The following hit-piece on PEGIDA was published on Monday by Die Zeit. JLH, who translated the op-ed for Gates of Vienna, includes this introductory note:
Here is another desperate MSM attempt to demonize PEGIDA, but the movement’s strength shines through. It is interesting to watch the author work himself into a frenzy over what he clearly sees as inexplicable madness. And you have to wonder what sort of bubble prevents him from hearing the invective flowing from his side of things.
The translated article:
The Folk Festival of Racism
On Monday, PEGIDA brought more people to the street than it has in a long time. So what if there were arson attacks, Rightist riots. The organizers are aiming at escalation.
by Christian Bangel, Zeit Online, Dresden
September 29, 2015
People complain, justifiably, about the friend-enemy line of thinking, but someone who adheres to that line of thought is quite comfortable. It has been described in detail how hostile and implacable PEGIDA’s actions are toward Muslims, politicians and counter-demonstrators[1] who do not think as they do. But anyone who is standing this Monday in the area of the stage a half-hour before the beginning of the demo sees the other side: PEGIDA from the inside. There is clapping and hugging. back-slapping and ear-tugging: “Jürgen, old friend. Nice to see you here.” Even Lutz Bachmann kisses a girl on her skateboard and distributes friendly handshakes. It is like Easter in the clubhouse.
A few more demos and PEGIDA will celebrate its first anniversary. The mini-rabble that came together in October 2014 for the first time to demonstrate against Muslims has already become one of the most successful political movements of recent years. This Monday, the Festival of Rage brought about 10,000 people onto the street.
It is noteworthy because the Germans have not just bitch-slapped PEGIDA, but beaten it to a pulp. The wave of solidarity experienced by the refugees is not only a reaction to the burning of asylum residences. And it cannot be understood absent PEGIDA, which has week-by-week been scraping away at the tolerant German self-image.
This summer has deprived PEGIDA of its most important argument, i.e., that it speaks for a majority of Germans. There were not only tens of thousands of willing helpers, but also the polls and, not least, clear statements from prominent citizens which must make it clear to even the last person, that he must choose between PEGIDA and the societal middle.
And yet they all came again. Bannewitz, Lichtenau, Elsterwerda and Roßwein[2] have packed up their signs and posters. As if on an excursion, mostly older men and women are standing happily together and taking pictures of the most amusing posters (Look at that, “Enough of Managed Opinion!”). The mood is so jolly that the next thing might be for Achim Mentzel[3] to step onto the stage in front of the Dresden palace.
The Public Screams: “Merkel Must Go”
But instead, Lutz Bachmann appears, reads the police reports as always, and goes directly into a tirade against the totalitarian Federal Republic where everyone with a free opinion is threatened with jail time. He demands a few resignations and predicts great revelations from the Ministry of Defense. Then he accuses Muslim refugees of bad hygiene and a propensity to violence, and finally mocks Ursula von der Leyen’s[4] doctoral dissertation. In full dudgeon, the public screams, “Merkel must go” and “resistance.” And then they break out in resounding laughter.
Bachmann seems to know every crime asylum seekers have committed in the area in recent weeks. But he does not say a word about what the rest of Germany has been talking about for a week. The arsons and even more the extreme rightist riots in Saxony, among other places In Freital, the hometown of Bachmann’s wife.[5]
You don’t have to be a leftist conspiracy theorist[6] to assume that there are many in the public here who were among those rioting in Heidenau and Freital. And that it was the Dresden Folk Festival of Racism that gave them the feeling they were acting on behalf of the majority.[7]
It is possible that that does not cause any great moral problems for Bachmann and the PEGIDA organizers. But how is it with the thousands and tens of thousands who come week after week to meet acquaintances, to laugh a little and above all to experience this uplifting feeling of the collective outburst of rage?[8]
But what happened in the days before the demonstration is unsettling. A snippet: Syrian asylum seekers were attacked with an irritant gas. Two journalists were attacked during the demonstration. A day before, Erich Hattke, the spokesman for Dresden for Everybody, was threatened anonymously by telephone.
Lutz Bachmann Gives the People What They Want
Things are escalating in Saxony. Bachmann and his people have apparently decided to give the people what they want. The speaker Tatjana Festerling agitates against “birth jihad” and “Muslim catapults.” Another, the Swiss Rightist Populist Ignaz Bearth, rants against the “pack,” “parasites” and “damned Islamists” who only understand the language of rubber bullets. “Europe is at war with the servitude of tyranny,” he roars from the stage, and the crowd cheers.
Finally, they walk a few hundred meters through the inner city and the slogan “Anybody who doesn’t love Germany, should leave,” is sinking in. And then finally at the end of the street, stands a small, possibly 5-year-old girl holding her mother’s hand, and she shouts happily: “We are the people!” And after she is cheered for that, she looks back, along the never-ending line of demonstrators and says: “Mommy, so many are coming. It never ends.”
And the men and women laugh and wave and disappear again in the direction of Bannewitz, Lichtenau, Elsterwerda and Roßwein, places that may be heard from again soon.
Notes:
| 1. | Pardon me… Are we talking about those “peaceful” ANTIFA in almost every other German city who outnumber and attack PEGIDA demonstrators, but keep their distance in Dresden, because they are so far outnumbered, even on sparse days? | |
| 2. | Picturesque villages in various parts of Germany. Sort of a cross between saying “East Overshoe” and “Shangri-la.” | |
| 3. | Singer and musical comedy star. | |
| 4. | Minister of Defense — recently embroiled in accusations of plagiarism. | |
| 5. | Are we supposed to gasp at the irony? Or…wait for it… | |
| 6. | But it helps. | |
| 7. | Wait — are these rioters and arsonists the “older men and women” he described? Or possibly the little girl who turns up later? | |
| 8. | The 2-Minute-Hate of 1984 being imagined by a practitioner of double-speak. |
Photo: Supporters of PEGIDA in Dresden
For links to previous articles about PEGIDA (Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West) and related movements, see the PEGIDA Archives.
I don’t know what kind or world this fool lives in but mt own relatives tell me 80% of the Germans are very angry indeed from what Mother Death has done. They are fuiming and feel betrayed. How can a politician or class call the majority of its populations racists and Nazis etc? It’s their country! Merkel was born in the DDR and now she thinks she has extended it there.
Taking people’s private dwellings, their jobs, even children into care. Is their no end to these leftwing goat inter-coursers and their arrogance? They are mentally ill. What they going to defend their new Islamic Soviet with? The German Army is strongly wed to the Constitution and hates Communism.
She has no Red Army….
I havea feeling she will not last long.
JLH,
Thanks for your footnotes; they’re very helpful.
Ohrfeige (box on the ears, slap in the face) = “bitch-slap” (ha! an excellent translation!)
“There is clapping and hugging, back-slapping and ear-tugging: “Jürgen, old friend. Nice to see you here.””
What’s this ear-tugging all about? (Da wird … an den Ohren gezogen) I know this gesture only as a secret signal; see
http://www.tvguide.com/news/question-did-carol-65576/
Does this refer to tugging on one’s own earlobe, or on someone else’s? What does it mean? Is it a German thing?
I know it doesn’t count for much, but nearly all the top-rated comment following the original Die Zeit article was critical of the author and of the role of the German media generally in fomenting support for Pegida. Here’s an example comment, from ‘AmandaR’ (edited Google Translate)
Zeit Online, You and all the “independent” German quality media share the blame for Pegida now receiving such popularity! I fear that will get much worse. You have helped to ascribe an enthusiasm for refugees, which never existed on this scale. You have played down problems. You want to constantly give the impression by your image selection that many families, women, children come, and that they are not 80% men, etc. The worst thing was that you have made fun of the fears and concerns of the population without any empathy, without any understanding or interest !! Instead, you sweep away all as “right” or better “Nazis” who have fears and worries.
(Liebe ZEITOnline, Sie und sämtliche anderen ” unabhängigen” deutschen Qualitätsmedien sind mit schuld daran, dass Pegida nun einen solchen Zulauf erhält! Ich befürchte, das wird noch viel schlimmer werden. Sie haben mit dafür gesorgt, eine Begeisterung über Flüchtlinge herbeizuschreiben, die in diesem Ausmaß niemals existiert hat, Sie haben Probleme verharmlost, Sie haben durch Ihre Bildauswahl ständig den Eindruck erwecken wollen, dass viele Familien, Frauen, Kinder kommen und nicht 80% Männer, usw. Am Schlimmsten war aber, dass Sie sich über die Ängste und Sorgen der Bevölkerung lustig gemacht haben ohne jede Empathie, ohne jedes Verständnis oder Interesse!! )
Thanks for the translation and contribution. I hope that most Germans feel that way. They seem remarkably subdued from where I’m standing, then again, I’m not in Germany and nor am I likely to ever visit at this rate.
Mark Spahn: My best guess, because I have never actually encountered it in such a setting, is that it is like tweaking the ears,which could easily be aggressive, (i.e., like a teacher in an old-fashioned school) but here is probably like a playful punch, etc.
I speak German a little and I have never heard of this expression either.
By the way, I did enjoy the “Merkelmussweg” street-name sign shown in the current Max Denken “Nightmare” article. Nicely done.
Napoleon used to tug, or tweak, people’s ears in a manner he thought affectionate- not sure how relevant this is!
only the pathological altruist bessergutmenschen are happy with things in Germany
… I wonder if Germany will survive..
Mark H–Corroboration. Thank you.
Thank you for the article. My parents were German and moved to the USA where I was born a few years after WW II. Three or four years ago I inquired about obtaining German citizenship based on my German heritage (my parents being from Germany) in order to apply for a job in Germany. They wanted me to have an EU passport which I didn’t have so I looked into citizenship. Most or all European countries have these laws. I called the German embassy in the USA closest to me and submitted the US naturalization papers for my parents and some other papers.
I was told the laws had been changed in Germany about twenty years earlier and I did not qualify for German citizenship. When I look at the “refugees” or economic migrants streaming into Germany and Europe, coupled with the statements of Germany’s leaders I become very angry, almost enraged. One said Germany can take 500,000 immigrants a years.
The German-Jewish politician Gregor Gysi said the replacement of ethnic Germans with non-Germans is good, because Germans are NAZIS. He’s talking about the country and people he lives among and represents. I guess that would include my seventeen year old mother that helped dig tank ditches against the approaching Red Army and then barely escaped with her honor after being captured.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riQh4Qpvxm4
After being rejected for German citizenship I took a job as a car salesman. Prior to that I had a profitable career as a software engineer for over twenty years. I befriended an Afghan who made a comment that angered me. His whole family was in Germany (after fleeing Afghanistan), living off the state and he said the Germans were racists because their laws were preventing his relatives from working and he asked why Germany couldn’t behave like the USA (the country that attacked and destroyed his country). I’m glad Germany doesn’t behave like the USA, to the extent it does I wish it would stop. Clearly Germany and Europe does not have a racism problem, its problem is just the opposite. The countries leaders and some or many citizens no longer identify themselves as an ethnic group with a common race, religion and history going back thousands of years. Now an African that obtains German citizenship is just as German as an ethnic German and more German than me.
The United Nations definition of genocide includes the deliberate destruction of a culture, race or religious group. If Germany actually takes in 500,000 Africans/Muslims every year as one politician said, in 50 years the genocide of Germans will be almost complete What is happening in Europe, most notably Germany is a direct result of WW II.
It is fascinating to look at what some of Germany’s enemies were planning for Germans during WW II and see how these plans have actually been implemented. In 1940 a Jewish-American author named Theodore Kaufman made international headlines when his book “Germany Must Perish!” was published to positive reviews in some of the USA’s top media outlets, including Time Magazine. In his book Kaufman proposed the systematic sterilization of the entire German population by assembling several thousand doctors in hospitals and working around the clock, he estimated the job would mostly be finished within a few months. While Kaufman’s name has been removed from the history books, he was big in the 1940’s. Germany’s Josef Goebbels informed the German public of what her enemies had planned for her. A front page article about the book in the Berlin daily Der Angriff, July 23, 1941, appeared under headlines that called it a “Diabolical Plan for the Extermination of the German People” and a work of “Old Testament Hatred.” Extracts also appeared, for example, in the nationally-circulated weekly paper Das Reich, August 3, 1941.
A plan similar to Kaufman’s was issued during the war years by a prominent American anthropologist. In an article headlined “Breed War Strain Out of Germans” in the New York daily newspaper P.M., January 4, 1943, Ernest Hooton laid out an “outbreeding” plan that would “destroy German nationalism and aggressive ideology while retaining and perpetuating desirable German biological and sociological capacities.”
The Harvard University professor’s proposal called for genetically transforming the German nation by encouraging mating of German women with non-German men, who would be brought into the country in large numbers, and of German men, forcibly held outside of Germany, with non-German women. Ten to twelve million German men would be assigned to forced labor under Allied supervision in countries outside of Germany to rebuild their economies. “The objects of this measure,” wrote Dr. Hooton, “include reduction of the birthrate of ‘pure’ Germans, neutralization of German aggressiveness by outbreeding and denationalization of indoctrinated individuals.”
What is being done to Europe right now was proposed by those that murdered 135,000 Dresdeners in two nights of bombing in early 1945.
http://www.ihr.org/books/kaufman/perish.shtml
So if you have wondered how a continent of fiercely loyal peoples that almost destroyed itself by defending their people went from that to implementing a policy of deliberately committing genocide against their own people, you have to look at history. But how was this policy extended from the enemy Germany to the rest of the continent?
The policy that focused on Germany was also intended for the rest of Europe. Frankfurt School “scholars” were decisive in shaping the new European cultural scene. They transformed the European mind from one of Ethno-Nationalism to National-Masochism. Here is an article on this.
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2015/09/the-paranoid-german-mind-counting-down-to-the-next-war/
Please sign this petition:
Rücktritt der dt. Bundeskanzlerin Dr. Angela Merkel und sofortige Neuwahl der Bundesregierung
Frau Dr. Merkel handelt unverantwortlich nicht nur Deutschland gegenüber, sondern auch der EU und ganz Europa. Sie setzt Gesetze außer Kraft, ohne die Folgen zu bedenken. Sie und Ihre Regierung sind nicht mehr “Herr der Lage“ und somit weder fähig Deutschland zu regieren noch bei für die EU relevanten Belange, weitreichende Entscheidungen zu treffen.
Resignation of the German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel and immediate reelection of the German Government
Dr. Merkel is acting irresponsible not only for Germany, but also for the EU and whole Europe. She is overruling laws without considering the consequences. She and the German Government are no longer “master of the situation” and therefore no longer able to run Germany or to have a strong political vote in the EU.
Démission de la chancelière allemande Dr. Angela Merkel et nouvelle élection immédiate du gouvernement fédéral
Mme Merkel agit de manière irresponsable non seulement envers I’Allemagne, mais aussi envers I’Union européenne et toute I’Europe. Elle retire des lois sans réfléchir aux conséquences. Elle et son gouvernement ne sont plus capables de contrôler la situation. Par conséquent, ils ne peuvent plus ni gouverner I’Allemagne ni prendre une décision concernant des affaires de I’Union européenne.
https://www.change.org/p/wir-fordern-den-r%C3%BCcktritt-der-bundeskanzlerin-dr-a-merkel-und-sofortige-neuwahl-der-bundesregierung-resignation-of-the-german-chancellor-dr-a-merkel-and-immediate-reelection-of-the-german-government?source_location=petitions_share_skip#petition-letter
Ich unterschreibe, weil Frau Merkel gegen den Amtseid verstößt und keinen Schaden vom Volke abwendet, sondern dem deutschen Volk schadet. Desweiteren unternimmt sie nichts gegen die verbalen Entgleisungen von Frau Göring-Eckardt, als diese volksverhetzende und diskriminierende Worte in Richtung von 17.000.000 deutschen Bürgern im Bundestag äußerte und somit Poltikstraftaten duldet. Desweiteren unterstützt sie die öffentliche Verleumdung von mind. 40.000.000 Deutschen, die als Kritik übende in die braune Ecke gestellt werden. Ebenso eine Straftat zum Nachteil des deutschen Volkes.
Die Zukunft unserer Kinder tritt sie mit Füßen in den Abgrund. Für Kindergärten, Schulbildung, Kinder-, Alten- und Pflegeheime werden nötige Mittel gestrichen, zu Gunsten von illegal ins Land flutende Massen.
Tausende gewalttätige Islamisten werden ins Land gelassen, in dem geltende Gesetze kurzerhand außer Kraft gesetzt werden. Gegen bereits hier lebende Terroristen wird nur scheinheilig etwas unternommen.