Politics in Europe > Germany - On the path to self-destruction - Amar

 

Another column by the brilliant Tarik Cyril Amar. Amar has only one obvious flaw and that is antisemitism. If you can ignore that, should I fail to edit it out, you will certainly learn something.

Something needs to be done to save Germany.

€1 trillion of debt is not it

Berlin’s Russia war hysteria is taking it down a clearly signposted path of self-destruction

By Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory

FILE PHOTO: Friedrich Merz. ©  Maja Hitij / Getty Images

Germans are famously – infamously, really – fiscally conservative. Believe me, I know: I am German and have witnessed for decades, indeed all my conscious life, how my compatriots have fretted obsessively over public debt.

They often conflate the rules that may work for individual, personal frugality with what is needed by a modern state and its economy. Indeed, they have crystallized their misguided ideal of how to manage public finance with a tight fist and little foresight in the odd avatar of ‘the Swabian Housewife’ (Swabians are stereotypically thrifty and prudent; sort of the Scots of the German sense of self).

And whenever the national adoration of the Swabian Housewife was not enough, plaintive sobs of ‘Weimar, Weimar’ were added. You see, Germany’s first failed experiment at (more or less) democracy, the Weimar Republic of the interwar years, is said to have died, among other things, of inflation.

Hyperinflation, so this shaky but (formerly) extremely powerful tale of a “unique inflation trauma” goes, undermined that state’s legitimacy from the very beginning, so that it could never grow strong enough to later withstand the pressure of the Great Depression and the Nazis.

Curiously enough, in this sorely mistaken version of recent German history, austerity was enshrined as the magic charm that will keep inflation away and therefore also other undesirable things such as Leni Riefenstahl movies, fascism, and starting and losing yet another world war while committing genocide.

In reality, it was, of course, precisely the austerity policy of the last Weimar governments, enacted about as undemocratically as is fashionable again now (see below), that really made the effects of the Great Depression even worse and helped open a path to power for the Nazis.

Read more

 Dark night for Germany: Elections will change little, and nothing for the better

But this time, everything is different. In a truly unprecedented move – instantly recognized as historic, for better or, much more likely, worse – Germany’s elites, in politics, the media, and academia, have closed ranks Nuremberg-party-rally-style to make Germany splurge again. The upshot is a fundamental policy change, complete with fixing the constitution, another thing Germans usually are obstinately conservative about. And all that to go into massive, quite possibly crippling debt for, in essence, war with Russia.

For, in sum, there are three ways in which Germany wants to go on a big binge: The so-called debt brake – an anachronistic and economically primitive limit on public debt – will be removed for anything having to do with ‘defense’, that is, in reality a massive rearmament program, including civil defense and the intelligence services, as well as for military assistance to Ukraine.

Second, the German government will also incur debt to the tune of another €500 billion to be spent over 12 years. This money is supposed to be invested in climate action (a sob to Germany’s militaristic, far-right Greens) and infrastructure.

Infrastructure, here, has much to do with military purposes as well. No secret has been made out of the fact that often decrepit German railways, roads, and bridges, for instance, are to be renovated not merely for civilian and commercial purposes. Instead, as before in German history, trains and autobahn highways, for instance, are being highlighted as key parts of military logistics.

And as before as well, the big propaganda story is that they are needed for sending military forces into a fight against Russia. Only that this time, Germany is presented as a hub for all of NATO. Whatever ‘all of NATO’ may mean in the future.

Third – and usually overlooked – as Germany is a federation, its individual land states are also being empowered to assume additional debt. The way all of this is supposed to work together over the next decade or so, is complex. For instance, there are complicated and probably impractical rules designed to avoid labeling ordinary budget expenses and debt-making as part of this program. Yet the upshot is quite simple: The German government has created a tool to add a total of about a trillion euros or even more of debt.

It is true that to some extent, all of the above is simply a local variant of a general EU-plus-UK frenzy: With Brussels, London, and Paris as agitators-in-chief, the whole shabby, stagnating bloc is dreaming big about going into massive debt, perhaps even, in essence, confiscating private savings, to confront Russia with or without the US. That is just another application of the key current governing principle of Western elites: Rule by permanent emergency. And if there is no real emergency around, they just make one up.

I have skipped a large section of this somewhat lengthy article. You can continue reading that section here, or finish up with the last few paragraphs below...

This means Germany’s next chancellor deliberately went against the already clearly declared will of the voters, and he did so by using a transparent dirty trick. All the parties helping him do so, including the Greens and his likely future coalition partners from the Social Democrats, have sullied themselves.

Democracy does not ‘die in darkness,’ it is dying in the EU right now

And all that while Merz has shown his contempt for law and decency by inviting the internationally wanted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to Germany, (See what I mean about being antisemitic?) and Sarah Wagenknecht’s BSW has been kept out of parliament by obvious election manipulation and extremely likely falsification. No wonder many Germans have lost belief in the traditional parties. If there is one force standing to profit from all of the above it is, of course, the AfD, Germany’s strongest opposition party now. German Centrists: Don’t cry on our shoulders and don’t whine about ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ when your silly firewall against the AfD crumbles. You only have yourselves to blame.

Is there any hope left? Yes, maybe. Because although this is a terrible beginning, the policy just started is also meant to be carried out over a decade and more. Much may happen in that time. For instance, German corporations might finally – if quietly – rebel against being crippled by a self-defeating sanctions war against Russia, especially when their US competitors will be back in the Russia business, as they are clearly itching to. The Ukraine conflict may end in such a manner that Germany’s Zelensky stans simply won’t have anyone left to send the money to. Last but not least, even currently hyperventilating Germans may perhaps notice when Russia does not, actually, attack.

Yet, for now, Germany is continuing on its path of severe and self-evident national self-harm. And unfortunately, history teaches that Germans can stay such a course through to a very bitter end. There are no guarantees that things will be better this time.

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The ‘Islamophobia’ Problem - A Rather Clever Opinion Piece

Douglas Murray
The Spectator

British MP Sayeeda Warsi

This is a good time to bury bad news. And sure enough it turns out that a cross-party group of MPs and peers that includes the failed MP Baroness Warsi has chosen this moment to try to persuade the government to adopt their own definition of ‘Islamophobia’.

Long-time readers will know that I have no sympathy for this term. The most succinct summary of the problem is often erroneously attributed to the late Christopher Hitchens. It is that, Islamophobia is ‘a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.’

That ‘Islamophobia’ was created by fascists is provable: the term was conjured up and pumped into the international debate around politics and religion decades ago by the Muslim Brotherhood. The claim that it is used by cowards slightly lets others of its users off the hook. For it is not only used by cowards. It is also used by sinister and sectarian figures who wish to protect their own religious patch from any and all discussion or scrutiny. That it intimidates cowards is evident from every day’s news.

But now, at a crucial juncture in this nation’s history, this group of MPs and Peers are attempting to push through an agenda of their own. As Tim Shipman described it in the Sunday Times the group is proposing a set of ‘tests’ of what is ‘Islamophobic’. Let us take them in turn:

– ‘Does it stereotype Muslims by assuming that they all think the same?

Well let us see. Would it be Islamophobic to say ‘All Muslims believe that the Quran is the revealed word of God, that Mohammed was the messenger of Allah and that this revelation has been revealed for all time as the unalterable, final revelation from God?’ It would appear so. And yet it would also be true. There are certain things which all Muslims do agree on. There are many other generalisations that one could make that are more critical. Yet to say so would be ‘Islamophobic’.

– ‘Does the criticism consist of generalising about Muslims in a way that excludes them?’

An interesting one. Let’s try a couple out. How about ‘All Muslim majority countries are either dictatorships, despotisms or countries where the army remains on standby at any moment to wrestle back control from religious zealots’? Or how about ‘Muslims tend to be bad at understanding and advocating minority rights unless they happen to be in a minority themselves’? Both of these statements are at least highly defensible. I would suggest they are also true. Yet they undoubtedly ‘generalise’ in certain ways, and if just one Muslim said that they felt ‘excluded’ by people failing to talk up the pluralism and freedom in the Islamic world we would have to agree that both statements are indeed ‘Islamophobic’.

– ‘Is the behaviour or practice being criticised in an offensive way so it makes Muslims rather than the issue the target?’

Well it rather hinges on two things, doesn’t it? One is the question of ‘what is offensive’. Who is to judge? Who is to say? Is a cross-party coalition of low-grade MPs and Peers to make this judgement? Who would like Sayeeda Warsi to make this call? Or Labour’s Wes Streeting, who is also supporting this sinister move? Does anyone feel that either individual’s intellect, knowledge and skill at impartially weighing up matters makes them fit for the task of deciding what the rest of us can think, write or say? Then there is the question of determining whether ‘Muslims rather than the issue are the target?’ Again, are the brains behind all this sufficiently huge to make this judgement call? If one draws attention to certain aspects of the private life of the man who invented Islam is one aiming the point at Muslims or the issue of, say, historical attitudes towards child abuse? Who is to say? I can guess at least some of the applicants for the role.

– ‘Does the person criticising really care about the issue or is he or she using it to attack Muslims?’

There is nothing sweeter than the sound of totalitarian ideology presented in the lingua franca of social justice. Do you ‘really care about the issue’? Who the hell is to say? And why should it matter? Let us say that I object to Islamic anti-Semitism. Let us say that I cite the considerable stream of examples (both current and historical) which I could bring to my aid to explain there is a problem here.  Do I care? Or do I not? And who should decide?

Sayeeda Warsi says that some people use criticism of Islam’s approach to gays and women as a clever cover – a sort of ploy – for attacking Islam. ‘I’ve never known homophobes care so much about gay people and misogynists express such support for women as when they are criticising Muslims’ she is quoted as saying.

And that is interesting isn’t it? Firstly because there is again the question of ‘who is to judge’. If these criticisms are indeed legitimate – and even Baroness Warsi in her more liberal moments might agree that they’re not conjured up wholly out of air – who decides which person is allowed to say a truth and which person is not?  Are gays allowed to criticise Islamic homophobia? If so am I – as a fully signed up, equity card-carrying gay – allowed to go to town on Islam whenever I like? My own experience and observation has often suggested not. So who can? Is a gay who raises a really very mild objection, filled with caveats and ‘in a very real sense-isms’ allowed to dip their gay toe in this Muslim water? I suppose we shall see.

But really it is – as so often – not a matter of absolutes. After all, one reason why people who might not be big on gay marriage, or don’t swallow every claim made about the ‘gender pay-gap’ might be voluble about Islamic homophobia and Islam’s attitudes towards women is that there is a question of degree. It includes the difference between whether you’re allowed to marry somebody of the same gender or whether you should have a wall pushed on you. And it is a matter not of whether, if you add up pay differentials taking pregnancy and other life-factors into account, women are still under-renumerated (remunerated?) in certain sectors or whether all women are now and for all time (and should be) second class citizens. There is a difference is there not? A difference about the size of an ocean where plenty of people might peaceably swim.

Apparently the Home Secretary is being pressured – for reasons of optics – into signing up to this sinister and sectarian agenda. The rest of the government could be forgiven for having much else on its mind. I hope all relevant members of the government realise in their spare moments that this matters very much indeed. Future freedoms – including freedom of religion and freedom of speech in this country – will depend very much on this ugly agenda not being deployed.