Daily Times

Germans are generally attracted to the word volk, meaning people. One of the reasons is that the word volk contains a racial identity in it. Adolf Hitler used this word in a slogan, “Wir sind das volk!” (We are the people), as mentioned in Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle) translated into English by James Murphy in 1939 (published in London).
In the post-Second World War era, the slogan is used by Germans to attract the attention of their political leaders on the basis of racial (and nationalistic) sentiments. The slogan was frequently used in famous Monday evening demonstrations held in 1989 and 1990 in Dresden (East Germany) to end the government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and to bring down the Berlin Wall to unite East and West Germany. The slogan has also been used since 2005 in the electoral rallies of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the right-wing Christian Social Union (CSU) to bring and keep the incumbent German Chancellor Angela Merkel in power. The slogan has now been used in Monday evening demonstrations arranged by PEGIDA, an acronym that stands for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West, in Dresden against the influx of refugees from war-hit areas such as Iraq and Syria.
In Germany, an argument given against refugees is that they are low skilled people (blue collar workers) and they come to Germany to feed eventually on its welfare system. Nevertheless, in Germany, the policy to invite highly skilled workers (who cannot feed on its welfare system) also failed. In 2000, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder introduced one such policy but within two years a strong resistance against highly skilled workers appeared in Germany, whether it was the workplace or the streets. At that time, the argument given against that policy was the threat to “Deutsche wettbewerbsfähigkeit” (German competitiveness). That is, Germans could not be outclassed in Germany by non-Germans, whatever the field. Those highly skilled workers were intimidated, discouraged, insulted and repulsed by some of their German colleagues in their workplaces and harassed in the streets by common Germans. Even in u-bahn (underground trains), foreigners were specifically checked for their tickets and even for a small error caused by ticket vending machines they were asked to get off the train publicly and were heavily fined. On the platforms and in passenger terminals of buses and trains, some Germans would gabble “ausländer sind verbrecher” (foreigners are criminals).
Consequently, by 2004, most of them abandoned their jobs and fled Germany. Neither the government led by Schroder nor his political party, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), took care of them. In November 2005, Schroder’s party lost the position of chancellor to Merkel’s CDU-CSU union, which, through new legislation, ended Schroder’s highly skilled worker immigration policy to preserve German competitiveness. Hence, the point is not that the refugees are low skilled workers who would exploit the German welfare system; the point is that a foreigner is a foreigner (whether they are from one religion or another and whether they are low skilled or highly skilled): “Ausländer sind nicht willkommen in Deutschland” (foreigners are not welcome in Germany).
Resorting to right-wing conservatism (and nationalism) is vital for Merkel because on the basis of such she won votes in 2005. After coming into power, Merkel — born in West Germany but brought up and educated in East Germany — could not meet all the promises made to right-wing voters. Merkel observed certain redlines under the pressure of the European Union that led to disgruntlement within the ranks of the CDU. Merkel kept playing on right-wing conservatism. For instance, in October 2010, while addressing the youth wing of the CDU-CSU union at Potsdam, Merkel said: “Multi kulti ist gescheitert” (multiculturalism has failed). She reinforced her point of view by further saying that multiculturalism had absolutely failed. However, these utterances could not stop dissidents from the ranks of the CDU from asking her to do more on the conservatism front. For instance, Bernd Lucke, who forfeited his 33-year long allegiance to the CDU with thousands of defectors, founded in April 2013 a Eurosceptic, anti-immigration and far right party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The AfD is now posing a growing challenge to Merkel’s CDU by making inroads into its vote bank. For instance, though in the September 2013 federal elections the AfD could not secure the requisite five percent of votes, the party won seven of Germany’s 96 seats (with seven percent of votes) in May 2014 to join the European parliament. Furthermore, the AfD won 10 percent to 12 percent of votes at the cost of the CDU vote bank in three eastern state (Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia) elections held in August and September 2014. In February 2015, the AfD will contest elections in the wealthy city-state of Hamburg. If the AfD wins this election, it will enter the regional assembly of Western Germany as well. Merkel has been trying to stop the rise of the AfD by uttering more conservative words. For instance, in the first week of this year, Merkel addressed her party colleagues in Hamburg and said: “When the [Berlin] Wall fell 25 years ago [in 19×9], many thought we had done it but we have just seen again that there are many who do not hold the same values as us.”
On the one hand, Merkel speaks against multiculturalism, claims to have played a role in the fall of the Berlin Wall and promotes the concept of different values between ‘them’ (foreigners) and ‘us’ (Germans) in party meetings. However, in public, she not only speaks for multiculturalism but also condemns PEGIDA demonstrations. Her double speak astonishes many. Certainly, Merkel is on the horns of a dilemma. If she adopts liberal policies as her predecessor Schroder did, she risks losing the right wing vote, as lost recently to the AfD. Otherwise, the international image of Germany is tarnished.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com