# taz.de -- Right Wing Violence and Self Defense: Thanks, Antifa | |
> Invoking the slogan “no violence“ in the fight against the right is a | |
> betrayal of the victims of neo-Nazis and does nothing to stop the | |
> violence they experience. | |
Bild: Peaceful protest: 2,000 people block a neo-Nazi demonstration in Leipzig … | |
On October 25, 2010, Kamal K. was murdered across from the main train | |
station in Leipzig. He was approached by two neo-Nazis who then shoved a | |
knife into his stomach. Marcus E., the main perpetrator, had been released | |
from prison just ten days earlier: he had been sentenced for three counts | |
of rape, five counts of aggravated battery, and two counts of assault. The | |
prosecution said that he had the word “Rassenhass“ [racial hatred] and | |
pictures of Hitler tattooed on his body. He was sentenced to [1][thirteen | |
years in prison for murder]. | |
The state’s monopoly on violence did not help Kamal K. that day. And anyone | |
whose only response to the many appeals to violence from the AfD or other | |
right wing groups is to say “no violence“ and talk about principles of | |
justice fails to recognize that those principles mean nothing to Kamal K.’s | |
murderer or that their violence toward other people is very real. Given | |
that there are a lot of people in Germany today who ideologically advocate | |
and perpetrate violence, “no violence“ is a naïve slogan. [AfD is an | |
abbreviation of Alternative für Deutschland, a far right German political | |
party that has made significant electoral advances since it was founded in | |
2013 by trafficking in anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric. -Tr.] | |
There are certainly countless other stories like Kamal K.’s. I have chosen | |
to tell his, because it could have been mine. When Kamal K. was murdered, I | |
was studying in Leipzig and commuted there from Berlin regularly to attend | |
seminars. I could have been Kamal K.: a victim of a stabbing outside the | |
main train station. When I got on the tram to go home one day and a tall, | |
beefy man followed me repeating a racial slur over and over, I thought, | |
“This is it.“ But he just wanted to put an NPD sticker on my window. [The | |
Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands is a white supremacist German | |
party that the German government's Office for the Protection of the | |
Constitution identifies as a neo-Nazi organization. -Tr.] | |
At the time, the NPD held sway in the right-wing scene in the city of | |
Leipzig and the state of Saxony. They are insignificant now, but their | |
successor, the AfD, is even more influential than the NPD ever was. AfD | |
politicians have advocated shooting people at the border (Beatrix von | |
Storch, chair of the AfD caucus in the Bundestag), “hunting“ politicians | |
(Alexander Gauland, AfD party chairman), “slaying“ Angela Merkel (Nicolaus | |
Fest), “disposing of“ people in other countries (Alexander Gauland), | |
putting journalists up against a wall (Holger Arppe, AfD state leader for | |
Schleswig-Holstein), and throwing political opponents from helicopters | |
(Thorben Schwarz). They have also expressed their desire for terror attacks | |
(Arvid Samtleben). For several years, the AfD has propagated a rhetoric of | |
violence that is at least as noxious as the NPD’s was. | |
## When Violence is a Constant Possibility | |
At the time, I inwardly prepared myself for my death at the hands of | |
neo-Nazis. “No violence ever“ might sound like a reasonable position to | |
other people. To me, it does not. Kamal K. and the neo-Nazi from the tram | |
were not the first times I braced myself for far-right violence. “No | |
violence“ is therefore an absurd slogan: I had to deal with violence again | |
and again. It was always there, at least as a possible fate. | |
I lived in the eastern part of Leipzig, where the far right organization | |
[2][Freie Kräfte Leipzig] was making trouble. They painted [3][a large | |
swastika] on our somewhat rundown building at an intersection. Leftists | |
promptly painted over it with the words “Nie wieder Deutschland“ [Never | |
again Germany, an antifascist slogan]. The neo-Nazis then escalated their | |
threatening behavior: [4][their next march] went past our building and they | |
planned their rally right outside. When we raised objections with the city, | |
officials said that there was no proof that the people who applied for the | |
demo permit were the ones who painted the swastika. | |
That is when the building got organized. When the neo-Nazis marched on the | |
intersection outside, it was to the sound of loud circus music; when they | |
tried to speak, they heard a playlist of antifascist rock bands. The Nazi | |
organization was only able to hold its rally after the police broke into | |
our basement and destroyed the fuses (despite our reports, the police never | |
prosecuted for the property damage). The Nazis’ revenge came swiftly. They | |
broke into the building one night and tried to assault a woman who lived on | |
the ground floor. She and a friend who was visiting braced themselves | |
against the door, saving themselves from bodily injury. | |
The police were unable to do anything for our safety, but the Leipzig | |
antifa scene was something else entirely: 300 people attended a | |
demonstration outside our building and shouted the old slogan “Alerta, | |
alerta, antifascista“ in the neighborhood. At night, men dressed in black | |
kept watch in the hall of our building with truncheons and I was able to | |
sleep. We heard rumors that the leaders of the Nazi organization had been | |
attacked and given a good thrashing, that their phones had been stolen and | |
analyzed. I do not know if that is true, but they never visited our | |
building again. | |
“No violence“ did not protect us. My neighbor on the ground floor was | |
traumatized and moved out. I got in touch with my martial arts teacher and | |
asked him to teach me full-contact street fighting techniques. Over the | |
months that followed, I allowed myself to be beaten up by martial artists: | |
once by a 6’5“, 265 lb. giant, another time by an advanced black belt in my | |
weight class. We wore hand protection, but otherwise nothing was off | |
limits. I had to survive for two minutes without leaving a yellow square on | |
the mat. I never made it past thirty seconds. | |
## First Priority: Safety! | |
My teacher summarized the lessons this way: when Nazis attack you, run | |
away. When you are cornered, run away. If you have to fight, run away at | |
the first opportunity. If none of that works, finish with your attacker | |
within thirty seconds. A neighbor who focused on nonviolent conflict | |
resolution agreed with him, saying, “The first priority is always to leave | |
an unclear situation and get out of harm’s way.“ | |
I bought pepper spray. “Trouble with right-wingers?“ the clerk asked. “Not | |
yet,“ I answered. It was only years later that I realized I had been living | |
in a state of exception for a long time. | |
The state, which watches out for its monopoly on violence, could not | |
prevent or punish the violence against us. It abandoned my neighbor and me. | |
“No violence“ did not mean that we did not experience any violence. It only | |
meant that we were responsible for our own protection. The state only acted | |
after violence was done to us. | |
But even when the state acts, there are the countless examples of the far | |
right [5][infiltrating the authorities], of the [6][police being blind to | |
right wing terror], or of the judiciary [7][delaying trials] and | |
[8][downplaying right wing violence]. | |
What helped in Leipzig back then was violence: first, the threat of | |
violence by antifascists who, from then on, came to eastern Leipzig more | |
often and opened a collective store and, secondly, the actual violence that | |
they exercised against organized right wing extremists. I took care of the | |
remaining risk by intensively training for violent situations. | |
I and, presumably, the antifascists would have preferred it, if they did | |
not have to use force and if the state, which has at least rhetorically | |
dissociated itself from fascism since its inception, had found the means to | |
break up neo-Nazi structures itself. Would Marcus E. have listened to | |
someone yelling “no violence“ at the central Leipzig train station that | |
day? Unlikely. He was already too far gone for that; the monopoly on | |
violence and the justice system did not render him harmless. | |
What would have happened if an antifa hooligans had paid him a visit every | |
day after he was released from prison? Would Kamal K. still be alive? Would | |
it have been worthwhile to exchange his life for Marcus E.’s physical | |
safety? And can emergency aid be preemptive? | |
## A Party that Ideologically Justifies Violence | |
AfD politician Frank Magnitz has posted [9][several images that endorse | |
violence] on Facebook. One of them depicts German Chancellor Angela Merkel | |
with a black eye. Another shows a shapeless, flesh-colored mass on the | |
ground: Magnitz’s caption reads, “Did Merkel fall down?“ Both images have… | |
certain poetry. Last week, Magnitz similarly lay on the ground [10][after | |
being attacked]. He had a similar black eye, which spread throughout the | |
media. | |
Even if Magnitz is not physically violent himself, as a member of a party | |
that endorses political violence and ideologically justifies it, he | |
contributes to the fact that Germany has become a more dangerous place for | |
many people over the past several years. | |
Just as I slept soundly because an antifascist was willing to stand guard | |
and use violence, Magnitz and his fellow party members also have their | |
proxies, like Marcus E., who are willing to transform threats of violence | |
into action. And they are willing to accept the state’s penalties for that | |
violence. “No violence“ is not a slogan that they will listen to. | |
(Translation by Joe Keady. The [11][original German story] is here.) | |
18 Jan 2019 | |
## LINKS | |
[1] http://www.lvz.de/Leipzig/Lokales/BGH-entscheidet-Urteil-wegen-Mordes-an-Ir… | |
[2] https://www.chronikle.org/dossier/neonazis-leipzig-freien-kraefte-0 | |
[3] https://www.chronikle.org/ereignis/nazis-greifen-wohnhaus-reudnitz | |
[4] https://www.chronikle.org/ereignis/nazidemo-reudnitz | |
[5] /taz-Recherche-auf-Englisch/!5558072 | |
[6] /Neonazi-Terrorzelle-NSU/!5097335 | |
[7] /Frueherer-NPD-Mann-erneut-vor-Gericht/!5564401 | |
[8] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/rechtsextremismus-sachsen-anhalt-prozes… | |
[9] https://twitter.com/PatrickGensing/status/1082952006543831040 | |
[10] /Neues-zum-Ueberfall-auf-AfD-Politiker/!5561196 | |
[11] /Rechte-Gewalt-Notwehr-und-Nothilfe/!5563181 | |
## AUTOREN | |
Lalon Sander | |
## TAGS | |
taz in English | |
taz international | |
Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) | |
Frank Magnitz | |
Rechtsextremismus | |
NPD | |
Antifaschismus | |
Lesestück Meinung und Analyse | |
## ARTIKEL ZUM THEMA | |
Rechte Gewalt, Notwehr und Nothilfe: Danke, Antifa | |
Wer im Kampf gegen Rechts die Parole „Keine Gewalt“ zitiert, lässt | |
Neonazi-Opfer im Stich. Die Gewalt, die sie erfahren, wird so nicht | |
verhindert. |