14.01.2016
Migrant sex mob hysteria
Instead of fighting for open borders and internationalism, the left in Germany has joined the ruling class in its collective embarrassment, says Tina Becker
Germany is slowly coming out of shock over the events of new year’s eve, when male ‘sex mobs’ attacked and abused women in various cities. Not just any men - migrants, most of them from north Africa and amongst them recent arrivals - ie, refugees from Syria. So far, more than 500 complaints have been filed with the police just in Cologne - most of them for petty theft, but 40% had a “sexual background” - ie, the women were subjected to humiliating sexual touching and abuse. Two rapes are being investigated and there have been a number of arrests.
As could be expected, rightwing organisations like Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident) have ostentatiously seized on the opportunity, organising demonstrations against “rapefugees” and trashing Turkish restaurants and shops in Leipzig.1 There have been increasing numbers of ‘revenge attacks’ on asylum-seekers. German politicians and the media are debating the lessons of the ‘failed integration’ of millions of migrants. Germany is having a big crisis of conscience. It does not help that the obviously deranged man who attacked a police station in Paris last week was an asylum-seeker living in Germany under “at least seven different names” and with a long criminal record, including assult and sexual violence.2
As The Independent gloomily writes, “The Cologne attacks were a disaster for women and migrants”. You might want to add to that ‘and the German ruling class’. This was not supposed to happen. Far from displaying ‘institutional racism’, the German bourgeoisie initially tried to ignore or downplay the events. The police, particularly in Cologne, are under immense pressure to explain why they had not taken the initial reports by female victims seriously. Indeed, on the morning of January 1, the police reported that things had been “relaxed” in the city. The state-run German TV channel, ZDF, had to apologise for not reporting the incidents until a few days later. Similarly, in Sweden, the police are conducting an investigation into the apparent cover-up of dozens of cases of sexual abuse committed by groups of young migrant men at a music festival.
Anti-racist ideology
These events really do not sit well with the establishment. Not only because, like in Britain, the ruling class has an official ideology of anti-racism. German capitalism has fully embraced chancellor Angela Merkel’s attempt to incorporate one million Syrian refugees. After all, without immigration, capital in Germany, where the birth rate is amongst the lowest in the European Union, would be in trouble. Refugees tend to be young, male and eager to work. Perfect fodder for the always-hungry capitalist machine. Or, in the words of the president of the German Employers Association, the BDA, Germany should welcome refugees, because “in the next 20 years, we will need a lot more workers than this country can produce”. In his estimate, there are 500,000 “unfilled positions” - most of them not the kind of jobs that many Germans are too keen on taking.3
Yes, there had been some issues about how the distribution of refugees was put into practice. It does not take a genius to work out that the 100 inhabitants of the village of Sumte, for example, would feel “utterly unprepared” to house 1,000 refugees. Or that it would not go down well if sports lessons up and down the country are cancelled indefinitely, because refugees are now living in school sports halls. And, yes, there have been small demonstrations and attacks on refugee centres and the right wing in Merkel’s conservative CDU party has called for a U-turn over the policy.
But Merkel, the mainstream media and the majority of the government (a coalition of the CDU, its Bavarian sister party, CSU, and the social democratic SPD) had stood firm behind the effort to bring in more refugees from Syria. But, now, in an effort to be seen to be doing something in the aftermath of the Cologne attacks, the government has started to send asylum-seekers to so-called ‘safe countries’, while also announcing that it should become possible to faster deport “criminal asylum-seekers”. In reality, of course, anybody accused would still have to be found guilty by a German court, but they might lose their right to appeal. It is mainly hot air at the moment and a proper U-turn seems unlikely - German capitalism simply cannot afford it. But Merkel is known for being an exemplary opportunist - if there is too much pressure on her, she might fold, tightening asylum and immigration controls in the process.
All the more important that the left steps up its fight for an end to deportations, for internationalism, open borders and after a short time full social and political citizenship rights for anybody living in a particular country. Unfortunately, as you would expect, this is not the case.
The left
The biggest left party, Die Linke, has come out with some truly worrying positions - no doubt in order to show that it can be ‘trusted’ to run bourgeois governments even on a national level (it has been participating in regional governments for many years). The only statement on the matter on its website concentrates on attacking the police authorities for not doing their job properly: “Order and the set of values of the Grundgesetz [German constitution] now have to be at the top of the agenda for everybody,” says the statement, which also calls for swift justice, including the “possible loss of the right of residence” for the perpetrators.4
Worse though came from Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of the Die Linke fraction in the national parliament and - as a founder member of the Kommunistische Plattform within the party - usually considered to be on the left of the organisation. Demonstrating that she can be much more accurately described as being on the Stalinist wing, she stated during a press conference: “If you abuse the right to be a guest in this country, then you forfeit this right”.5 Anybody without a German passport, it seems, is merely a guest and it does not take much to get rid of a guest who has been acting out of place. Back in November, comrade Wagenknecht and her husband, Oskar Lafontaine (former German finance minister), presented a position paper in which they demanded that every EU country should be taking “firm contingents” of refugees. “We simply cannot take in a million people every year.”6 With those positions, she is actually trying to place Die Linke to the right of the current ruling coalition - and has allowed the ‘moderate’ rightwingers in the party to look more like socialist humanitarians than the Realpolitiker they really are.
The German sections of both the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party in England and Wales (Sozialistische Alternative - SAV) are trying to put the events firmly in the context of “everyday sexism”. Marx21, the German “sister organisation” of the SWP, for example, writes in Socialist Worker: “Sexual violence against women in Germany is a large and long-term problem. Women are frequently sexually harassed at large festivals, including the Oktoberfest in Munich and the Carnival in Cologne.”7
Very true. But not quite the same, is it? The comrades make no effort to explain why these young migrant men got together in large groups and started to pounce on and abuse women. By ignoring this obvious fact, the deeply disappointing left is indenial and clearly somewhat embarrassed - a feeling which is shared by many liberal-minded people in Germany, who are now doing a lot of soul-searching. Did we not greet the first of those refugees with open arms? Did we not go to train stations all over the country with our home-baked cookies and leftover toys? Did we not set up volunteer groups in every town and village to provide German lessons and playgroups for the kids? Did we not show exemplary Willkommenskultur? And now we are being paid back like this? It simply can’t be happening!
But the fact that you are a migrant or refugee does not make you a ‘good person’. You can flee war and poverty and still be an idiot, a bigot and even a rapist. And, yes, deeply patriarchal societies treat women with contempt. No doubt, this continues in the minds of many young men - even if they now find themselves living in western Europe. Add to that the fact that on new year’s eve many of the men involved got pretty drunk (like most people) and had been moved on by the police from one place to the other - and you have a recipe for trouble. Attacking women is a bit like kicking the dog in this context - an easy way to let off steam.
But migrants and refugees are certainly no ‘worse’ than their German counterparts. A study in November 2015 found that, “despite the recent influx, migrants and refugees do not commit more crimes than the native population”. In fact, the only rise in crime figures came from “attacks on accommodation centres for asylum-seekers”.8
Statistically, one would actually expect to find the opposite: a higher level of criminality amongst refugees and asylum-seekers. For a start, many come from the social stratum that commits by far the most crimes: young, male ... and traumatised. Plus, a lot of crimes that migrants have been found guilty of simply do not exist for natives: “a third of all violations committed by asylum-seekers” are breaches of the strict asylum regulations, finds the report. And if one considers the deeply alienating conditions that many refugees find themselves in once they have arrived in Germany (or Britain, or the rest of the EU), it is actually quite amazing that these crime figures are not higher.
Asylum-seekers arriving in Germany have always been herded into special centres, mostly far away from town centres. The idea is that most of them will be returned to the last ‘safe country’ that they passed through, so why make things too comfortable for them? But now refugees are also crammed into sports halls, empty army barracks, huge tents - and even in the old Berlin airport, Tempelhof. Sanitation in most of these locations is almost non-existent, there is no privacy, no access to amenities, shops - or anything to do. They might not starve or freeze to death, but that’s about it. They are provided with the bare minimum when it comes to clothes and necessities and have to live on €143 a month - the humiliating official title of the payment being “pocket money”.
In the first three months after their application for asylum, refugees in Germany are not allowed to work. After that, they can only take on jobs for which there are no other “equally qualified candidates from the EU”. After 15 months, this hurdle falls. But many cannot provide proof of their professional qualifications and, even when they can, they are often not recognised by the state. Most do not speak German and there is no legal obligation for the state to provide language courses, so many end up in the worst paid jobs.
Migrants
But not all of those accused are refugees - or from Syria. While not much is yet known about the background of those arrested in Cologne, the court-appointed defender of two of them describes his clients as “modern nomads. They aren’t war refugees, they are big street-children, who move with the stream of refugees through Europe. They have, to put it nastily, hit the jackpot - they are without a voice, without a home, without a future.”9
I would not be surprised if it turns out that some of those involved in the attacks have been living in Germany for years or might have even been born there - 9.4% of the population is made up “foreigners”. Until 2000, Germany adhered fully to the philosophy of Recht des Blutes - you are only German if you can prove that good German blood is flowing through your veins.
Many so-called ‘guest workers’ who arrived in Germany from the mid-1950s were never granted citizenship - and neither were their German-born children. More than 14 million Gastarbeiter came to Germany during the post-World War II boom, many bringing their families (maybe Sahra Wagenknecht wants to start sending those back too if they misbehave?). But no attempt was made to integrate them into society. Quite the opposite. For example, a conscious decision was made not to offer them language courses. They were only supposed to be exploited for a few short years and then return to their home country.
This first generation of immigrants in the main spoke no German at all, either at home or at work. Their children were sent to school with only rudimentary knowledge of German. There, they would sit at the back of the class, doing their best to catch up, but most left school without any qualifications: the next generation of cheap labour. Even if their father or mother had qualified to take the extremely difficult naturalisation test, the children would then have to choose at the age of 23 whether they wanted to remain, say, Turkish or become German. Only in the last year has the law been changed, allowing everybody born after 1990 to hold dual nationality.
Despite its image to the contrary, Germany is incredibly bad at integrating non-Germans - a factor which has clearly played a role in alienating a large chunk of its population. Then there is the overwhelming, all-encompassing pro-Israel propaganda of the entire German establishment (stemming, of course, from the ‘collective guilt’ over the holocaust), which condemns any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic, alienating and sidelining many young migrants with an Arab or Muslim background even further.
The events in Cologne and elsewhere demonstrate once more that sexual violence has very little to do with sex per se and very much more to do with control - or, more precisely, the lack of control.
tina.becker@weeklyworker.co.uk
Notes
1. For more on this rag-tag outfit and its aims, see ‘Nationalism and role of Pegida’ Weekly Worker January 22 2015.
2. www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/recklinghausen-pariser-attentaeter-wohnte-in-deutscher-asylunterkunft-a-1071287.html.
3. www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/arbeitgeber-praesident-kramer-ueber-fluechtlinge-wir-muessen-deutschkurse-vom-ersten-tag-an-anbieten-1.2634072.
4. www.linksfraktion-brandenburg.de/presse/anzeige-pressemitteilung/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[backPid]=269&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=3363&cHash=6a9fda7e9be026c1a
561430f8d9809b6.
5. Wer das Gastrecht missbraucht, hat das Gastrecht verwirkt.
6. www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/fluechtlinge-linke-vorstand-stellt-sich-gegen-sahra-wagenknecht-und-oskar-lafontaine-a-1067502.html.
7. https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/41957/Sexism+is+not+a+foreign+import%E2%80%94
German+socialists+respond+to+Cologne+attacks.
8. www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2015-11/bundeskriminalamt-fluechtlinge-deutsche-straftaten-vergleich.
9. www.bild.de/politik/inland/sex-uebergriffe-silvesternacht/ist-die-silvester-schande-die-folge-einer-falschen-politik-44085362.bild.html.