Germany’s far-right group PEGIDA is mobilizing weekly ‘virtual marches’ livestreamed on YouTube. On a Monday evening in early April 2020, around 1,000 users are waiting for a YouTube livestream, hosted by Lutz Bachmann, co-founder of the Dresden-based protest movement ‘Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident’ (PEGIDA). For the second time already, Bachmann’s YouTube… Continue reading “Under lockdown, Germany’s PEGIDA goes to YouTube”
COVID-19 has shutdown numerous activities in the public spaces of Europe—including far-right demonstrations. Yet the relaxation of protective measures will surely bring renewed far-right demonstration activity. In most European countries, protective measures against COVID-19 have dramatically reduced activities in public space. While these measures have wide-ranging and diverse impacts, a particular effect on far-right social… Continue reading “COVID-19 and the Pause of Far-Right Demonstrations in Germany”
German far-right responses to the COVID-19 pandemic reveal their lack of social responsibility. As the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting public life across the globe, the far-right “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident” (PEGIDA) which emerged from the eastern German city of Dresden has difficulties to conform with the new safety and health regulations.… Continue reading “Germany: is the COVID-19 pandemic weakening the far right?”
The annual report of “Reporters Without Borders” shows that global press freedom is in decline, even though less journalists were killed in 2019. While Mexico and Syria remain the most deadly countries for journalists (ten murdered journalists in each country) in 2019, China, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are the countries with the highest number of… Continue reading “Personal Public (Death) Threat I: How the German Far Right tries to intimidate and silence journalists”
The political goals of the (German) New Right can largely be summarized by two central concepts: the intellectualization of right-wing extremism through the formulation of an intellectual metapolitics, and the pursuit of a (right-wing) cultural hegemony. Here, metapolitics denotes efforts to take intellectual control of public debates, shaping them on a theoretical meta-level by coining… Continue reading “New Right in Germany: Myth and Reality”
Alexander Gauland publicly supported the protests, while Princess Doris von Sayn-Wittgenstein, patron of the AfD in the Land of Schleswig-Holstein, posted a photograph of herself wearing a yellow vest. So-called ‘yellow vest’ movements are now active across the globe. Beginning in France on 17 November 2018, the ‘yellow vests’ (named after the fluorescent safety vests French… Continue reading “The Yellow Vest phenomenon and the radical right”
Where left-leaning observers warn of a return of totalitarian nationalism, the far right warns of the return of socialist and communist totalitarian politics. With the rise of populist and far-right politics in Europe and beyond, the fear of the return of totalitarian politics has equally intensified. Comparisons with the rise of fascism in the 1920s… Continue reading “The Far Right Imagines a Totalitarian Other”
Four years ago on October 20, 2014, ‘Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident’ (PEGIDA) staged their first-ever demonstration in the city of Dresden. About 350 people attended. Soon, the weekly PEGIDA protests turned into the most talked about issue in German politics. In the winter of 2014 and 2015, up to 20,000 people… Continue reading “PEGIDA turns 4 – will AfD be among the well-wishers?”
Chemnitz shows how collaboration across three right-wing sectors is a recipe for disaster, as the extreme right understands very well. Haunting video footage of groups of German right-wing extremists chasing, harassing and attacking ethnic minorities, journalists and counter-protesters circulated widely on social media last week, along with footage of overwhelmed police. “If the mob attacks,”… Continue reading “The united German extreme right”