Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-21-Speech-4-052"
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"en.20000921.2.4-052"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Sichrovsky has just given us some food for thought. It is true that being on the left does not make you proof against a fascist mindset. History has borne this out. Therefore it is absolutely true that the left must reflect on their past too, as must the right. But the object of the exercise today is for the democrats to give thought to the tasks they face here and now. The task facing the democratic parties at present, be they in East Germany, in your country, in Italy or in Spain – El Ejido to name but one – is how to actually mobilise the silent majority of people who stand idly by and watch as defenceless, helpless people are driven through the streets and murdered. How do we mobilise this majority? The question we must ask ourselves is this, ‘Why are five thousand people in my homeland – which is North Rhine Westphalia in Germany – prepared to take to the streets in protest against a decree on fighting dogs, but only 300 turn out to protest against right-wing extremism?’ That is the question we must ask ourselves.
I will tell you something, Mr Sichrovsky, you represent the Freedom Party. People who criticise your party are not disparaging Austria as a whole. I respect the Austrian people but I despise the racists in your party – let there be no mistake about that – of whom you are one.
The same applies to you, Mr Pirker, in every sense. Therefore, to recap: the point of these oral questions, and the statements made by Mrs Ludford, Mrs Schroedter and Mrs Kaufmann, is not to single out any old region in Europe and say ‘that is where things are at their worst’. We German delegates, coming as we do from a land notorious for its perpetrators of fascism, always find it hard to bear that something like this is going on in our country, of all places. But anyone who believes that fascism is a German phenomenon inevitably plays down the fact that the problem is endemic to Europe. Therefore I say again: this is a European battle."@en1
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