The city council of Regensburg has a message for the jounalist Dr. Udo Ulfkotte: Your'e not welcome here.
Here is the background as reported by Regensburg-Digital.de: an unnamed citizen ("ein Bundeswehrarzt a.D") handed out copies of the völkisch-nationale weekly Junge Freiheit highlighting a piece by Udo Ulfkotte which made his typicial racist and hateful attacks on Muslims and Turks living in Germany. One respected member of the city council was outraged that this right-wing trash was being pushed at a city-sponsored event and wrote a note to Regensburg's mayor:
„Bei dem Zeitungsartikel handelt es sich um ein zweifellos rechtsextremes Produkt, das sich fast ausschließlich gegen Muslime und Türken richtet“, schreibt Dünninger in einem Brief an Oberbürgermeister Hans Schaidinger. „Dieser Artikel enthält alle Vorurteile und Klischees, mit denen gerade gegenwärtig hasserfüllte Emotionen geweckt werden sollen.“
("The newspaper article is a right-wing extremist piece that is clearly directed against Muslims and Turks" Herr Duenninger writes in a letter to Mayor Hans Schaidinger. "This article contains prejudices and clichees which are meant to spur hate-filled emotions.")
Speaking of Dr. Ulfkotte, the city councilman noted:
„Für Hassprediger ist kein Platz an diesem Ort und in anderen städtischen Räumen.“
("We have no place for hate-mongers in our city facilities or anywhere here.")
The reporter for Regensburg-Digital.de notes that Ulfkotte's piece on Muslims conforms in tone an content to similar article that regularly appear in neo-Nazi publications (Ulfkottes Ausführungen unterscheiden sich nur unwesentlich von einem Artikel, der ebenfalls im Oktober im NPD-Blatt „Deutsche Stimme“ erschienen ist.)
Meanwhile Ulfkotte has taken his hate campaign to the town of Betzdorf, where a teacher at the elementary school mistakenly served pork instead of chicken to some Muslim pupils. It was a minor misunderstanding and nobody got too upset, but Dr. Udo Ulfkotte made a hysterical media event out of this inconsequential mishap. RTL and Bildzeitung picked up the "story" and the teacher is now on disability because of the unwanted publicity. A local reporter noted this about Dr. Ulfkotte:
"Ulfkotte… wird von den Rechten als heimlicher Retter des Abendlandes abgefeiert. Dieser Mann spielt mit diffussen Ängsten der Menschen und treibt ein äußerst miserables Spiel."
(Ulfkotte is celebrated by right-wing circles as the saviour of Western civilization. This man plays with people's diffuse fears and is engaging in a sick game.")
A complete report on Ulfkotte's sorry role in the the Betzdorf "affair" can be found at TAZ.
0 comment
Hi. I’m sorry to correct you. It was the mentioned member oft the city council that said:
„Für Hassprediger ist kein Platz an diesem Ort und in anderen städtischen Räumen.“
(“We have no place for hate-mongers in our city facilities or anywhere here.”)
Neither the mayor of Regensburg nor any other member of the city council has said anything about Ulfkottes article. They simply stay silent.
Stefan, thanks, I changed it to “councilman”. The article does seem to indicate that the mayor is sympathetic to Duenninger.
Thank you, the Taz article shows an interesting trend. The media it seems, are about to change sides. I never thought this would be possible, but there you go.
http://www.bild.de/BILD/politik/2010/10/17/bundespraesident-christian-wulff/auf-focus-titel-praesident-der-tuerken.html
They even don’t refrain from making fun of our islam-loving president anymore – This focus cover is particularly amusing 🙂
“our Islam-loving president”
Most rational commentators praised Wulff’s address to the Turkish parliament where he addressed the plight of Christians in Turkey.
Zyme, I wrote about the surge of the Greens and every poll shows that Red-Green leads for now. You evidently have much work to do before hate and bigotry infect the majority of Germans.
Of course there are always counter-movements to every trend.
If decisive action on the right of the political landscape provokes radicalism on the other side, I can only welcome such a development. When people finally start to fight for influence, no result of this clash can be worse than what we are being fed with right now.
By the way, did you notice that the FPÖ wants to expand to Germany?
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,724963,00.html
First Sarrazin tours the country, followed by Seehofer both set fire on the bastions of political correctness in the established parties –
in the meantime the fascists in DVU and NPD are merging to one party –
while Geert Wilders presents his first speech in Berlin to the enthusiasted supporters of his Freedom Party spin off –
and the FPÖ also seeking to expand to Germany.
Combined with the latest polls on Right-wing tendencies in our socienty, this creates a highly interesting melange. I think the political future here will be anything but boring.
I fail to see anything good in the growing polarization of German society.
Give me boring stability any day.
It would be a great tragedy if 60 years of postwar stability and growing prosperity would end in a spasm of populist violence.
“It would be a great tragedy if 60 years of postwar stability”
This is exactly the problem. Too much political stability only conceals growing problems. Each system is based on the rules that were enacted at its beginning. The more time passes, the less these rules apply to present issues in a society.
Only when polarization reaches a level so high that the tension can be guided into a constructive direction, the society can successfully renew itself.