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Today, the self-professed neo-Nazi who shot German politician Walter Lübcke in the head received a life sentence. The original assassination happened shortly before I started my fieldwork in Berlin, so I want to reflect on what we’ve learned from it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/28/german-neo-nazi-jailed-for-murder-of-pro-immigration-politician-walter-lubcke 1/
I’m struck most today that Germany’s lived through what almost happened in the US on Jan. 6: white supremacists killing an elected official(s). Thus, the German response is instructive. In talking to national security staffers, I heard two reactions at the time: 2/
The first was that Germany had a poor track record of dealing with white supremacist violence, but Lübcke's assassination would be a "breaking point" bc he was a public figure, not a less-well-known migrant or Jewish person (the most frequent targets of such violence). 3/
The second was that nothing would change. "Discourse tends to snap back," I heard. And the focus on discourse is telling: people were not expecting policy responses, or if they were, they didn't think they'd do much to prevent future violence. 4/
As one person put it, describing previous responses to white supremacist attacks, "The impact is mostly just more personnel." The implication: assigning more analysts won't address fundamental problems with white supremacy in German society. 5/
What actually happened? Discourse snapped back. (Also, the summer legislative recess took place.) Then, that October, a white supremacist killed two people in an attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany. I wrote about that here: https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2019/10/18/identity-law-and-how-political-elites-define-terrorism/ 6/
Here is an English-language list of propositions the German gov’t considered in 2019 following these 2 attacks. If some of these things, like monitoring internet chatter, seem obvious…yes. https://www.dw.com/en/german-authorities-to-expand-crackdown-on-right-wing-extremists/a-50833344 7/
Also in 2019, federal security services hired more analysts to work on right-wing extremism. The stories you've heard about extremism in the German military and law enforcement over the past year have largely come out of that work. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/german-study-finds-suspected-cases-of-far-right-extremism-in-police-forces/2020/10/06/4ae824f2-0794-11eb-8719-0df159d14794_story.html 8/
My takeaways:
-Attacks on "regular people" don’t often push governments to action, sadly, bc these attacks don't threaten their power.
-Initial actions usually deal w/ data collection, which is important but also so basic it's maddening agencies weren't doing it before. 9/
-Attacks on "regular people" don’t often push governments to action, sadly, bc these attacks don't threaten their power.
-Initial actions usually deal w/ data collection, which is important but also so basic it's maddening agencies weren't doing it before. 9/
-Responses to white supremacist violence overwhelmingly do not address white supremacy *as a system*. The focus remains on monitoring & catching individual white supremacists rather than reforming institutions that enable white supremacy to flourish in the first place. 10/
-Self-awareness is important but not enough. Knowing there's a problem isn't useful unless you can also imagine solutions and are willing to make hard changes. 11/
Last thing: The assassin, Stephan Ernst, had been acquitted in 2016 of the attempted murder of an Iraqi refugee. Years prior, he’d stabbed a Turkish imam.
Sometimes fighting white supremacy is hard. And sometimes, well, it shouldn't be. /fin
Sometimes fighting white supremacy is hard. And sometimes, well, it shouldn't be. /fin
P.S. Lübcke was a conservative politician (by German standards). Speaking out in support of refugees was enough to make him a target.
Now think about left-wing politicians of color and how ludicrous it is to ask them to move on 3 weeks after Jan. 6.
Now think about left-wing politicians of color and how ludicrous it is to ask them to move on 3 weeks after Jan. 6.
