Counter rallies in Kaufbeuren show split between supporters of AfD and locals who acknowledge the Bavarian town’s Nazi past

Counter rallies in Kaufbeuren show split between supporters of AfD and locals who acknowledge the Bavarian town’s Nazi past

Soaring church spires, the 1,000-year-old town centre unblemished by second world war bombing or graffiti, snow-capped Alps in the middle distance – Kaufbeuren, in Bavaria, can count many blessings.

Unemployment is in the low single digits, the Luftwaffe backed away from plans to move its training school for Eurofighter and Tornado jet technicians elsewhere and crime is at a historic low.

However, as voters prepare to elect a new European parliament next month, deep-seated fears have gripped a significant share of the electorate in one of the most affluent pockets of Europe’s top economy and delivered it to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

The bond between the party and its voters appears unshaken even by a cascade of recent scandals. The AfD’s lead candidate for the election, Maximilian Krah, was forced by his party leadership on Wednesday to resign from its board and stop campaigning after he told Italy’s La Repubblica that the SS, the Nazi paramilitary force which ran the death camps, were not all criminals and could only be judged on the basis of “individual guilt”.

  • Robaque@feddit.itEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    Ah, fuck, I usually at the very least skim things before I share but this time I just assumed from the title… my bad, the article has nothing to do with this topic.

    Still, my general point is that European colonialism in Africa can’t be considered a “solved” issue, because of capitalism’s (and ‘western’ capitalists’) roles in continuing to exploit its natural resources and perpetuating systemic wealth inequalities. I think that profling populations by nation/culture is a fundamentally flawed way of approaching the difficulties of (mass) immigration, plus it’s an even more dangerous road to go down. Whatever the qualities of cultures and hegemonies that persist in whichever regions, populations aren’t homogenous, and states fail to represent their peoples.

    Of course, there are many factors and actors involved in the many social instabillties / conflicts plaguing the world, and anything I might value as an anarchist (e.g. open borders and mutual / humanitarian aid) would be nonsensical to apply as government policies. I don’t have a ‘counter’ solution to propose.

    lf all this is “thought terminating” in the sense that I’m unwlling to go down the path of ‘pragmatism’ in which peoples’ worth is profiled and measured and weighed, then so be it. As I see it, that kind of thinking as part of problem, not the solution.

    • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      I mostly counter-steered here because of another pragmatism: The corrupt domestic powers that be in plenty of African states love to blame everything on colonialism, skirting responsibility for their own role in their country’s abject poverty. They’re the ones commanding the armies letting Wagner run around exploiting mineral resources and massacring people. And that isn’t even capitalism as such it’s plain ole feudalism.

      I think that profling populations by nation/culture is a fundamentally flawed way of approaching the difficulties of (mass) immigration

      The Ukrainian thing is not by culture or anything, it’s by “has a Ukrainian passport”. Which means you have a good educational standard because the basically one thing that the Soviets got right was education, and Ukraine kept that intact and even built on it.

      I’m quite sure if those Ukrainian refugees were South Africans they’d get the same treatment, 95% literacy are nothing to scoff at.