Germany: anti-racists march as NPD faces ban
[Gruppe Arbeitermacht, November 2000]
More than 100,000 marched through the streets of Berlin on 9 November following the call of all the parties represented in the Bundestag, the German parliament, to demonstrate for ”Menschlichkeit und Tolerenz” (humanity and tolerance).
On Friday, 10 November, the federal chamber of the German parliament, the Bundesrat voted for banning the fascist party NPD (National Demokratische Partei - National Democratic Party).
Earlier this week, the government voted in favour of such a ban too and the Bundestag, the first chamber of parliament, will follow soon as well. However, it will at least take one or two more years until the German high court will finally decide on whether to ban the fascist party.
There is widespread support for banning the NPD amongst all parliamentary parties in Germany – from the ruling Social Democrat and Green coalition through the right wing CSU to the left reformist PDS; from the trade union leadership to the bosses associations.
Why this unity now? Why did the bourgeois parties – including all the bosses’ associations – call for a demonstration against fascist and racist attacks? Why have the city council and large companies in Berlin like Siemens and Alcatel allowed or even encouraged the workers to attend this demonstration during work time?
They have certainly not become anti-fascists or anti-racists overnight. Quite the opposite.
Since the SPD/Green government took over, the minister of interior Otto Schily has tried to outflank the CDU/CSU from the right repeatedly. He has threatened to further undermine the rights of asylum seekers.
The reformist administration has deported Bosnia, Kosovar or Kurdish refugees just as brutally as the Kohl government. It has repeatedly backed down on racist campaigns of the conservatives parties, as for example over dual citizenship.
The CDU/CSU – parties which are still in trouble since the Kohl affair – are constantly playing the racist card over the last period in order to limit the gap opening up between them and the SPD in the polls and to incorporate the petit-bourgeois electoral base.
But the effects of capitalist unification and mass unemployment on the East have not only led the ”respectable” bourgeois parties to play the racist card, whenever it suits them. It has also stimulated the growth of the far right, of open fascist, national socialist organisation.
In the early 1990s after pogroms of Rostock, Hoyerswerda or Solingen where asylum seekers hostels were set on fire, the German state banned a number of fascist organisations. But the fascists regrouped and many of the Nazi leaders joined the Junge Nationaldemokraten (the NPDs youth organisation) and later the NPD, turning the rather old-fashioned organisation into a fighting organisation of fascism.
This did not only result of more aggressive tactics, but also in a turn towards Strassianism in ideological terms. Therefore the NPD combine its racist and anti-Semite agitation with ”anti-capitalist” rhetoric, directed against ”speculative”, banking, ”Jewish” capital.
The NPD has around 6000 members and has close links to racist Skinhead organisations and the so-called ”Freie Kamaradschaften”. Its members are certainly involved in street terror. Anti-Semitic attacks on synagogues or cemeteries have increased. In Düsseldorf, Jewish school students were killed by a bomb attack some months ago.
Over the last couple of years, the fascists have gained a real base, particularly in East Germany and among young people. Whilst there is a militant response amongst the youth, which has limited the fascist rise in the large towns, there are many small towns and villages where the far right has become the dominant force amongst young people. In a number of cases trade union officials haven also been attacked or threatened to be killed.
But unlike the 1930s, fascism is not an immediate option to govern for German capital. Quite the opposite. It does not want to pictures of far right and fascist organisations been channelled throughout the world, raising doubts about the civilised nature of German imperialism and endangering the economic prospects of German multinationals, particularly on the oversees markets.
That also explains why many multinational companies have actually encouraged ”their” workers to attend the demonstration on the 9th.
All this like the call by Schröder, Fischer, Merkel and Stoiber alike shall demonstrate that German capitalism ”has learned from the past”.
No wonder that the demonstration on the 9th was anything, but an demonstration against racism and fascism – it was a demonstration of the ”democratic” credentials of the German imperialist state, is was a state act (Staatsakt) with the blessing of the German president.
This is a phenomenon we have seen in Germany for some months. The very same politicians who are only responsible for cutting social welfare, for attacks on workers rights and on reducing rights of immigrants and asylum seekers are now presenting themselves as the champions of the struggle against fascism.
But bourgeois anti-fascism is a myth. When the bourgeois state threatens to ban the NPD, it is for international political interests of the German state and capital on the one hand. The other hand is to prevent the youth, the immigrants, the working class to take the struggle against fascism into its own hands.
Over the last months we have not only seen more and more NPD demonstrations. We have seen many counter-demonstrations with thousands and thousands of young people, but also increasing numbers of trade unionists (albeit still much smaller than needed). In some cases, it was possible to prevent the fascists from marching. In all these cases, whoever, the police, the state, the government defended the NPD and attacked the anti-fascists.
This again proves what Trotzki explained in his writings on Germany. Even if the bourgeois state banned the fascists, it would only do so for two combined reasons: firstly to delude the masses from the character of the state and fascism and secondly to prevent them from organising themselves against the enemy.
This certainly is the purpose of Schröders ”Aufstand der Anständigen” (uprising of the honourable). Via the trade union, the SPD and PDS leaders he tries to tie the organised workers movement to state official anti-fascism, to a popular front type block with the open bourgeois parties and the capitalists organisations.
In the meanwhile, the attacks on immigrants and leftists, the anti-Semite hooliganism go on. The police will not prevent them from happening, not will the state root out fascism by banning the NPD.
The workers movement, all workers organisations and trade unions need to break with the block with the open bourgeois organisations and the state. No alliances with the bourgeois parties and the bosses associations and the police in the name of ”antifascism”!
For working class united front against fascism and racism! For mass mobilisations by the unions, the immigrant organisations, the workers parties in order to smash the NPD, the JN and all other Nazi organisations! For organised self defence in order to protect asylum hostels, immigrant communities, synagogues against fascist and racist attacks! No platform, no democratic rights to organise and assemble for the fascists!
Despite the rightist politics of the leaderships of the large workers organisations, to put demands on the rank and file and on the leaders of these organisations is crucial to stop the fascists and to build a workers united front.
Far left and anti-capitalist, youthful organisations like Antifaschistische Aktion have down a lot to mobilise against the NPD. But on their won, the militant anti-fascists are not strong enough to stop the far right. It needs to link with the organised workers movement and that means to fight popular frontism and class collaboration inside the organised workers movement.
It also means to link the struggle against the NPD with the struggle against racism! No to all deportations! Unrestricted asylum rights! Open the borders! Scrap all immigration laws! Full and equal democratic rights (including the right to vote and entitlement to citizenship) for all who live in Germany! Remove all bans (including the ban on the PKK and Turkish left wing organisations) and restrictions of political activity of immigrants and refugees in Germany!
”Pure” anti-fascism and anti-racism are themselves bourgeois myths. They are just the other side of cross-class strategies to fight them (or rather to prevent the fight). Fascism and racism are inevitable results of the capitalist system. Only if we take on this system as whole, will be finally root out its most barbaric expressions.
