of armed force is there as a last resort.”

 

Her remarks, delivered immediately after an address to party faithful in Hanover, have prompted a storm of protest, not least because of their chilling echo of the cold war days, when people were shot for trying to escape the communist GDR, where Petry grew up.

 

Petry, who left Reading university with a degree in chemistry in 1998, has been the leader of AfD since last July, following the ousting of its academic founders who had established the party as an anti-euro group at the height of the Greek crisis in 2013. Since then she has been central in efforts to steer the party towards a populist, anti-immigrant stance, and is now viewed as one of the most vocal – and dangerous – critics of Merkel’s decision to put out the welcome mat for refugees last summer.

 

Merkel has stubbornly refused to concede to demands to close the borders or put a limit on the number of refugees who can come.

 

Opinion polls recently showed AfD to be on as much as 12%, making it potentially the third strongest political force in Germany. With elections due in three German states next month, it is now said to be on course to make considerable gains in the parliaments of Baden-Württemberg, Saxony Anhalt and Rhineland-Palatinate. It already has seats in five state parliaments and political observers say politicians from established parties can no longer continue to ignore it, as they largely have done until now.

 

Habitually dressed in sharp suits, Petry has become the youthful face of the AfD surge. On a TV political chat show debating whether Germany had shifted to the right, she dug the heel of her shoe into the carpet and insisted that it was wrong to label her party as populist and hard right. “It’s to do with politicians that either recognise that we need concepts that lead to solutions or not. Right and left are terms that haven’t fitted for a long time,” she said.

 

In the past AfD has tried to distance itself from the anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic campaign group Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident (Pegida) which, like Petry, originated in Dresden. But increasingly her party is being talked about as the political arm of Pegida. Petry has done little to persuade anyone otherwise.

 

Both deploy similar language, such as “liar press” as a blanket term for the media, or “traitor” to refer to Merkel and other supporters of her asylum policy, which they would like to see turned on its head, with controls along the entire length of Germany’s borders.

 

Just as at Pegida rallies, it has become common to see AfD placards calling for government figures to be lynched as punishment. Recently an AfD functionary called for the death penalty to be introduced so that the government could be “placed against a wall” and shot.

 

Jakob Augstein, a columnist with Der Spiegel, told Petry in the same chatshow: “You are the friendly smile on the face of the hordes that march through Dresden and beat people up … you are the democratic arm of those who bait foreigners and set fire to asylum-seekers’ homes.” Petry kept smiling as he continued: “I don’t underestimate you. I take you very, very seriously.”

 

Not for a long time has so much been written and said about a single German politician (other than Merkel). Petry stands out from her largely grey-haired male supporters – recent statistics showed 71% of AfD voters are male – with her youthful looks and smiley demeanour.

 

A mother-of-four, she caused mild scandal last year when she announced she had left her husband, Sven Petry, a Lutheran pastor, for Marcus Pretzell, an AfD MEP. Her new partner has since swapped the AfD for Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Despite that move, there have been suggestions that Pretzell is responsible for Petry feeling increasingly comfortable about keeping the party on a rightwing populist course.

 

“Pretzell and Petry are the amour fou of the German right,” wrote Augstein in a recent column. “Like Bonnie and Clyde, they’re pursuing a course of ambush through the German public.”

 

If she weren’t in politics, Petry would be pursuing her scientific career, running the Leipzig company she set up in 2007 to manufacture environmentally-friendly polyurethanes, for which she holds a joint patent with her mother, a fellow chemist, and which earned her a medal of the Order of Merit in 2012. But she stepped back from the company at the end of last year, telling Die Welt in an interview that “combining politics on a national, state and local level with family and the company is simply not possible. I don’t want my children to accuse me later of never being there for them any more. I’m there too little as it is.”

 

Germans like their politicians to be serious and not overly preened, and the Petry smile has been viewed by many with suspicion. Calling her “Frau Dr Strangelove” – a reference to the ex-Nazi scientist adviser to the president in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film – Hans Hütt wrote in the leftwing newspaper Freitag: “Petry’s smile is a code. Every smile and grin gives the rank and file a signal: the others’ arguments are rubbish … [it] brings the terror back into German politics. It looks so nice, so outrageously nice.”

 

However, Manfred Güllner, the chief pollster of Forsa, believes it is unlikely that AfD will get much bigger, based on the number of non-voters in Germany and, at 85%, the high satisfaction rate Merkel still enjoys within her own party, despite the disgruntlement shown towards her.

 

But there is little doubt that Petry has inaugurated a new era for the AfD. Güllner said Petry’s comments about being able to shoot refugees on the border had had a twofold effect. “On the one hand there are the radical AfD voters, who feel endorsed. On the other hand, the gulf between the AfD and the majority of Germans will increase. If you like, Petry has made it clear precisely how the AfD ticks.”

 

RISE OF THE AfD

 

February 2013 Founded to protest against Germany’s handling of the eurozone crisis, in particular the decision to bail out Greece.

 

September 2013 Won 4.7% of the vote in the 2013 federal election, falling short of the 5% threshold needed to enter the Bundestag.

 

May 2013 Gained first representation in the state parliament of Hesse.

 

May 2014 Came fifth in Germany’s European elections, with 7.1% of the national vote and seven members of the EU parliament.

 

August 2014 Recorded 9.7% of the vote in the Saxony state election, winning 14 seats.

 

September 2014 Won 10.6% of the vote in the Thuringian state election and 12.2% in the Brandensburg state election, winning 11 seats in both state parliaments.

 

July 2015 Frauke Petry elected leader. Her appointment was seen as a shift to the right and prompted five MEPs to leave the party. The AfD’s founder, Bernd Lucke, announced he would form a new party, the Alliance for Progress and Renewal, citing a rise of xenophobic sentiment in the AfD.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

Some chemist who has gone into politics mate, she is Germany's version of Farage, a bell end who the majority of people ridicule, well apart from the right wing bell ends who swallow her drivel. Born in Dresden, so grew up being bitter. She belongs to a political party ( some alternative shit thing) which have fuck all chance of being heard apart from spouting bollocks. 

[Anubis]

She does have one of those unsettling fixed smiles that certain politicians effect, even when being criticised. Creepy enough as it is, when you couple it with the scientist element, then you get the unnerving impression that she's going to turn you into one part of a human centipede.

[Strontium]

Her remarks, delivered immediately after an address to party faithful in Hanover, have prompted a storm of protest, not least because of their chilling echo of the cold war days, when people were shot for trying to escape the communist GDR, where Petry grew up.

 

That can't be true, I read on here that communism was all goodness and light.

 

But at least with communism, I guess you never have an "immigrant problem".

[SasaS]

Ha ha, this Austrian postal votes thing should be applied everywhere.

 

RNC should have come up with that, sorry Mr. Trump, but postal votes are just in and it's not you after all.

[Bobby Hundreds]

The comments in the mail saying it was fixed and hitler was left wing anyway.