The power of hate

In our quiet, leafy neighborhood of Charlottenburg on the west side of Germany’s capital city, my wife, daughter and I grew accustomed to taking walks around a beautiful sunken lake called Lietzensee. There, you’d see graceful swans paddling about, picnickers grazing on the lush, green banks and children frolicking on a sandy playground. 

So it startled me to read an article in the Berliner Zeitung one day about neo-Nazis getting together in this yuppie stronghold of West Berlin. The newspaper reported groups of up to 60 skinheads gathering at the park in the evening, playing metal music and yelling phrases such as “Sieg heil” (hail victory), “Deutschland den Deutschen” (“Germany for Germans”), “Auslander raus” (“foreigners go away”) and “Tod den Auslaendern” (“death to foreigners”). According to the report, locals called the police, who twice showed up and forced the skinheads out. 

One of my German buddies in the neighborhood, who would jog around Lietzensee with me on winter mornings, handed me the article with a stern face and an embarrassed blush one day and said, “You might want to read this.” It was his way of letting my wife and I know to be careful (as foreigners) in a city and continent still beset by nationalist sentiments. 

The invasion of an idyllic West Berlin lake is exactly the kind of fear far-right nationalists in Germany and other parts of Europe want to inflict on the modern world, a corollary to the violent hatred coming from the Islamic State, al-Qaida and other radical groups in the Middle East. It’s another sign that, no matter how far we’ve come since World War II, old ideas die hard. Governments and nonprofit groups working to counteract the hatred from such ideologies are working overtime these days as nationalism picks up in Europe – from Greece to Hungary to Scandinavia – as the past decade has brought a global financial crisis and heightened Islamic terrorism in Europe. 

Germany tries to combat its National Socialist past by funding nonprofits and government agencies to keep a close eye on far-right groups. It even plants thousands of undercover agents inside the descendant of the Nazi Party, the 6,000-member National Democratic Party (NPD). When I lived in Germany between 2011 and 2013, I sometimes saw NPD election posters around Berlin that chided foreigners (wearing turbans and riding on magic carpets) to leave. NPD also hosts music events that recruit young people into nationalist ideology. Political leaders in Germany have set up various government initiatives to monitor extremist behavior. Roughly 50 million euros from the EU and the German government go to funding prevention and deterrence programs in Germany each year.

Other nonprofits, such as the Nazi Documentation Center in Cologne, present history so that German people, especially schoolchildren, can know what happened in the past. In 2011, the group Exit Deutschland used a stealth campaign at an extremist rock concert in Thuringia. The group handed out free extremist T-shirts to 250 of the 600 people at the concert. When washed, the T-shirt had a message – (“What your T-shirt can do, so can you”) – with contact information for Exit Deutschland and a recommendation for the wearer to leave the group. 

‘All the same to me’ Rightist movements are on the rise in several European countries, causing increasing concern. The recent emergence of Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, or Pegida, had rallies drawing up to 25,000 people in Dresden last year. It’s expanding with rallies in Great Britain. Leaders of Pegida and its sister chapters in other German cities say they are for preserving Christian-Jewish Western culture. Some of the leaders also argue that Germans should stop feeling guilt and apologizing for their country’s role in World War II and the Holocaust. The New Yorker reported signs at one rally that read, “Nenn mich Nazi, nenn mich Klobürste. Mir doch egal!”—“Call me Nazi, call me toilet brush. All the same to me!” Pegida’s leader, Lutz Bachmann, stepped down this year after pictures surfaced of him dressing up as Adolf Hitler. 

To be sure, larger numbers have shown up to counter Pegida’s message at many rallies. Anna Sauerbrey, an editorial page editor at Der Taggespiegel in Germany, cites polls that show anti-foreigner sentiments are declining among Germans. In an op-ed for the New York Times earlier this year, she wrote, “There are two ways to look at the situation. The optimistic take is to note that, for all the attention Pegida gets inside of Germany and abroad, Germany has never been as liberal, culturally diverse and open toward minorities as it is today.”

But Islamization has certainly become an issue in Europe in recent years, with waves of immigrants from the Middle East adding new dynamics to European cities and adding fuel to fiery debates. 

Pegida adopted the slogan “Pegida=Charlie” in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Paris on Jan. 7, when two masked gunmen attacked the office of French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, which uses cartoons to poke fun at institutions of power, celebrity and orthodoxy. Its occasional defiant caricatures of Muhammad irked Islamic extremists so much that al-Qaida put its editor, Stephane Charbonnier, on a hit list. 

Dressed in black and armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, Muslim brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi opened fire, killing a police bodyguard, Charbonnier, four other cartoonists, three other editorial staff members and a guest attending a news meeting. Witnesses at the scene heard the gunmen shout “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad” and “God is great” in Arabic during the attack.

France’s national motto – Liberté, égalité, fraternité – wins in the end. Charlie Hebdo usually sold 60,000 copies and made roughly 270,000 euros in revenue per issue. After the massacre, the monthly magazine put Muhammad on the cover again, sold 7 million issues and made 31.5 million euros in revenue. The massacre only boosted sales. Unfortunately, it’s also helped fan flames of nationalism, xenophobia and disdain for Islam within Europe. 

France is seeing a surge in the Front National (or National Front) party led by Marine Le Pen, which won 25 percent of the French vote in last year’s European parliament elections and could capitalize on the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Le Pen believes that controlling immigration is crucial to fight against Islamist extremism. She’s tried to polish the image of the Front National that her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founded (he denied the Holocaust, among other offensive views). She would like to control imports, stop immigration and leave the European Union. 

Nigel Farage of the UK’s Independence Party has similarly made gains by emphasizing anti-immigration policies. The Hebdo massacre brought “very worrying implications for our civilization,” Farage said in a January speech. “Free speech, satire, all things that Western countries believe in and love and have enjoyed for centuries … when you see things like this happening, it’s going to make many commentators in lots of spheres very nervous of poking fun or saying anything.” 

Opposing radical Islam makes sense. And European nations such as Sweden, Norway, Greece and Germany are seeing a dramatic influx of refugees from Syria and other countries. The question is how to integrate these immigrants from Muslim countries, preventing young people from turning to extreme and violent iterations of the religion. It’s also difficult to prevent racism and hatred for all foreigners (particularly those of dark skin) because of a small percentage of ungrateful, violent or unproductive citizens. But the tensions
are clear. 

Nationalist movements and parties in France, Hungary and Greece are stirring up votes and violence. Populist and polarizing parties from the right and left are gaining in Europe, ranging from the UK Independence Party in Britain to the PVV (Party for Freedom) party led by Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. And Alexis Tsipras’ radical-left party in Greece known as Syriza, which took power in Athens in February. 

Authorities in Greece are still prosecuting 70 members of the Golden Dawn political party for criminal behavior. Golden Dawn gained 7 percent of the vote in 2012 as the country was saddled with huge debts during the financial crisis. It won 9.4 percent of Greek votes for seats in the European parliament last year. Golden Dawn uses a variation of the swastika as its symbol, and its members often dress in black fatigues with short hair and boots, evoking a violent, thuggish approach in politics. They largely blame immigrants for Greece’s problems with increased crime and economic upheaval. Some members of the extremist group are connected to attacks, beatings and murders of immigrants and foreigners in Greece. 

Economy and empathy How do you deal with latent nationalist ideologies that promote violence and hatred toward foreigners who speak a different language or come from a different ethnicity or religious background? 

At the political level, experts recommend focusing on creating a strong economy that provides opportunities to the greatest number of people. It also balances national culture and identity with good education policies and prudent methods of integrating foreigners. 

“Many European countries have regulations and job protection that have sent youth unemployment skyrocketing,” says Paul Marshall of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. “They need to liberalize their job markets.” 

As a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta and a senior fellow at the Leimena Institute, Marshall is advising leaders in Indonesia on how to create a culture of tolerance and moderate Islam.

“There needs to be a strong intelligence and police element,” says Marshall, author of “Silenced: How Blasphemy and Apostasy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide.” He worries about some European countries’ reluctance to address radical Islam’s ideological roots. “(They) also need self confidence in their own traditions and not assume they are to blame for everything. It is second- and third-generation immigrants who are usually the radicals, not the first generation ... They need to deport foreign radical Islamic preachers and relate to genuinely moderate Muslims.”

In many European countries, birth rates are low despite lavish government benefits that encourage couples to have children. Many immigrants pursue those benefits. In Great Britain, people are concerned that Muhammad is the 15th most popular name for boys. Could that mean the UK’s great city turns into “Londonistan” and the continent becomes “Eurabia”? 

Some immigrants will assimilate and learn to speak German, play soccer and go to college. Others won’t and might turn toward radical Islam. Frankly, those radicals have a great deal in common with the skinheads and neo-Nazis.

Judy Korn has worked with extremists since she was a teenager. Her recipe for neo-Nazi rehabilitation isn’t to show them films about Hitler and the Holocaust, as German prisons used to do. Rather, reforming these young men happens through several long conversations. She uses the same five principles to counsel neo-Nazi prisoners that she uses to counsel extremist Muslim youths who end up behind bars for violent or hate-motivated crimes. The chief skill to teach them: empathy.

“If you work with violent people, you can be sure that at one point in their biography, they stopped having the ability to feel empathy for other people,” Korn said. Most of the neo-Nazis her team of trainers work with come from abusive homes with alcoholism and other problems. “If you train people to feel empathy for themselves, you can train them to be and feel empathetic for another person.”

She also teaches self reflection, responsibility, relationship skills and self-esteem. Her organization – Violence Prevention Network – has worked with more than 800 cases of incarcerated young skinheads, neo-Nazis and Muslim extremists in Germany since 2001. Her records show recidivism rates for the young men they work with at 30 percent, compared to 80 percent for all juvenile offenders in Germany. 

 Neo-Nazi leaders are often past the point of reform. But young men in the movement, usually 16- to 18-year-olds, often find themselves socially trapped in the neo-Nazi groups. Many of them have sad life stories, and 80 percent don’t have high school diplomas, she says. 

Korn’s program offers civic education discussions in democracy, human rights, gender and other topics. “In prison, they are at a point where they are vulnerable,” she says.

Funded by government grants and private foundations and donors, the organization follows up with them for one year after they leave prison and aims to help them find a high school degree, an apprenticeship, a job and self-confidence. It encourages them to relocate away from their previous cities to avoid old friends or family influences. 

“The reason most people become violent criminals and part of extreme scenes” is the same, Korn says. “You find young guys who don’t feel like they have any worth, are unable to build relationships and are at risk of gangs.”

Marshall agreed that Korn’s approach sounds reasonable but that it is not easy to scale up such nonprofits to deal with the number of radical Islamists and right-wing thugs in Europe. 

“What is reasonable is the demand that questions of immigration actually be debated in political life,” Marshall says. “The traditionally dominant parties shy away from it, in a very undemocratic pattern, and this leaves a vacuum in which other groups – including extreme ones – rise. What is unreasonable is the rise of fascist groups: Golden Dawn in Greece, Jobbik in Hungary and others that tend to demonize immigrants.” 

Paul Glader is an associate professor of journalism at The King’s College in New York City and a frequent contributor to The American Legion Magazine.