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Germany hasn't had a left-wing extremist movement since the RAF, which was a GDR-affiliated group (or more accurately, a number of groups as the members of the
by hnbad 3y ago
Germany hasn't had a left-wing extremist movement since the RAF, which was a GDR-affiliated group (or more accurately, a number of groups as the members of the initial Baader-Meinhof group were imprisoned) that performed political assassinations, bombings and abductions initially and then later bank robberies and other less ideologically motivated crimes.
We've been desperately trying to label groups as "left-wing extremist" ever since to avoid having to talk about right-wing terrorism without a comforting "all extremism is bad" caveat. The most recent example is the non-violent eco activist group Last Generation (Letzte Generation) which we've been trying to legally frame as a "criminal organization" (a legal device originally intended to help combat organized crime and terrorist cells) and which politicians and the media have at times referred to as "eco terrorists" and a "green RAF". Keep in mind their stunts mostly consisted of gluing themselves to intersection.
There was a broad "anti-COVID" movement (Querdenker/Querfront - "quer" in this case meaning "traversing (political lines)") founded in 2020 that drew from a broad political base including anti-vaxxers, new agers, "völkisch" nationalists, libertarians/ancaps and some groups self-identifying as leftist. The vast majority of leftist and anarchist movements however strongly opposed this movement, on the one hand because it was strongly affiliated with the political far-right (as a consequence of being a mix of people openly far-right, lying about not being far-right, being politically apathetic or being okay with aligning with the far-right) and on the other because while even anarchists disagreed with the implementation and choice of state anti-COVID measures they often did not disagree with their necessity in principle. These disagreements eventually contributed to Sarah Wagenknecht, a celebrity politician in the minor party Die Linke (The Left) parting ways with her party and founding her own party - although it's noteworthy that the party's official position of refusing to expel her for her publicly stated views led to many people breaking with the party prior to this.
With all that said, I wouldn't put too much trust on the German authorities' ability to correctly assess a terrorist group's ideological positions. According to some other news articles, the group does use left-wing language tho. Apparently it describes itself as being in a battle against "capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism" - which to me sounds more Third Worldist (i.e. Maoist) than anarchist. I can't imagine leftists in Germany broadly welcoming their actions tho as they're providing exactly the boogeyman politicians have been holding up as a justification for cracking down on non-violent "eco terrorists". Anarchists too tend to emphasize the importance of prefiguration before revolution (which is difficult because prefigurative projects also run risk of being labelled "criminal organizations" purely based on ideological stances) so I doubt they're too happy about the association either.
- braza 3y ago> With all that said, I wouldn't put too much trust on the German authorities' ability to correctly assess a terrorist group's ideological positions. Yes. Technically, the left as a political representation via vote is shrinking (fast)and theoretically Die Linke wouldn't be able to pass the 5% hurdle clause [1] plus with Sarah Wagenknecht et. al. leaving the space [2] it makes it harder to the government to classify something that they do not know for a while. [1] - https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/germany/ https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/germany/ [2] - https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/sahra-wagenknecht-grenzt-sich-auf-gruendungsparteitag-ihres-buendnisses-ab-wir-sind-keine-linke-2-0-a-c175b549-19f4-447a-8800-ad7413b5db76 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/sahra-wagenknecht...
- hnbad 3y agoI like to joke that Germany doesn't have a political left because most of it was killed or killed each other in the period between the end of World War 1 and the end of World War 2 and what was left (heh) was then repressed in both German states (via capitalist anti-communism in the West and conservative vanguardism in the East). There are some occasional flare-ups like the WASG splinter party that split off the SPD after accusing the SPD-Greens coalition Schroeder government of neoliberalism (which then went on to merge with the East German SED's successor party PSD to become Die Linke) but the most leftist forms of activism you see in practice is the ideologically very moderate trade unions like Ver.di and IG Metall and the ideologically incoherent anti-capitalist anti-state anti-whatever brick throwing troupes during the annual Labor Day riots. I struggle to even describe the Wagenknecht party as left-wing despite her personal ideological origins.
- braza 3y ago> I struggle to even describe the Wagenknecht party as left-wing despite her personal ideological origins. I am in the middle of her book [1] and I have the same issue as well. From what I understood: Her views are more weighted to what we call in English as "Labor Party" +_Entwicklungspolitik_ + _Gewerkschaft_ where she saw that the left went too far on the identity politics and ideological battles and lost ground to a big chunk of demographics in Germany (median white person, with the income between 22-42K EUR/year, working for industry or adjacencies). For the internal politics me makes sense what she is doing - and I think why she will be over the 5% hurdle next election as well - but the issue that I see is on the external policy where she doubles down on the duality/dubious Germany foreign policy to make friends with everyone and not having a clear path in terms of partnerships and alliances. Compared with 2010-12 where FDP and AfD has clear paths and ideological and political directions, the issue that I see with the BSW is that for now, it's a blank check that the voters are giving to her and once they are on the Parlament no one knows how the BSW will swings. [1] - https://www.amazon.de/Die-Selbstgerechten-Gegenprogramm-Gemeinsinn-Zusammenhalt/dp/3593513900 https://www.amazon.de/Die-Selbstgerechten-Gegenprogramm-Geme...