From right to left: Witch hunt on refugees after the attack in Solingen
After the murderous knife attack in Solingen last week, one might have thought that there was only one party left in Germany: the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Politicians from across the political establishment outdid each other with right-wing demands for more deportations, stricter asylum laws, more power for the police and the stigmatization of entire peoples.
On Friday evening, during the 650th anniversary celebrations of the city of Solingen, a man in the crowd suddenly attacked several people with a knife. He killed three visitors and injured eight others, four of them seriously. The city festival was immediately canceled.
A 26-year-old Syrian was arrested as the suspected perpetrator. He had received subsidiary protection in Germany after his deportation to Bulgaria failed. The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack and posted a video of it on the Internet. However, it is unclear whether the masked man in the video is actually the arrested Syrian.
On Saturday and Sunday, numerous people gathered in Solingen to mourn together. Many said they did not want to leave the city to the right-wing extremists. “The knife attack was an attack on the open society, on the diversity of the city,” one woman told the press.
But Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) called for more and faster deportations in Solingen on Monday.
A rally of around 30 supporters of the Junge Alternative, the youth organization of the right-wing extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD), shielded and protected by two rows of police officers, was met by at least ten times as many Solingen residents from the initiative “Solingen is colorful, not brown” (an allusion to Hitler’s brownshirts). Thousands of people live in the North Rhine-Westphalian city of Solingen and have been fighting against racism and xenophobia since the arson attack by right-wing extremists in 1993, in which five members of the Genc family of Turkish origin were killed.
But politicians from all established parties reacted, as if they had only been waiting for an excuse, with fierce agitation against foreigners.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz held all refugees from Syria and Afghanistan collectively responsible for the attack, even though many of them had fled IS terror. “We will not accept any more refugees from these countries,” Merz declared. Refugees must be sent back to Syria and Afghanistan, regardless of the danger to their lives that threatened them there. Merz called for significantly expanded powers for the federal police.
The SPD also took the same line. Its chairman, Lars Klingbeil, called for greater control of the Internet and Islamic communities in order to put a stop to “radical hate preachers.” “The federal and state security authorities must once again examine everything,” he demanded, adding that they must be granted even more extensive powers.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also spoke out in favor of giving the security authorities more power and personnel. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) announced: “As a state, we will respond to this act of terror with all the necessary severity.” Faeser told the WAZ: “We are discussing intensively which instruments we need to further sharpen to combat terror and violence and which competencies our security authorities need in these times.”
Sahra Wagenknecht, chairwoman of the BSW split from the Left Party, is calling for a “turnaround on the asylum issue” in the East German election campaign and a “stop signal to the world: don’t make your way to Germany”. On X/Twitter she rants: “Those who allow uncontrolled migration face uncontrollable violence.”
On Monday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) visited Solingen and immediately announced further deportations. These would be accelerated “if necessary with legal regulations”. At the same time, “consistent, practical enforcement action” is required, he explained.
Six months ago on the cover of the leading German weekly newspaper The mirrorScholz has already demanded: “We must finally deport people on a large scale.” He met with CDU leader Merz on Tuesday to discuss how to proceed.
AfD leader Alice Weidel said that “migrant violence against Germans” had “become a horrific new normal.” As soon as the AfD is in government, these people “will no longer even be allowed into our country,” she said. She called for a “ban on immigration, admission and naturalization for at least five years.”
The establishment of a totalitarian police state, which all politicians are calling for today, will not prevent acts of violence like those in Solingen. In reality, such authoritarian measures are directed against the working class and all those who oppose the government’s war policies and social attacks.
What is completely missing from the debate about Solingen is the question of the causes of terrorist violence, which repeatedly claims numerous victims not only in Germany, but also in France, Great Britain, Russia and numerous other countries, such as in 2016 on Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz, where twelve visitors to a Christmas market were killed.
ISIS and similar organizations did not emerge from nowhere. They are a product of the brutal wars that the imperialist powers have been waging in the Middle East for decades, from the war against Russia in Afghanistan in the 1980s to the genocide of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Like Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, they were often set up by Western intelligence services and are manipulated and controlled by them.
The Islamic State emerged in Iraq after US imperialism destroyed the country and overthrew Saddam Hussein’s regime. In 2011, it helped the imperialist powers overthrow the government of Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya. After that, with the support of the CIA, IS was deployed in Syria, where it fought against the government of Bashar al-Assad. There it gained independence and established a caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq, which was then crushed by Washington, costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
But IS still exists and has not broken its ties with the intelligence services of the Western powers and their allied governments in the region. A particularly brutal IS offshoot, the Islamic State-Khorasan, organizes terrorist attacks against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It also claimed responsibility for the attack on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow in April this year, in which 137 people were killed and over 180 injured.
In 2017, following a series of bloody attacks in Tehran, Manchester and London, the WSWS published an article entitled “Understanding the Geopolitics of Terrorism” describing the modus operandi of cooperation between Western intelligence agencies and terrorists. The article drew on known facts about several attackers. In light of the current law-and-order campaign, it is worth quoting a lengthy passage:
After 16 years of the so-called “war on terrorism” – which dates back to the September 11 attacks – it is clear that these elements not only travel freely in and out of the Middle East, Europe and the USA itself, but are practically protected by the state. …
If these elements turn against their sponsors from time to time and innocent civilians pay with their lives, then that is part of the price we pay in business.
After terrorist attacks, governments react with increased repression and surveillance measures. Troops are deployed on the streets, democratic rights are suspended and, as in France, a state of emergency is declared the supreme law of the land. All of these measures are useless in preventing future attacks, but they are very effective in controlling the population in the country and suppressing social unrest.
Nothing that the media and politicians are currently saying about the attack in Solingen should be taken at face value. The involvement of imperialist secret services cannot be ruled out. Even if the arrested Syrian is the perpetrator, the question remains as to who created the conditions under which such a crime could be committed.
One thing is certain: arming the state apparatus and sealing the borders will not stop such murderous actions. The genocide of the Palestinians, the bombing of Lebanon, the threats of war against Iran and other imperialist crimes produce further recruits for such attacks.
Such attacks can only be prevented if the swamp in which they thrive is drained. This requires the fight against imperialist war and for democratic rights. The Socialist Equality Party (SGP) vigorously opposes the refugee agitation. We call on all class-conscious workers: join us in defending the rights of refugees and migrants! Their rights are our rights.
