Silence in the face of xenophobia

Silence in the face of xenophobia

BERLIN: A renewed wave of anti-immigrant violence in Germany has prompted Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to suggest that a silent majority may be abetting the crimes by not speaking out against them.

His statement, with its thinly veiled allusion to earlier passivity before the rise of rightist violence, reflected growing concern in the government over an abrupt increase in such attacks. Germany has more than 7 million foreigners but remains uneasy with the idea that it is a ``land of immigration''.

A bombing in Dusseldorf on Thursday that wounded nine immigrants, six of them Jews, was followed by a number of attacks over the weekend.The worst occurred in the eastern town of Eisenach, where two African asylum-seekers were kicked, spat upon and pursued by a group of neo-Nazi skinheads shouting, ``Sieg Heil''.

On Saturday, the authorities raided the home of a policeman in Potsdam, near Berlin, after hate calls had been traced to his number.

Officials found firearms, ammunition and immigrant propaganda similar to the cache recently discovered in the disbanding of a rightist youth movement south of Dresden.

``The fact that hatred of foreigners probably lies behind the Dusseldorf attack should rouse us all,'' Mr Fischer, a member of the Green Party, said in a statement. ``We have reached a point where the majority of the population that has been silent up to now can no longer remain silent.''

Certainly, Germany appears to face a quandary over its identity. With great fanfare, the government on Monday handed over the first of 20,000 ``green cards,'' papers allowing skilled foreigners to come here and work in computer jobs.

It is the first time since Turkish workers were admitted in the 1960s that Germany has formally invited immigrants in this way, a tacit admission that it requires outside talent to remain competitive in a global economy.

But even as the door to legal immigration is pried open a fraction, animosity toward foreigner seems to be rising. Heinz From, the president of the office for the Protection of the Constitution, the domestic intelligence service, expressed outrage similar to Mr Fischer's in a newspaper interview published Saturday.

``People are being injured and killed,'' he was quoted as saying.

``These groups keep blacklists, including the names of well-known actors who are identified as Jews. Yet, the population does not seem to take all this too seriously. Society must intervene or this development will damage the whole country.''

The response from the Conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine paper was furious. It published an editorial Monday saying: ``Placing the entire German population under suspicion is hardly the way to promote reason.''

Many Germans with no sympathy for rightist violence are troubled by the large number of foreigners, particularly Turks, in the country and by suggestions that Germany must embrace multiculturalism. As a result politicians have been generally hesitant to broach the questions raised by Mr Fischer....

-- Excerpted a New York Times News Service report carried in the `International Herald Tribune', August 2