In Dresden, the state capital of Saxony, Germany, almost 18,000 protesters gathered to protest the ‘Islamisation’ of Europe, chanting nationalistic and xenophobic slogans. The protests are organised by the group, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident (PEGIDA), a populist movement that is gaining momentum and spreading to other parts of Germany, incorporating neo-Nazis and football hooligans along the way. Ostensibly, the movement aims to protect the “Judeo-Christian” culture of Europe, but the movement’s true objection is with the perceived loose immigration and asylum seeker laws in Germany, and therefore all active measures proposed by the group is along those lines. Anti-immigrant movements are not exclusive to Germany, or even this age; in times of economic crises, discontent against the state latches on to the only visible manifestation of lost economic opportunity: a migrant who holds the job that a native might have held. Throughout history, rise of the far-right, anti-immigrant, nationalistic politics has coincided with economic breakdowns. The Nazi party emerged from the shell of Germany after the First World War just as the far-right is resurfacing after the European economic crisis. Golden Dawn in Greece, National Front in France, United Kingdom Independence Party in the UK and the Swedish Democrats in Sweden are all born of the same complaint, and have the same agenda. Islam just happens to be the touchstone, the easily identifiable foe, against which protests can be mobilised.
It is encouraging to see how the rest of Germany has responded to these protests; anti-PEGIDA protests have dwarfed the anti-Islam protests. Chancellor Angela Merkel, along with the senior leadership have come out to condemn the “racist and xenophobic” protests. In Cologne, the city’s landmark cathedral dimmed its lights to mark its protest against PEGIDA. While majority of Germany, and Europe for that matter views these protests as racist, they are nonetheless gaining steam, and condemnation alone will not solve this. The solution lies in fixing the broken international refugee regime under the International Convention on the Rights of Refuges, which sees some countries, such as Germany, take on more than its share of the burden. The conflict in the Middle East has led to an outpour of refugees, and unless a fair system is developed, the far-right will continue gaining ammunition.