this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2024

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Calls grow in Germany to ban far-right AfD (www.dw.com)

submitted 2 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

115 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] Roflmasterbigpimp@lemmy.world 154 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (13 children)

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 22 points 2 years 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 9 points 2 years 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.

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[–] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 113 points 2 years ago (4 children)

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.

[–] Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org 51 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org 14 points 2 years ago (9 children)

Some of us are convinced this measure does nothing

Nothing? How can it do nothing? You could argue that it doesn't do enough or not the right things, but if nothing else banning the party would obviously keep them out of the government at least for the next few years.

[–] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I dont know, you'd have to ask someone who believes that.

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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 years ago (3 children)

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.

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[+] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 39 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (11 children)

[deleted]

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 84 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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 29 points 2 years ago

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

[–] Hubi@feddit.org 63 points 2 years ago (3 children)

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.

[+] FMT99@lemmy.world 23 points 2 years ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

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[–] Mora@pawb.social 25 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I agree, that this move is mostly about getting some time and deeper issues still need to be addressed. However, by law, if the party is banned so are followup parties.

What the left in Europe (well in my country at least) still doesn't understand is that they're not going to fix this by lecturing the populist voters about how all their thoughts and ideas are wrong.

I do not agree with this sentiment though. Because for a big part their thoughts and ideas are just wrong (e.g. scientific denial (like climate or vaccinations) or hate against certain groups). We cannot say 'well they have a point' when they simply don't have shit.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I agree with you that there's no need to pretend fascists have a valid point. But those who would reason with them fail to understand that fascists are beyond caring whether they have a valid point or not. They are simply determined to have things their way. While we try to educate fascists about where they're mistaken, they will smirk and load their guns. To them it's funny that others are so stuck on argument when you can just use violence to get what you want. They see this attachment to argument as weakness and stupidity, and they know what to do with the weak and stupid.

That said, whether banning the party would help depends on how committed their voters are to the fascist cause, and I'm not familiar with the scene in Germany. Maybe if there are many who are just disgruntled but not particularly committed, putting obstacles in the party's way could buy time to turn them away. But people get sucked in quickly because fascist groups know how to make people feel they belong, pander to their egos, and rapidly program their prejudices while persuading them everyone else is lying. It has cultish aspects, so there has to be a plan for how to deprogram people from a cult.

[–] Saleh@feddit.org 20 points 2 years ago

As long as it is a political party it is entitled to double digit millions every year in state party financing.

If it is forbidden, it cannot be refounded with the same people and ideology and their wealth is seized.

It ia not comparable to "terrorist" organizations, that dont need to abide by some rules of the dominant order in order to be active.

The democratic system should not actively finance and aid those who want to destroy it.

Finally the ideology is legitimised every time it can be voted for legally, as it shows the ideology to be considered part of the acceptable political plurality

[–] Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Killing the head of a terrorist organization won’t help if you don’t fix the underlying issues.

And yet we don't allow terrorist organizations to campaign for office, officially and supported by tax money, in our societies.

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[–] quink@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Banning the party isn’t going to help.

Yes it will. It'll mean it won't be standing in elections, and that's only fair because it's an anti-democratic party... and it will deprive its members of broad protections afforded to parties and remove a unifying banner for them.

Banning anti-democratic institutions in a democracy is not only justified, it is conducive to the democracy's survival. It lifts the bar for getting rid of democracy to be equivalent to not winning in an election but by establishing a second monopoly on violence, a far greater threshold and attempts at which are more straightforward to deter, prosecute and stamp out than being within every TikTok user's first few swipes.

There's nothing that prevents AfD voters from going to other parties, there's plenty, or to voice their concerns in a new party that can be a legitimate part of the democratic system. Changing parties isn't like banning a religion or a creed or a race, a party is hardly more than just a banner, the power of which can change between and during elections, at any time, through a simple act of the mind. Banning the party will absolutely help.

It sends a good message. It doesn't send a message of wanting the silence the concerns of those who voted for the AfD in anything but the short term, it sends the message of 'we hear you, but try again... a bit less fascist-y please'.

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[–] cmhe@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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.

[–] manucode@infosec.pub 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

There will always be a subsection og the population that adheres to fascist ideas. For a liberal democracy to function, these ideas have to be ostracized to make sure that no fascist party can establish itself in a major way. Some far-right voters will vote for minor far-right parties, some will vote for more moderate conservative parties and some won't vote at all. The key is to keep them from uniting while appearing moderate enough to win over some more moderate voters.

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[–] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 35 points 2 years 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 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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 years ago (1 children)

Zero? Yep, that seems like the right size.

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[–] lemonmelon@lemmy.world 27 points 2 years ago (7 children)

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!

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[–] pyre@lemmy.world 17 points 2 years ago

~~Never~~ again

[–] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Isn't there a lot of dirt on them? Starting with pushing for more strict laws against foreign influence and funding, covert fascism, and then dragging them (and anybody else akin to them) through courts until they are non-existent is how it should have been done a long time ago imho. Just a cold, inorganic machine of beaurocracy grinding them into a ground meat without any possible objection due to biases.

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[–] windowsphoneguy@feddit.org 8 points 2 years ago

Good.

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