I love my right to free speech as much as the next blogger and being a journalist, I happen to be a big fan of the US Bill of Rights. The problem is, those rights are extended to ignorant and bigoted fools as well. The right to bear arms is a prime example of an American freedom gone awry, with every wacko and potential psychopath having only to walk to Walmart to exercise that right. But I won’t go into the number of Americans who die from guns now. That’s another post.
What I’ve been considering lately, as have German politicians, is how to deal with the freedom of speech, expression and peaceable assembly, when some citizens happen to be bald-headed, combat-boot wearing thugs who have a strong dislike of Jews and immigrants. The German constitution protects their rights too, although it’s illegal to present or wear a Swastika in public and the old Nazi salute was banned after the war.
But even without wearing Swastikas or rigidly extending their arms, their beliefs are obvious. It’s not illegal to hate someone for being non-German or Jewish, as long as it doesn’t result in violence. But often it does. In some parts of Germany, some degree of neo-Nazi violence (from vandalizing Jewish cemeteries to physically attacking foreigners of color) is an almost daily occurrence.
The violent neoNazis are easy to arrest, throw in jail and make a news story out of, until the shock dies down and the incident goes into the archives. Harder still are the far right political parties in Germany that have actual representation in state parliaments, and are getting more popular!
As unemployment rises, factories close and the welfare state becomes less generous, far right parties like the NPD garner more votes from people who aren’t necessarily mentally challenged bigots but Germans simply afraid their jobs will be taken by a foreigner (sound familiar America?)
Last Saturday, a neoNazi knocked on the door of a Bavarian police chief, stabbed him in the stomach and passed on “greetings from the national resistance movement.” Since then, the fundamental problem of neoNazis has come back to the limelight. Now, it’s getting scary. They’re not only going after immigrants, they’re attacking prominent Germans.
The incident has got politicians and pundits worked up in a frenzy. Some German politicians call for banning far right political parties, but they can’t always prove ties to neoNazi thugs. And, well, there is that whole freedom of expression thing.
As despicable as neoNazis are (and we have plenty in America, too. And lots of other nuts like that church that holds up “We hate fags” signs up at funerals of US soldiers who fell in Iraq), we can’t infringe on their right without infringing on everyone else’s. We learned this all too well in the aftermath of legislation like The Patriot Act and similar laws passed in the EU.
It is quite a quandary, because to ban them is undemocratic but to let them grow and thrive is dangerous. What do you think?
This post is from my blog: http://currentsbetweenshores.blogspot.com
The Freedom to Hate
Posted in The WIP Talk, Uncategorized
I think those guys should be let alone, as long as they only talk hate and walk around in their boots and with a little more hair than brain. It is dangerous but democracy is inherently dangerous, isn’t it? I don’t see how authorities could intervene before these guys have taken knives or guns to actually attack somebody. We in Sofia, Bulgaria have a somewhat similar situation. A permit has just been given to build a second mosque in the city. Many resident are now signing petitions against the construction, saying that they don’t want here to happen what has already happened in Britain, Spain, Denmark, France and the Netherlands. But I don’t see how people can be refused the right to pray. In summary, you are not allowed to take any action against a small fire, you have to wait until it becomes big and only then extinguish it.
Maya, I agree with you that democracy is sometimes “dangerous” in the sense that fairness and good judgement can’t always be expected from everyone. Just as democracy (I read your comment for the Shoe-In democracy post) can’t be forced on a country that has no experience with a democratic form of government.
However, I do think we have to strive for a certain democratic standard, globally. That does not mean illegally invading countries or taking out despots and realizing that a country’s situation was more stable with him than without.
For starters, why don’t most countries adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? That would be a feat!
I have lived under a despot, and I can testify first-hand that it is a difficult work to take out a despot from within. Besides, most despots make countries stable. I don’t think we should opt for despotism for that reason.