German political kindergarten: you are the hater, no - you are

My apologies to the precocious kindergarteners who may happen to read this: I know, almost all of you guys have a lot more common sense than adults, especially adults who make money by leading something big, a country, for example.

This supposed conversation between an adult and a kindergarten age child made the rounds on the tiny slivers of the internet we access:

Are there any foreigners in your group?

No, only children.

Mind you, this may or may not have occurred, fact checking on Twitter can be difficult. But it could very well have.

Anyhow, with the increasing number of arson attacks on refugee shelters and residences in Germany, and especially after the scenes of right wing extremists attacking police in a small town of what used to be East Germany, the media have been buzzing with attributions and allegations.

If there is a kindergarten in hell, these allegations, insults, and holier than thou clowns populate it - that's how the blogster imagines it.

First, the German vice chancellor - the one guy in their federal government who actually spoke up as events unfolded - called the demonstrators riffraff (Pack in German).  Which is understandable as an emotional response but not that great. We'll have a word on that later.

Next, pundits and politicians began a mud sling fest of "soul searching" and accusations.
How could that happen, who are these haters, are East Germans more xenophobic than West Germans? Numbers were dug up, accusations sharpened. Yes, by most statistics, the "new" states - that's the term used 25 years after East Germany ceased to exist -  have seen more violence against refugees.
Wasn't that extreme right murder gang National Socialist Underground also based in the East, smirk some. Well, the domestic intelligence service the police didn't perform a stellar job finding those guys.
The state governors of the new states protest, saying our citizens are no worse than others, don't accuse us, you have xenophobes in the West, too.

Fanning the flames, one Western state interior secretary says, well, yes, people in East Germany simply didn't have the multi cultural encounters we in the West had. Then, smugly, he adds that we have many second and third generation immigrants in the West.

And not a single word of discrimination, hate, and violence towards foreigners in the West between ca. 1960 and 1990.

One problem is that the long tradition of German officials and extremism: always mention right and left together has come home to roost.

Another, likely more critical is that the German social safety net has been cut, leaving many behind. The promises to the citizens of the East have materialized only for some, and the creativity of both business and government in finding "savings" has been amazing.
Read our previous post on how retirement entitlements for former East German refugees have been slashed to get an understanding of the lengths to which both social democrat ("labour") and conservative governments went.

This is not to say that right wing or xenophobic Germans are all poor, uneducated losers - far from it.

The clincher is that there are plenty of educated right wingers, but they are smart enough to not hurl stones and fireworks at cops.
No, they talk "the people", "the state". "the national interest" and have no issue with papers like the big tabloid BILD running xenphobic headlines for decades when they are not busy mocking the German poor.

[From left to right, top]
Germany's bravest DA: The truth about criminal foreigners
The bitter truth about foreigners and social benefits
[From left to right, bottom]
The 6 truths about the Roma
7 truths about refugees - jobs - crime - money

Once the official government policy became "let's help and make sure the neo-Nazis are kept at bay", BILD stuck a "We help - #refugeeeswelcome" sticker on its daily front page.

Some Christian conservatives continue to be as xenophobic as they were before, but they redirect their energy towards "ensuring that those in real need get assistance", which means "economic refugees" need to go.

[Update 10/23/2015]
After the one year anniversary of the PEGIDA movement and a knife attack by a confirmed right wing extremist, Bild Zeitung came up with a new project: outing "hate speech" folks on social media, printing their unpixelated image (unusual in Germany) and even paying them a home visit.