All of Germany had its eyes on Dresden, waiting for the results in real time, just like on election night. The country was waiting to see how many people would attend the march held every Monday by the PEGIDA movement -- the acronym stands for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (in English translation). Founded last October, the movement draws more and more people to the streets of Dresden every Monday, and has reached as many as 18,000 marchers. The march last Monday was the first to take place since the massacre at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper in Paris. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas called on people not to attend, terming it an embarrassment, and urged the organizers not to use the massacre in Paris as a pretext for spreading hatred. PEGIDA was founded by Lutz Bachmann, a cook by training with past convictions for theft and drug trafficking. At one point he was even extradited from South Africa after having fled there to escape German law enforcement. Since 1992, Bachmann has been running a small advertising agency, which fits with what much of the public and government officials are saying: that PEGIDA is nothing but neo-Nazism, rebranded. PEGIDA has no website. Its URL leads to a Facebook page that is not updated. But PEGIDA brings thousands of people out into the streets in Dresden, perhaps because Bachmann is also a publicist, and, it would seem, a fairly decent one. One clever move of his was to call the marches "Monday marches." During the twilight of the communist era, opponents of the regime marched on Mondays. Even if communism fell mainly because of Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow, the Monday marches of that time are considered an heroic act of independence. In the end, 25,000 people came to march in the streets of Dresden. But PEGIDA's victory was a local one: the number of counterdemonstrators was also fairly large. Anti-PEGIDA rallies throughout Germany drew higher numbers -- 100,000 nationwide, including a demonstration of 35,000 people in Leipzig, about an hour's drive north of Dresden. In her New Year's address, Chancellor Angela Merkel described the members of PEGIDA as people who had "prejudice, coldness and even hatred in their hearts." * * * I found a very mixed crowd in Dresden on the chilly night of the march. The organizers had asked their supporters to bring flags of various regions in Germany to illustrate that the problem of radical Islam was not limited to Dresden or to the state of Saxony. So a different sort of crowd marched alongside the tattooed skinheads that fit the neo-Nazi image: Christian priests, guests from the neighboring Scandinavian countries, a few British hooligans and mainly ordinary people waving banners expressing solidarity with Charlie Hebdo. One could see black banners with a large cross and the names Mustafa Ourrad or Ahmed Merabet (a journalist and a Muslim police officer who were among the victims of the massacre in Paris, respectively.) But no identification with the Jewish victims at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Port de Vincennes could be seen. Incidentally, Charlie Hebdo officials have opposed PEGIDA's use of the terrorist attack on their paper. But even if some people attending the march mourned the victims of the attack or were concerned about radical Islam's attitude toward women, there is no lack of other agendas there that cause discomfort among European Jews. One marcher carries a sign that reads: "Death to capitalism." His name is Jorg, and he worked for years in chemical plants in East Germany. When I ask him if the sign expresses a yearning for communism, he is shocked. He is referring to "the treachery of the banks and their associates in politics of the simple working man." I'm not sure if it's paranoia or not, but in the rhetoric of eastern Europe's far Right, the distance between bankers and accusations such as "Jewish influence" is very small. Another sign that reads "Freedom for Russia." PEGIDA opposes the support of Germany and the West for the Ukrainian side of the conflict with Russia. But one demonstrator took the time to explain to me that "the Russian economy is controlled by international capitalists." When he was pressed to explain who these international capitalists were, he responded with a question: "Who are all the oligarchs around Putin-" He was at least as concerned about Judaization as he is about Islamization. "The young people here are sane" After a few speeches and a minute of silence in memory of the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the march sets out, guarded by hundreds of police officers. German police officers are a bit like British soccer referees: They let people play and try to avoid interfering. When counterdemonstrators approach the marchers at a few points, the police hurry over to show a presence, but allow the sides to let off steam. "You crap of a Hitler!" shouts one woman from the counterdemonstration. "I'll paint my penis black and then you won't need refugees," a man from the march replies. But there is one place where the Left wins out over the Right in Germany's streets -- demographics. The counterdemonstration gathered near the Semperoper, Dresden's opera house, has much younger members, most of them in university or high school. They stand the entire length of the march, whistling at and booing the marchers. High school pupil Bettina is demonstrating against PEGIDA, but admits that her parents support the movement. "They grew up in East Germany and don't trust anything," she says. "It's easy to convince them of all kinds of accusations, so PEGIDA tells them that the Muslims are taking away jobs. The fact is that there are hardly any Muslims here in Saxony, and there are no jobs because of the situation in eastern Germany. We can't accept that people
associate Dresden with something like PEGIDA. The young people here are sane and open, just like they are all over Germany." There are Muslims in Germany, and they make up roughly five percent of the population. About two-thirds of them are of Turkish origin. This is not France, with its history of bloody conflict against many of its immigrants (mainly those from Algeria). But Muslims make up about one-half of one percent of Saxony's population: one in every 200 people. And there, of all places, the most prominent anti-Islamic group in Germany has come into existence. That is one of the reasons why PEGIDA's critics insist so strongly that the concern over Islamization is only a cover, that it is actually neo-Nazism in disguise. "An obviously Nazi expression" Saxony is part of what was once East Germany. In Leipzig, I hear an interesting story from Hassan Solyamza, the chairman of the Socialist party. Despite his name, he is not a Muslim. He is the son of a German mother and a father from the Comoros Islands off Madagascar. Still, Solyamza is dark-skinned enough that he suffered when the Berlin Wall fell and communism ended. He was 7 years old at the time. "My problems began when East Germany fell," he says. "Children cursed me and gangs of teenagers used to shoot air rifles at me for fun." The fall of East Germany led to an outbreak of racism from neo-Nazis and radical rightists that found expression, among other things, in the way that the Holocaust was taught. "The communist regime did not deny the Jewish Holocaust or its numbers, but every type of Holocaust teaching revolved around the communist fight against it," Solyamza says. "They taught about the communist underground groups that fought the Nazis and about the Soviet Union, which won." The feeling of remorse and the real knowledge that are typical of people who went through the West German school system are nonexistent in the east. Q: What is PEGIDA's view of the Holocaust- "They deny any link with the neo-Nazis, but they use the expression 'stopping the culture of guilt' about the world war. That is an obviously Nazi expression that leaves no room for misinterpretation." Solyamza describes the members of PEGIDA as very clever. "They know what to do, how to speak and how to play on the fears of the masses. Until a few months ago, representatives of the NPD (a neo-Nazi party) sat in Saxony's parliament. They fell short of the electoral threshold (five percent) by a few hundred votes. The members of PEGIDA are more skilled at attracting people." Q: The Muslims are making mistakes here. Do they even want to integrate- "In Leipzig there are liberal Muslims who are open to the world and integrated into the community. But there is also the Salafist mosque of Hassan Dabbagh. He founded the study center of German Salafists and attracts about 400 people to the mosque. They're extremists, and PEGIDA will always portray all Muslims as followers of Hassan Dabbagh. To a large extent, they're helping Dabbagh and pushing young people to join him." Q: Were you surprised when PEGIDA made its appearance- "No, but I was surprised by the momentum and by the fact that so many people who aren't neo-Nazis joined them. We see its influence spreading from Dresden to Leipzig and farther. Several thousand people attended the demonstrations there, too." "Every society needs minorities" Actions are sometimes more important than people. Leipzig Rabbi Zsolt Balla is one of the first two Orthodox rabbis to be ordained in Germany since World War II. The last rabbi of Leipzig before the war was Ephraim Carlebach (father of Ezriel Carlebach, founder of the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv, and the uncle of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, who was known as the "singing rabbi.") On Monday, Balla stood among the counterdemonstrators in Leipzig. Security officials had warned about an official Jewish presence at the counterdemonstration. But the rabbi himself took part. "PEGIDA has nothing to do with Islamization," he said. "They are simply neo-Nazis. While I'm the first to oppose Islamic terrorism, that isn't their agenda. They are in the same category as Jobbik [the far-right Hungarian party]. They just present themselves in a different way." Q: What, for you, is the worst scenario- "I'm not a prophet. I'm a rabbi. I don't understand politics, and every person should know what his strengths are. I can judge this morally and by what is right for my community. Jews must live in an open society, not in a society of hatred." Q: Why do you feel that PEGIDA is a neo-Nazi organization- "First of all, there are leaks [that were published in Der Spiegel]. The leaders quoted Hitler. But it's also the rhetoric of 'danger to our culture.' There is no such thing as danger to culture, though there may be a culture that lacks self-confidence. What bothers me is seeing how many people they are drawing in who aren't really neo-Nazis, but who are easily used." Q: Have there been threats against the Jewish community- "There have been occasional incidents of cursing and harassment. It happened during the time when a debate about the legality of circumcision was taking place. The threats always came from right-wing German racists, not from Muslims." Q: So there is no chance that the members of PEGIDA are lovers of Israel because of their hatred of Muslims- "They are looking to hate. At the moment, it's convenient for them to hate Muslims. They'll get us, too. And the fact that somebody, for some reason, supports you in some matter doesn't mean you should sit in the same boat with him." Q: Does Germany need minorities- "Every society needs minorities. You don't make progress if you don't examine your values in comparison with others." Another rabbi of a community in eastern Germany who asked not to be named told me that during a meeting of religious leaders in the city where he lives -- a meeting devoted to projects of cooperation -- a local imam began to criticize the Israeli army, calling it an "army of murderers." The rabbi stood up and protested, saying, "We do not mix politics with our work." What amazed him was not the imam's statements, but the fact that none of the other religious leaders who were there defended him. They remained silent. Whether they encounter extremist Islamic hatred or Nazi-style anti-Semitism, Europe's Jews come up against a great deal of apathy. "Nazis in striped uniforms" Dr. Michael Luhmann of the Institute for Democracy Studies in Gottingen is a prominent scholar of the phenomenon of PEGIDA and Germany's radical Right in general. He says that PEGIDA's ranks include "several known neo-Nazis, and they use expressions such as 'Luegenpresse' (lying press), 'Uberfremdung' ('over-foreignization,' referring to an excess of immigration), 'Volksverraeter' (traitor to the nation), and 'Wir sind das Volk' (We are the people) -- expressions typical of the Nazi regime." He adds, "There is definitely a difference between their demonstrations and the Nazi demonstrations several years ago, but the PEGIDA activists march beside Nazis and behind Nazis, so even with the differences I mentioned, I would call them supporters of Nazis." Luhmann also notes that the neo-Nazi NPD party "has a welcoming attitude toward PEGIDA. Neo-Nazi activists are helping the members of PEGIDA spread to other cities. We heard them speak in Leipzig about rejecting the culture of German guilt over the Holocaust." Does their ambiguous image make them more dangerous than an "ordinary" neo-Nazi party- "In my opinion, it's more dangerous because it brings them closer to the mainstream. In December, we saw the problem our politicians had rejecting the members of PEGIDA because they talked about the public's fears. The justice minister called them 'Nazis in striped uniforms' and was criticized for using that description. They are using Islamophobia only to start a process that will go as far as homophobia and other types of hatred." What is their attitude toward the Holocaust- "Again, it's pretty vague. In Leipzig they spoke about rejecting the culture of German guilt. But when an activist in Dusseldorf said that whether there had been a Holocaust or not was irrelevant, he was thrown off PEGIDA's organizing committee. The worst scenario is that political procedure in Germany will begin responding to PEGIDA because it will create a certain public atmosphere; it will go from Islamophobia to hatred of refugees, and to wholesale opposition of the establishment and of democracy."
