Neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists staged an anti-immigrant demonstration last weekend in the German city of Duisburg. But several crucial issues need to be exposed and clarified. First and foremost, the struggle against extremism requires the building of a party that consistently fights against capitalism and mobilises the working class on the basis of an international socialist programme.
This is so because the breeding ground for extremist discontent is to be found in the social and cultural decline of a community that is based on exploitation and drives an ever-greater section of the population into social misery.
It is precisely those organisations and partiesβthe Berlin political parties and the trade unions, now feigning indignation about the Nazisβwhose capitalist, anti-social policies enable the neo-Nazis to hold their heads high.
The neo-Nazis in Germany and Europe are largely a creation from above. By this, we mean that they are intentionally promoted by sections of the state and media in order to channel mounting opposition to unemployment and social cutbacks along racist and right-wing lines.
The police protect their demonstrations and target those opposing them. The racist campaign waged by Sarrazin and numerous other representatives of the ruling class is deliberately employed to steer the social crisis in a reactionary direction. This is just as much the case in the Netherlands and France, with the campaign against Islam, as it is in Germany.
