The End of Tolerance? Imaginations Run Wild
Part II of Der Spiegel’s coverage of the dangerous popularity of Germany’s anti-Islam movement.
At least one of Saxony’s great citizens, the author Karl May, exhibited a considerable talent for imagining foreign, threatening worlds. His novels, which have sold millions of copies around the world, are crawling with what he calls Musulmans dazzling infidels with their swords or simply dispatching them straight to hell.
Many Dresden residents also let their imaginations run wild at the Monday protests. One demonstrator says that he doesn’t want to see his granddaughters being forced to wear headscarves in the future, while another suggests that Islamists would be better off seeking asylum in wealthy, oil-producing countries. A woman complains that she can’t afford to buy a smartphone, but that the refugees can.
Lutz Bachmann has brought them together. The impetus for his movement, he says, was a walk through Dresden’s post-Socialist Prager Strasse shopping district. He witnessed a rally by supporters of the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or PKK, which opposes the Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq. His reaction was to start a Facebook group, primarily to oppose arms shipments to the PKK.
It was only a handful of people who showed up for the first demonstration in October. Today PEGIDA has more than 44,000 Facebook fans. By contrast, the state chapter of Merkel’s conservative CDU party, which has been in office for 24 years, has only managed to drum up 661 Facebook fans.