linksunten Archiv

On August 20, Germany's neo-nazi party NPD tried to hold a rally against a newly opened refugee lager in Hellersdorf, a desolate working-class neighborhood on Berlin's far-right fringe.

The concrete-slab dwellers here are economically and emotionally frustrated. Their fearful psyches yearn for authority. The parallel society persiflaged on "reality" TV: infantile grunts who have been promised jobs since 1990, but got only shopping malls.

Yet, contrary to rad-left prejudice, openly nationalist parties like Pro Deutschland and the NPD achieve only results in the lower single digits. Most of their candidates are "not fit for daylight," as one journalist writes. Hellersdorfers support Nazism like fast food fans support cowicide: It's on the menu, so you eat it. All "non-radical" parties openly endorse nationalist ideologies. You don't have to vote far-right to vote racist.

The strongest parties in the neighborhood are the Christian Democrats (CDU), the Democratic Socialists (LINKE) and the (SPD). Like most average citizens, the major parties were completely absent during the protests against the Nazi rally.

Around 800 protesters faced 20 Nazis. Nearly all protesters were "radical activists" according to police and media depictions. In theory, resisting fascism is not "radical," nor is it particularly courageous. In practice, it gets you beaten and arrested.

If the basic duty of opposing fascism is coined "radical activism", then the majority of Germans are passive opportunists who'd allow their grandmother to be deported if it doesn't interfere with their paycheck.

This includes all residents of Germany. The majority of the protesters against the last (failed) NPD rally in Kreuzberg belonged to the politicized elite. Most locals hardly bothered to watch from their balconies.

However, this does not mean that working-class Kreuzbergers don't protest. They just seem to care little about German politics, of which racism is an integral part. The Taksim solidarity (and anti-Erdogan) protests attracted thousands of Kreuzbergers.

The Hellersdorfers also kept their distance during the Nazi rally. Boys with overtight shirts and girls with too much make-up watched from across the road. A group of public drinkers, unusually young, unusually female, stared menacingly from their regular bench.

Maybe the hundreds of riot cops dissuaded regular citizens from voicing their protest. The cops had the job to protect the Nazi rally, and they did well.

Apart from the vulgar press, also bourgeois infotainment mags like DER SPIEGEL ("Conflict around asylum center in Berlin escalates") and the Bionade socialist of TAZ ("Action in Hellersdorf") exercised conformity: Radicals here, radicals there, Police keep the peace.

This is not true. The police made the rally possible, they escalated a peaceful demo. The cops can - and regularly do - dissolve gatherings at will, for example, if they feel that public safety is at risk. Squad leaders know various loopholes to bypass freedom of assembly. I've been arrested twice this year for attending arbitrarily cancelled (or declared) public gatherings.

The Nazis were outnumbered forty to one. Had the police not been present, they would not even have been able to leave their truck.

All of the estimated 25 arrests against activists were for hiding their faces, throwing eggs or just protesting against police brutality. Using the minimum (600) and maximum (800) attendance estimates, your chances for being arrested arbitrarily at a protest against fascism in Germany is 3 to 4%. Your chances for being arrested for holding a Nazi rally = 0%. In 2013. You can see photos of the police's "peacekeeping efforts" here.

Not one of these images appeared in the press. Most of the stylish mainstream photographers took their shots from the side of the Nazis. To them, anti-fascists are the "mob."

When a Nazi beat down a female protester on the wrong side of the front, the police did not even talk to him, much less arrest him.

The next day, I heard the officer in charge on the radio, telling citizens not to worry, because his troops had "everything under control." Christian politicians were quoted, telling "concerned neighbors" not to let themselves be instrumentalized by "pied pipers."

In Hellersdorf society quietly purges undesirables: Proles, immigrants, Nazis, protesters. People are not simply afraid to fight the state that keeps them marginalized but fed, they are oblivious to the opportunity of resistance. Instead of fighting the forces of state capitalism, the subjects identify with their oppressors. Citizens protest only at the ballot box, they say. You have to be tough, you must endure, so they say. Thus pariah can be pashas,l saves can be masters. How radical.