Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-21-Speech-4-049"
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"en.20000921.2.4-049"2
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"Mr President, last Friday, the German Lower House discussed adopting a more hard-line approach in order to fight right-wing extremism at home. This was an opportune debate at the appropriate level. The spokesperson of the Greens, and as such a fellow member of the party of Mrs Schroedter, who submitted the oral questions, argued on that occasion that there are no easy solutions for combating right-wing extremism. However, to him, the many initiatives against right-wing extremism from the citizens in the new federal states offer a ray of hope. This Green representative sounds all in all less gloomy and less alarming than his colleague within our own EP ranks.
In saying that, I have no intention of playing down the genuine concerns of Mrs Schroedter with regard to society’s current aversion to foreigners, if not downright xenophobia in the east of Germany. Considerably more East Germans than West Germans seem to think that too many foreigners are residing within their own territory and even feel exploited by this group. A remarkable state of affairs, given the sobering fact that hardly any foreigners live in East Germany. They make up between 1 and 2.5% of the population over there, according to a recent German press source.
It seems logical that this paradox is very much playing on the minds of the Germans. It is exactly this crucial factor at home that I miss in Mrs Schroedter’s written introduction to her questions. By way of background to racist violence in the new federal states, she quotes the “dramatically high percentage” of racist attitudes among the population, including the fact that racism is being elevated to “a kind of youth culture”.
This reasoning immediately brings to mind an obvious follow-up question: why do racism and right-wing extremism thrive within the territory of the former German Socialist state of workers and farmers, the GDR, of all places? Our fellow MEP, André Brie provides a clear and plausible answer to this. The writer of the
s leader quoted him approvingly yesterday as saying: ‘One of a number of causes of right-wing violence is definitely to be found in the GDR.’
The German commentator, Lutz Rathenov, is bringing this viewpoint even more into focus: ‘The GDR used to treat foreigners in a way which right-wing extremists would dream about these days.’ This attitude is, to this day, leaving its mark in the east of the united Germany. According to Rathenov, right-wing extremism cannot be eradicated as a localised and clearly identifiable evil. Instead, a social norm has emerged for which the Federal Republic is ill prepared and for which it is partly to blame. Which West German negotiating partners of the GDR were concerned about the fate of the Vietnamese immigrant workers in East Germany at the time? In the words of Rathenov, did it bother him as a Christian Socialist negotiator, that, in the event of their becoming pregnant, these Vietnamese women were forced to have abortions?
Overcoming the GDR complex within the Federal Republic, namely the feeling many East Germans have of being second-class citizens, will take time. As an antidote to East German right-radicals, neo-nazis and skinheads, insider Lutz Rathenov is making an interesting proposal: ‘There are places where young people should be sent abroad en masse for a couple of years.’ On a voluntary basis, I think Europe would be prepared to finance this proposal."@en1
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"Frankfurter Allgemeine’"1
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