"Potatoes are better than doner kebabs", shout the Patriots against Islam as they parade in Dresden, with a clear reference to the four million Turkish immigrants present in Germany. What is happening in placid and powerful Germany obsessed with tolerance and acceptance of foreigners and with legislation more open to refugees? And what will happen after Charlie's tragedy in Paris? The fear of the economic crisis (in December inflation will go to 0,1%, flirting with deflation) or the fear of losing one's cultural identity are causing a mass xenophobic movement with dangerous outlines in the heart of old Europe or are we at exaggerations of media obsessed in turn by the "German past that does not pass"?
Let's go in order because the phenomenon should not be underestimated at all due to its social, political and economic implications: on Monday 5 January over 18 thousand people paraded through the streets of Dresden, one of the most beautiful German cities, known as the Florence on the Elbe, full of Baroque monuments and museums. The demonstrators identify with the so-called "European Patriots against the Islamization of the West" - known by the acronym Pegida - the anti-Islam and anti-immigrant group which with its weekly protest marches - they meet every Monday - is causing alarm more and more the German authorities and the political world.
Since the first demonstration in October, the number of participants in the protests has increased: at the last one on 22 December, 17 people demonstrated. Pegida adherents demonstrate with crosses and German flags, shouting slogans such as "potatoes are better than doner kebabs" or "No to religious fanaticism and all kinds of radicalism". They protest against the rules for welcoming immigrants seeking asylum, considered too loose. In 2014, Germany accepted 200 political refugees, four times more than in 2012.
It is therefore a protest movement of the type that is devastating placid Sweden, creator of Nordic welfare, where the minority government has decided to postpone early elections for fear of the success of xenophobic far-right movements, which have had a impetuous result in the last consultations? Possible, but for now, commentators are cautious in making comparisons with other European realities.
The most statistically significant data is that Germany has become the second OECD country with the highest flow of immigration, after the United States, overtaking Great Britain and Canada (in 2009 Germany was in eighth place). Furthermore, long gone are the times of the "gastarbeiter", the "guest workers" that Germany welcomed for low-skilled jobs from the 2030s from the southern Mediterranean, including Italians, as a successful filmography has made known. Today Berlin is on the hunt for skilled workers from all over the world and its industry knows it has a huge need for immigrants. In fact, Germany has the oldest population (after Italy and Japan), a low birth rate and is the locomotive of Europe. Furthermore, in XNUMX an avalanche of workers will retire, a circumstance that will create the need for new immigrants to keep German factories going.
The reactions
That said, it is understandable why German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the CDU, a Christian Democrat party, attacked right-wing populism "often full of prejudice and even hatred" in her year-end speech to the country. Then came the reactions of the Church (the Cologne Cathedral turned off its lights to protest against Pegida) and of the popular newspaper Bild, which launched a campaign against this movement which was joined by the 96-year-old former social democratic chancellor Helmut Schmidt, l actress Karoline Herfurth, the former player Oliver Bierhoff, the president of the German Confindustria Ulrich Grillo, the writer and journalist Ulrich Wickert, many politicians and ministers of all parties.
Therefore, there are many who distance themselves from the xenophobic marches, not just the chancellor. Thousands of anti-Pegida people rallied in Berlin, Cologne and Stuttgart; at least 5 in the German capital, police sources confirmed, and around 22 in Stuttgart, Munster and Hamburg.
In Berlin, the name of the xenophobic movement becomes Bergida: but on Monday 5 January, when it made its debut in the capital, it failed. More than 5.000 people marched against them. "Germany - Justice Minister Heiko Maas said at the counter-demonstration in Berlin - is a country where refugees are welcome and where the silent majority must not remain silent but show up and demonstrate in the squares". But perhaps something has broken in Germany and politicians are right to put out the fire before it flares up.
