Twenty years ago, to the applause of up to 3,000 onlookers, right-wing extremists attacked the homes of political asylum seekers, residents of other countries of origin, and germans they deemed non-german in the community of Rostock-Lichtenhagen. During the following months, pogroms followed in a number of german cities, including Hoyerswerda, Mölln, Solingen and Mannheim. Whereas due to sheer luck no one was murdered in Lichtenhagen, despite the fact that Neo-Nazis threw petrol bombs into the buildings, stormed the houses and smashed everything in sight, seven people died in other fire bomb attacks, and countless people were attacked by mobs of hundreds of self-proclaimed germans during 1992 and 1993.
Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Lichtenhagen. Whereas anti-fascist activists held rallies to commemorate the pogrom, germany’s Federal President, Joachim Gauck, thought it was a good idea to plant a “german oak,” the much beloved metaphor of germany as an “organically grown nation” and a symbol of german nationalism, as a monument against german racism. But whoever thought that was the highlight of germany’s repentant abilities was shortly thereafter reminded of the depth of personal and institutionalized racism in the midst of this country’s society, and the never ceasing need for victim-blaming, exemplified by an article in one of the country’s biggest daily newspapers, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).
The FAZ has a distinctly conservative reputation, but, as I previously thought, was somewhat able to keep up a certain distance to newspapers and magazines that are not only borderline, but explicitly right-wing, such as “Junge Freiheit,” a weekly newspaper of the so-called “New Right” that aspires bourgeois respectability, and yet, fails miserably with every single issue. However, one of the “New Right”‘s characteristics has been its “hinge function” between “ordinary” conservatism (or even reactionary thinking) and radical right-wing policies, as political research has emphasized (see here, for example). I personally think that’s true, and it is never clearer than when Stauffenberg-conservatives like the majority of FAZ journalists join argumentative hands with explicit right-wingers, especially when it comes to commenting on “immigration” policy or internal affairs. The borders that were once established, however, have always been friendly ones, and are usually too fluid to be taken seriously.
Illustrating these discursive intersections, the FAZ has now decided on publishing a piece that terminates every pretense by an essential political glorification of the effects of Lichtenhagen, written by Jasper von Altenbockum [in german]. Altenbockum contends that, despite the “excesses” of Lichtenhagen’s pogrom, it had positive effects in two regards: teaching “social romantics” that “multiculturalism” is “utopian,” and “unrestricted immigration” necessarily leads to a society’s decline, and the second, related point that the pogroms inspired the newly restrictive immigration and asylum law of 1993 in germany, and a discussion whether germany was an “immigration country” or not (history isn’t his greatest strength, apparently). Altenbockum is not even a stranger to anti-democratic lines of arguments, and has revelled in dubbing anti-ACTA activists a “mob;” a term he seems to apply freely.
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