624
submitted 4 days ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has gained ground in three recent state elections, caused an uproar in the Thuringian parliament and triggering another debate on whether to ban the party outright.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Roflmasterbigpimp@lemmy.world 156 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

FINALLY. And to everyone who is like "tHiS wiLl MaKe ThInGs WorSe!!11" or "bAnNiNg ThE pArTy WoN't hElP". SHUT THE FUCK UP.

These are LITERALLY Nazis. Even more than the US Trump-Rep's.

And since Russia is not willing to throw 25 Million People on them again and is much more keen to join them, since they are heavily involved with the AFD:

-https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/putin-afd-zusammenarbeit-100.html

-https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/petr-bystron-afd-russland-100.html

-https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2024/kw15-de-aktuelle-stunde-russland-afd-997398

-https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2024-04/afd-russische-regierung-strategiepapier

I'm not willing to take any chance on that. We have Laws for EXACTLY this scenario, time for our government to grow a spine and starts protecting democracy!

We did it once, we can do it again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Reich_Party

[-] lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 2 days ago

If discourse and argument fail to quell the intolerant, a tolerant society must be willing to use censorship and even violence to defend itself. If we let them trample all over our values, tolerating them for the sake of being the "better person", we'll be the better corpse sooner rather than later and history will remember us "Look how nobly they did nothing!"

If our history is ever written, that is.

[-] JigglySackles@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

I think their party should be banned and all funds currently donated and accounts related should be redirected to counter facism efforts and education.

load more comments (11 replies)
[-] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 118 points 3 days ago

If simply banning nazis from holding political power is enough for some of you to question, then you're really not going to be ready for what you need to do to them once they get political power. Ban them now because y'all are far too soft to do what needs to be done if you don't.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Ban them now

They won't, in no small part because the AfD has enough seats to block the attempt. Also, doesn't help that lots of the enforcement wing of the German government (particularly in the national security services) are AfD or AfD sympathetic.

We're well past the point at which Germans can do to the fascists what they did to the communists back in the 1990s - ban the party outright and seize their assets. Now they've actually got to make this a political fight, rather than a legalistic one, because they turned their backs on the AfD for far too long.

[-] Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org 14 points 2 days ago

They won't, in no small part because the AfD has enough seats to block the attempt.

They cannot block a decision of the federal constitutional court, don't be ridiculous. Germany has measures in place exactly for this scenario, and they are about to be enforced. They cannot be vetoed away, it's a legal matter.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org 50 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Don't know what's there to be so smug about. "Oh you would rather ban them in a constitutional process than to wait for them to seize power and fight a bloody civil war, or worse?" Yes please! I hope we all much prefer the first option.

I hope we all much prefer the first option.

Some of us are convinced this measure does nothing, and are unwilling to fight. It seems they only seem to oppose fascism when it can be done by magic.

[-] DonPiano@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago

Those of us are wrong, then. Fascism isn't some inherently abstract force of nature, it's people and organizations of people. Those social structures can be disrupted, and the major question whose answer determines the means of disruption is whether the earlier responses were appropriately timed and powered.

I prefer the situation where fascist-attitude people are individuals who need treatment rather than one where fascism is not just an attitude of individuals but a structural problem requiring e.g. law enforcement involvement or even a full-societal issue requiring outside military involvement.

load more comments (10 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[-] daltotron@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 days ago

I mean I do think banning them is a good idea, and in general I think nazis should be taken on helicopter rides, most especially the enablers of nazis, their financial leash handlers which basically bootstrap them into these positions in order to push the dialogue further rightward in service of corporate interests, and probably also in this case in service of "geopolitical security" since we're going to be seeing oncoming climate refugees in the coming years, and combatting that in any way but increasing the security apparatus is off the table.

More than that, though, I worry that realistically just banning them, though a great temporary measure, won't do much, say, five years or a decade down the road, because it's not gonna solve the core hypocrisies and discrepancies that neoliberalism is not so keen to solve. If you want to actually solve this problem long term then you need to combat those core problems. Instead, though, I think that probably the party being banned will just see them either form a new party, or else tone down their rhetoric to an acceptable degree, or just join the next furthest right party and then decide to push them further right, and so on and so on, until we've all collectively just shifted rightward to an incredible degree.

Ad nauseam, et cetera, regardless of the political apparatuses at work, until collectively the western world plummets towards fascism.

[-] FrowingFostek@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

So, for the sake of argument, if AfD is banned would they not just became a paramilitary group?

What's to stop them from devolving into something more 'nefarious' if they are stripped of political power?

[-] DonPiano@feddit.org 6 points 2 days ago

The ease with which they can build such structures would go down. Building while hiding is harder than building while not having to hide.

Having central coordination, for example in the form of a party or some other form of organization, means that strategic goals can be planned for and resources acquired and allocated in a more efficient manner. The previous bigger neonazi party, the NPD, fulfilled that role for quite a while.

Organizations and people are not that interchangeable for these purposes. Workflows, institutional memory, leadership all matter. That's why targeted assassinations of leadership even in cell-like structures can meaningfully disrupt e.g. terrorist organizations' effectiveness. Similar things can be accomplished by simply disrupting business-as-usual.

[-] JayObey711@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago

What stoped the kpd? Or the groups that wanted to rebuild the NSDAP? Would you rather have them pull the strings instead? I mean yea a ban could be dangerous, but letting them take over the justice system, the finances and police of Germany seems like a horrible second option.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Jumi@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

I'm guessing they'd still be under observation after they get banned because of exactly that and I also think there's steep step between political engagement and serious criminal activity.

But that gets decided by a court and as a German I think the judiciary is the most trustworthy of the three powers. I think if it even comes to that they deal with the motion in a sensitive way.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] lemonmelon@lemmy.world 27 points 3 days ago

As an aside, I can't be the only one annoyed by the choice to expand "AfD" to "Alternative for Germany" instead of "Alternative for Deutschland" right? I really think the best solution to this is that we all agree that AfD should fuck off into oblivion. Sound good? Great!

load more comments (7 replies)
[-] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

We, Germans, cannot allow 30 Jan 1933 to 08 May 1945 to repeat itself. Also, the communists in "Die Linke" can go straight to hell with the neo-Nazis.

load more comments (6 replies)
[-] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 35 points 3 days ago

Far-right parties' main goal is excluding people from society so they should be fully okay when they're the ones being excluded.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 29 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Please. People say they're too big now, but there has to be a right size. In Canada, at least, hate groups are always too popular and established to challenge, or too small to bother with.

[-] naught101@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Zero? Yep, that seems like the right size.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 41 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Banning the party isn't going to help.

Like I say of Trump, the AfD isn't the problem, they're a symptom. Conservatism and conservatives themselves are the problem – the question is how should we deal with them, and I really don't know the answer to that.

Edit: just to clarify, I'm not saying the AfD shouldn't be banned, just that banning the party won't change the people who vote for it and run it.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 85 points 3 days ago

There won't be democracy in Germany if the AfD gets into power. You need to stop the wound from gushing before you can worry about setting the broken bone.

[-] Roflmasterbigpimp@lemmy.world 30 points 3 days ago

100% Correct. These are Nazis just like they are depicted in textbooks.

load more comments (9 replies)
[-] Hubi@feddit.org 65 points 3 days ago

There is a difference between conservatism and being a threat to the democratic order. Germany has conservative parties that are perfectly valid, it's just that the AfD is not one of them.

load more comments (7 replies)
[-] cmhe@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Banning AfD is the best short term solution, it needs to be followed by a stronger social focus of the government.

One reason for conservative and right-wing sentiment is fear of the future in the populace. Fear causes people to try to isolate themselves from "others" and wanting to horde and protect their stuff instead of supporting others.

If the government is able to alleviate those fears, they will not see a need for fear anymore. But that is a long process, which constantly gets sabotaged by commercial outrage media, foreign intervention, social media, conservative/right-wing politicians, etc.

load more comments (10 replies)
[-] pyre@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago

~~Never~~ again

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2024
624 points (98.6% liked)

World News

38744 readers
2347 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS