Germany, along with much of the rest of Europe, is still haunted by the specter of Nazism and anti-Semitism.

Prelates and Politicians Favor 

Cultural Suicide in Germany

by WILLIAM KILPATRICK

Question: How would a Catholic bishop respond to tens of thousands of peaceful citizens singing Silent Night in the center of an historic European city?

Answer: He would forbid Christians to take part.

On December 22, 18,000 demonstrators, many of them families with children, marched against “Islamization” and sang Christmas carols in front of Dresden’s opera house. The march was the latest in a series of “evening strolls” sponsored by PEGIDA, “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West.” In response to their previous march the week before, Ludwig Schick, the Archbishop of Bamberg, said that “Christians must not take part in PEGIDA.” Why? Because:

Pegida activists spread racial hatred and stir up irrational anxieties against the people; they are a reservoir of diffuse aggression against people of other cultures and religions. …For that reason we must uphold the values of Christianity, which preaches humanism, equality in dignity and rights, justice and peace. [emphasis added]

The archbishop’s reaction was similar to that of many German elites. “I find it really unaesthetic when Christmas carols are used to put across a political message,” saidJochen Bohl, bishop of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, state church of Saxony. To show their own highly cultured distaste, the management of the opera house turned off the building’s lights and displayed banners outside that read “Open your eyes,” “Open your hearts,” “Open doors.” Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called for citizens to launch a “rebellion of the decent” against PEGIDA, and current chancellor Angela Merkel warned Germans not to be taken in by the “rabble-rousing” group. Meanwhile, virtually all the German media outlets describe PEGIDA as a far-right group, and the Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia referred to the organizersas “Nazis in pin-striped suits.”

Yet PEGIDA’s immigration stance is rather mild compared to the platforms of other “right-wing” organizations and parties (any group that does not subscribe to leftist viewpoints is automatically labeled “right-wing” or “extreme right-wing” by Europe’s left leaning media.) PEGIDA’s manifesto calls for tolerance toward assimilated and moderate Muslims, welcomes war refugees, and calls for a more decentralized distribution of housing facilities for asylum seekers. On the other hand, PEGIDA is opposed to a “watering down” of Christian culture and traditions.

Archbishop Schick said that PEGIDA stirs up “irrational anxieties,” but many of PEGIDA’s concerns seem rational enough. According to The Guardian, Germany is the Continent’s chief destination for asylum seekers, and the second main destination for migrants after the United States. In recent years, Germany has seen:

• Street riots between Kurdish and Salafist immigrants.
• A proliferation of mosques housed in former churches.
• Numerous court cases in which sharia law has been given precedence over German law.
• A rise in polygamy: it is estimated that one-third of the Muslim men living in the Neukölln district of Berlin have two or more wives.
• The opening of a medical facility offering comprehensive treatment for victims of female genital mutilation. An estimated 50,000 German women are victims of FGM.
• Polls showing that 65 percent of Muslims interviewed thought sharia law should take precedence over secular law.
• Schools where German children, mostly in the minority, are subjected to daily bullying by Turkish and Arab students.

In addition, despite government efforts to discourage criticism of Europe’s indiscriminate immigration policies, Germans are no doubt aware of where those policies have led to in other immigrant-rich European nations. They probably know that:

• Muslim children outnumber Christian children in a number of European cities, including Vienna and Birmingham.
• Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city and home to Sweden’s largest concentration of Muslim immigrants, has been rocked by a series of car bombings in recent months.
• Sweden now has the second highest incidence of rape in the world.
• In the space of three days, France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe, experienced three “lone wolf” attacks—a knife attack on police officers and two car attacks on crowds of pedestrians. In all three cases, the perpetrators shouted “Allahu akbar.”
• The number one non-fiction bestseller in France is Éric Zemmour’s The Suicide of France.

In case the Germans haven’t heard of Zemmour’s book, they most likely have heard of a very similar book by Thilo Sarrazin titled Germany is Abolishing Itself. It was the number one non-fiction bestseller in Germany in 2010. Quite obviously, Sarrazin’s and Zemmour’s criticism of careless immigration policies have hit a nerve. So has PEGIDA’s. An opinion poll published by die Zeit showed that approximately half of Germans are sympathetic to PEGIDA and more than half believe that Germany accepts too many refugees. 73 percent were worried that radical Islam is growing in importance. Yet Germany’s elite continue to insist that there is nothing to worry about and that the worriers are either misinformed or else racist, xenophobic, and far right.

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