10,000 protest in Wiesbaden/Frankfurt against the Patriot Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA).
Initially, 5,000 protesters were expected. But at the decisive moment of the night of 19 January, 10,000 people and numerous political groups marched in the streets of Wiesbaden/Frankfurt, capital of the Federal State of Hessen, Germany, against the far-right movement PEGIDA.
Below is the statement delivered by our group “Workers Democracy ” (ARBEITERDEMOKRATIE) at the Anti-PEGIDA demonstration:
WORKERS DEMOCRACY
“In 2011, from Europe, the feeling that we would have a right to dignity and justicein Europe have come to us. But when we got here, nothing makes me remember those promises.”
This is how the Syrian activist Fayez Ramadan recalls his fleeing that brought him to Germany in 2014. He had a choice: either flee or be beheaded, since the Islamic State had already occupied his hometown, Menbej in 2012. Unfortunately, Fayez’ example is just one of thousands.
Some facts confirm Fayez’ feeling: The fire orchestrated by neo-Nazis in three refugee accommodations, not yet inhabited, in Nürnberger Land district, in Bavaria in 12/11/2014; and the sudden rise of the xenophobic and antimigratory platform that has grown continually from about 350 in October 2014 to around 25,000 demonstrators in January 2015 and the new Regulation of the European Agency for Border Management FRONTEX, according to which refugees should only be rescued in the Mediterranean if their vessels are in the 30 miles one.
Racism here finds expression in two levels: first, in political-institutional level of the European policy on migration and asylum, led by Germany as a major economic power and, second, at the social level that presents groups as PEGIDA.
It should be noted, first, that in the capitalist system, migration is exclusively designed to contemplate economy. On the occasion of the Social Democracy Conference, on 9 January the head of the parliamentary Social Democrat fraction Thomas Opperman, expressed himself clearly, saying: “This is a plea to recruit, worldwide, skilled immigrants. It is important to determine how many are needed.”
It is the height of cynicism. In the capitalist system, the human being as a living being is not placed in the foreground, but the human being as labor force and thus as a source of income!
Thus, there is a distinction between profitable unscrupulous immigration and “absurd” immigration, from the capitalist point of view. Parties as AfD (Alternative for Germany) and CSU (Christian-Social Union) suit their policy solely to that vision: to prevent the migrations caused by economic necessity!
In this sense, it does not produce much concern the fact that the Mediterranean is turning up more and more, in a watery graveyard (3,400 dead only in 2014, 28,000 dead, considering the last 14 years). They are not, of course, “skilled workers.”
The sharpening of the economic crisis and wars, caused by it, obviously stimulates global migration. Germany is the EU country most benefited by those immigration: according to statistics from the Federal Department of Immigration and Refugees, 35.2% of foreign workers in Germany belong the lowest wage sector; it is much more than the 16.7% of low paid German workers.
In times of economic crisis, anchored itself deeply into the roots of the capitalist system, frustration and dissatisfaction produced by it have an impact on those who are most oppressed politically and socially: This is the case of Fayez Ramadan and Khaled Idris Bahray – 20 years, refugee from Eritrea, found stabbed on the night of 12/01/2015, after a PEGIDA demonstration in the city of Dresden.
They are alike to the victims of the Golden Dawn, in Greece and Casa Pound, in Italy and also to those who expect to find in the West, presented in an idyllically democratic way, a better life and who become the first victims of this truculent capitalist system! To all these victims we turn our deepest sympathy!
· For the right of residence immediately for all!
· Pull down the EU borders! Long live to the Europe of workers and peoples!
· Against Racism and Political and Religious far-right extremism! Against Xenophobia and smear campaigns!
· Decent work for Germans and foreigners! Equal rights for Germans and foreigners workers!
· Long live the international solidarity of workers!
Wiesbaden / Frankfurt, January 19, 2014
