Saturday night in Mügeln, Saxony
by classless, 21 August 2007
Germany is nice to foreigners as long as they don’t move. A little jostle while dancing - and a lynch mob of 50 Germans, shouting “Ausländer raus” and “National resistance rules this place”, hunts the man and his fellow Indians through town, beats them up badly and even attacks the place they seek refuge in.
Of course, nobody intervenes. Of course, it takes the arrival of 70 policemen to stop the mob action. Of course, almost every citizen of the town who is interviewed for TV is outraged about how the incident is getting so much attention now. They say things like: “Those wogs should live their lives and leave us alone.” And of course, the mayor says, this could have happened anywhere: “Everybody has his first time.”
Tuesday 21 August 2007 at 5:35
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2295519.ece
The town authorities are still in denial about the reasons for the clash even though witnesses say that the mob was shouting slogans such as “Long live the national resistance!” and “Get out of Germany!”.
“I really don’t know if there is a far-right background to this incident,” Gotthard Dess, the Mayor, said yesterday. “There are no known right-wing extremists here. This is a town with barely 5,000 inhabitants and everybody knows everybody.”
The regional police chief, Bernd Merbitz, went a little farther, saying: “We are investigating all possible motives, including the possibility that this was an act aimed at foreigners.”
The possibility? The comments under the article are nice too:
The problem is easily solved. Tell the Indians to stay in India.
Racism — it’s the new political correctness.
Tuesday 21 August 2007 at 10:42
It’s been all over the TV news yesterday and on all channels they repeated the formula that “a xenophobic background could not be ruled out”.
Tuesday 21 August 2007 at 13:53
But I thought Germany was a nice member state of the EU? How could such a thing happen?
Tuesday 21 August 2007 at 23:16
“Racism — the new political correctness.”
yes — I like — how true. It’s political correctness gone mad I tell ya.
Wednesday 22 August 2007 at 2:22
“The possibility?”
“Of course” there is no possibility that Berlin politicians could possibly be using a fight between two criminal gangs to portray a social movement in a poor working class area of Eastern Germany as racists, because they are so obviously not doing so as governments never, ever do this sought of thing. And “of course” there have never been any Indian engaged in criminal acts in the entire history of the world. And “of course” they’re Nazi’s, they’re boxheads.
No need for the police to investigate then, just horrible ignorant undeserving poor people being racists. Thank goodness we caught it in time and can now close down their “facist” party.
Wednesday 22 August 2007 at 8:49
“Ausländer raus!”
Fantastic!
In other news, the French are bad at war, the Italians have fifty different words for “surrender”, the Americans are all fat, warmongering idiots and the Scots are tight with money.
Keep up the good work!
Wednesday 22 August 2007 at 9:43
@unaha-closp
“social movement in a poor working class area”
wow, that’s really far beside the point! congratulations.
“close down their fascist party”
even better: they weren’t organized in any party, the only party close to them really _is_ a Nazi party by any standard, and this Nazi party isn’t closed down because the Verfassungsschutz doesn’t want to uncover its agents in it - that’s why the attempt to ban it in 2003 failed.
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Democratic_Party_of_Germany#The_2003_banning_attempt
Wednesday 22 August 2007 at 9:58
“Ausländer raus!”
The expression is not solely confined to Commando comics, it is also used by real live racists. Far from trotting out a convenient national stereotype, comrade classless is an ‘Ossie’ and knows whereof he speaks. So you can fuck off with your sneering.
Wednesday 22 August 2007 at 10:45
I have actually witnessed Germans, not only East Germans, saying and shouting exactly this phrase many times. That’s the really sad part: people who act like stereotypes.
Wednesday 22 August 2007 at 11:23
To give a picture: in the town closest to where I come from, there is a Nazi attack every two weeks. One girl just moved away after having been attacked 40 times in two years.
I sometimes wonder if from the outside the level of civilization is estimated by the distance of the word “but” from the beginning of typical German statements. Or is it how long the statements continue after the word?
They first tell me what they think I want to hear, that they are no Antisemites, no right-wingers, no Nazis, that they are totally not biased about foreigners or about Jews… And when they feel they have said enough of these things, they say: BUT. “But you know Michel Friedman.” “But the Israelis do to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to the Jews.” “But most of these foreigners are criminals.” “But it takes a strong hand to clear out the country.”
Or the pretty frequent summary: “You can say what you want about the Nazis BUT…”
Wednesday 22 August 2007 at 11:39
But I thought Germany was a nice member state of the EU? How could such a thing happen?
Be reasonable: obviously this means that it has not happened.
And by “a nice member state” I think you mean “the predestined leader”.
Thursday 23 August 2007 at 9:16
Here’s a new piece on the whole shebang:
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/blog/blog.aspx?id=1054
Thursday 23 August 2007 at 16:44
Looks like the Muegeln, Saxony Convention & Visitors Bureau just opened a branch in the US - with travel warnings for those of different skin color than Hans and Hildegard:
http://www.muegeln.com