The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has gained ground in three recent state elections, caused an uproar in the Thuringian parliament and triggering another debate on whether to ban the party outright.
Whenever you squash a community of cockroaches, they tend to scatter and infest nearby communities.
It is nearly always a much better strategy for them to have their “safe space” so they can be more easily identified and de-converted. Being able to pick off the lightly/conveniently indoctrinated is extremely helpful, as it prevents them from being radicalized like a wholesale community squashing will do.
I mean I do think banning them is a good idea, and in general I think nazis should be taken on helicopter rides, most especially the enablers of nazis, their financial leash handlers which basically bootstrap them into these positions in order to push the dialogue further rightward in service of corporate interests, and probably also in this case in service of “geopolitical security” since we’re going to be seeing oncoming climate refugees in the coming years, and combatting that in any way but increasing the security apparatus is off the table.
More than that, though, I worry that realistically just banning them, though a great temporary measure, won’t do much, say, five years or a decade down the road, because it’s not gonna solve the core hypocrisies and discrepancies that neoliberalism is not so keen to solve. If you want to actually solve this problem long term then you need to combat those core problems. Instead, though, I think that probably the party being banned will just see them either form a new party, or else tone down their rhetoric to an acceptable degree, or just join the next furthest right party and then decide to push them further right, and so on and so on, until we’ve all collectively just shifted rightward to an incredible degree.
Ad nauseam, et cetera, regardless of the political apparatuses at work, until collectively the western world plummets towards fascism.
So, for the sake of argument, if AfD is banned would they not just became a paramilitary group?
What’s to stop them from devolving into something more ‘nefarious’ if they are stripped of political power?
The ease with which they can build such structures would go down. Building while hiding is harder than building while not having to hide.
Having central coordination, for example in the form of a party or some other form of organization, means that strategic goals can be planned for and resources acquired and allocated in a more efficient manner. The previous bigger neonazi party, the NPD, fulfilled that role for quite a while.
Organizations and people are not that interchangeable for these purposes. Workflows, institutional memory, leadership all matter. That’s why targeted assassinations of leadership even in cell-like structures can meaningfully disrupt e.g. terrorist organizations’ effectiveness. Similar things can be accomplished by simply disrupting business-as-usual.
What stoped the kpd? Or the groups that wanted to rebuild the NSDAP? Would you rather have them pull the strings instead? I mean yea a ban could be dangerous, but letting them take over the justice system, the finances and police of Germany seems like a horrible second option.
Oh I’m not advocating for letting them remain in a position of political influence.
I’m asking what mechanisms beyond simply banning them will need to be implemented? I’m thinking banning them is only a bandage solution.
I’m guessing they’d still be under observation after they get banned because of exactly that and I also think there’s steep step between political engagement and serious criminal activity.
But that gets decided by a court and as a German I think the judiciary is the most trustworthy of the three powers. I think if it even comes to that they deal with the motion in a sensitive way.
We, Germans, cannot allow 30 Jan 1933 to 08 May 1945 to repeat itself. Also, the communists in “Die Linke” can go straight to hell with the neo-Nazis.
Fuck you trying to separate the left. That’s what happened last time and that’s what didn’t work last time.
Nah, Russia’s fuckbuddys can go straight to hell regardless of their political side.
If simply banning nazis from holding political power is enough for some of you to question, then you’re really not going to be ready for what you need to do to them once they get political power. Ban them now because y’all are far too soft to do what needs to be done if you don’t.
Ban them now
They won’t, in no small part because the AfD has enough seats to block the attempt. Also, doesn’t help that lots of the enforcement wing of the German government (particularly in the national security services) are AfD or AfD sympathetic.
We’re well past the point at which Germans can do to the fascists what they did to the communists back in the 1990s - ban the party outright and seize their assets. Now they’ve actually got to make this a political fight, rather than a legalistic one, because they turned their backs on the AfD for far too long.
They won’t, in no small part because the AfD has enough seats to block the attempt.
They cannot block a decision of the federal constitutional court, don’t be ridiculous. Germany has measures in place exactly for this scenario, and they are about to be enforced. They cannot be vetoed away, it’s a legal matter.
They cannot block a decision of the federal constitutional court
Given the concentration of AfD in the Eastern Block, you’d be inviting the region to pull a Catalonia and threaten to break away.
Germany has measures in place exactly for this scenario
Riot police, sure.
Don’t know what’s there to be so smug about. “Oh you would rather ban them in a constitutional process than to wait for them to seize power and fight a bloody civil war, or worse?” Yes please! I hope we all much prefer the first option.
I hope we all much prefer the first option.
Some of us are convinced this measure does nothing, and are unwilling to fight. It seems they only seem to oppose fascism when it can be done by magic.
Those of us are wrong, then. Fascism isn’t some inherently abstract force of nature, it’s people and organizations of people. Those social structures can be disrupted, and the major question whose answer determines the means of disruption is whether the earlier responses were appropriately timed and powered.
I prefer the situation where fascist-attitude people are individuals who need treatment rather than one where fascism is not just an attitude of individuals but a structural problem requiring e.g. law enforcement involvement or even a full-societal issue requiring outside military involvement.
Some of us are convinced this measure does nothing
Nothing? How can it do nothing? You could argue that it doesn’t do enough or not the right things, but if nothing else banning the party would obviously keep them out of the government at least for the next few years.
